Well, it appears the numbers have come in, and it’s now official. 2007 marks the biggest summer box office results in the history of Hollywood. According to the Associated Press, the movie industry pulled in approximately $4.15 Billion at the box office this summer, easily surpassing the previous record of $3.95 Billion from the summer of 2004.
Ticket sales were also up this summer as 2007 made an improvement of 3% over the previous year. This really shouldn’t surprise anyone since it was probably the most impressive (well… at least until we actually SAW the movies) summer line up in memory. Between Shrek, Spider-Man and Pirates 3, Transformers, Potter, Bourne, Simpsons, Die Hard 4, Knocked Up, on and on and on… summer 2007 was blockbuster city.
Of corse is also is another reality check to those MPAA boobs who are constantly preaching apocalypse because “Piracy is killing the industry”. Really? Piracy is killing the industry… with record numbers and an increase i ticket sales… and piracy is killing the industry?
Back in 2005 when attendance was down by over 11%, people in Hollywood were scrambling looking for a scape goat for the industry’s woes. No one wanted to admit that Hollywood was just cranking out exceptionally horrible films… especially in 2005 (with about 10 or so notable exceptions). No no… they didn’t want to admit that maybe they themselves were the ones to blame for a drop in public interest. Piracy became the culprit. Well… the last I checked Piracy was still happening… as much as before… and yet Hollywood just once again broke box office records and is seeing higher attendance than ever before.
Piracy is a problem, no one is denying that at all and it should be stopped and those doing the pirating should be punished… but it’s not killing the industry as a whole or causing an industry wide apocalypse as the MPAA would like you and I to believe. If this is the result of Piracy killing the industry… then I hope piracy kills anything I ever touch… cause I sure could use $4 Billion dollars.
