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Hollywood Sets $10 Billion Box Office Record
kamikazearun sends in a TorrentFreak analysis that begins "Claims by the MPAA that illegal downloads are killing the industry and causing billions in losses are once again being shredded. In 2009, the leading Hollywood studios made more films and generated more revenue than ever before, and for the first time in history the domestic box office grosses will surpass $10 billion. ... [N]either the ever-increasing piracy rates nor the global recession could prevent Hollywood having its best year ever in 2009. With an estimated $10.6 billion in consumer spending at the US and Canadian box office, the movie industry will break the 2008 record by nearly a billion dollars."
There was an article a while back (no I can't find it with the 2 minutes of searching I did) where a magazine compared the ticket sales of economic recessions during the 90's and early 2000's. The summation of the article was that even with major blockbuster films, like Starwars ep 1, Hollywood made less money than the year before because times were good and people were doing things besides going to the movies, but in economic downturns they actually made more money. The theory was that audiences will attend movies to distract them from all the problems that they have instead of stewing in them.
I'll post it if I can find it but the laziness is running deep tonight.
Back in college I saw an ad before a movie where a stunt double, key grip and other low paid stagehands were filmed in front of their families, eating and doing things with them. Then they would look up and say something to effect of, "I can't feed my family. Because thieves steal my work online."
... because even though my employer posts record revenues, the justice system makes you are a perfectly legitimate scapegoat."
Someone should make an anti-anti-piracy ad with the same exact thing except when they look up they say, "I can't feed my family
Odds that the profits from this revenue make it back to the people who genuinely need it to keep the system healthy? Slim to none. Executive producer gets more executive while life risking stunt double gets poorer.
My work here is dung.
Inflation would need to be nearly 10% for Hollywood to not have higher inflation adjusted revenues this year than last year.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
To me, it is remarkable that for an industry that has been around for more than a century, is this large, and has become so integral to the lives of North Americans, that somehow, a growth rate of over 11% is achievable.
I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.
Bad movies & remakes hurt dvd sales & box office more than piracy.
As does hollywood accounting.
As does their constant desire to waste ridiculous amounts of money on SFX & overpriced actors.
The $10 billion number is gross revenue. It does not take into effect the costs of making more movies than ever before. Never mind that making more movies means spending more money and that movie budgets are also increasing.
-mkb
I think that a lot of this "piracy" business that the MPAA and RIAA is a load of crap. For example, one of the loudest voices against Napster (before the became "legit") was Metallica. In one of the tape inserts for one of their albums (I forget which one), they claim outright that they used to trade tapes back and forth and copy them all the time before they made it big. So, it is OK when they commited piracy, but it isn't now when they are a target of it? I'm glad their last album sucked....
People are still willing to pay to go to the movies for the superior screen/sound and crowd experience. Although the impact is far less than they claim, I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.
This is actually true. I saw NO MOVIES on the big screen this year due to my financial situation, but we did download a few, on NETFLIX. The same with TV Shows (Legend of the Seeker in HD). What hasnt hit NETFLIX we have DL in HD and used a streamer to go to the Xbox360 or PS3, and then if we felt it was worthy of buying we did so at AMAZON when on sale, or BESTBUY / Wal-Mart.
People are still willing to pay to go to the movies for the superior screen/sound and crowd experience. Although the impact is far less than they claim, I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.
Overall people don't mind going to movies. After all, if the film is good and the projectionist is good, then it is (or should be) a great experience. It's not the same thing as the recorded music business, which was never about providing the total experience like movies have been for ages. I suppose a better parallel to a movie is a music concert. Again, it's about the whole experience and people don't mind paying for that. (Well, most people anyway. Enough to make it potentially very profitable.)
The threat posed by the internet to movies is not really piracy. It's that it is a different, new thing for Joe Sixpack to spend his entertainment money on. Is that a problem yet for the movie industry? Probably not, but that's where the real issue is. Note that this is not a legal threat. It's a threat to the very basis of getting such a large proportion of the national entertainment spend. Hollywood have long tried to counter this with things like film tie-ins, special websites, etc, with varying success. Will that change? No idea.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Everyone -- yes, every goddamn one -- knows that the Hollywood/MPAA (and the RIAA music fight) boils down to one thing: money in the pockets of executives. That's it. It's only about technology insofar how that technology impacts the bottom-line. It's not about art. It's about making sure a select group of executives make sure they can keep the mortgage payments on their Bel-Air mansions and can keep memberships in their country clubs. That's it. That's where my, yours, and everyone else's dollars are going: to buy some titanium fucking Big Bertha golf club for the peabrained asshole who's been crowned king of the other peabrained assholes working beneath him.
Valenti wants to make sure the cash keeps flowing into his pocket and into the pocket of every other overpaid, dim-bulb, "I can green-light this" executive motherfucker working the valley.
You want goddamn immorality? It's the entertainment industry and the people that run it that are at the very foundations of the "immorality" of piracy. Forget Janet Jackson's nipple. Forget Powell's sudden decision to attempt to regulate *cable* television today (!). Forget the fact (and I'll digress here) that the fundamentalist assholes that have gone to see Mel Gibson's "Passion" claim that it's a fantastic movie yet in the same breath decry Janet Jackson's nipple, the state of marriage, and the violence in contemporary culture -- overlooking perhaps that the Passion is more "violent" than any number of Grand Theft Auto games strung together and more "explicit" than any svelt little nipple hiding behind a sun-shaped nipple medallion. The hypocrisy of Valenti and his immoral executive motherfuckers is astounding. It boggles the mind.
Higher compared to what? Are your statistics corrected for inflation?
Of course Slashdot is going to spin everything its own way; what else would you expect? I don't really know enough about the numbers, but there is a saying around here that correlation != causation; I would caution that just because Hollywood is setting box office records doesn't mean piracy doesn't hurt them. Obviously it doesn't to the extent they would like you to believe, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if piracy were not an option; would more people buy more copies, or would they just make do without? I honestly don't know the answer.
And it shall remain insignificant as long as the common person cannot see a theatre-screen-sized, hd quality rip of movies. What I love is that noone ever blames their lack of profit in either recording industry on the possibility that their product just wasn't worth buying....
For bonus points, you got with a girl you just met and at some point*, the people on the screen get naked and have sex... that always felt a bit weird.
* have you noticed that most movies have sex at 40 minutes in? The exception is if sex is a big focus in the movie so it opens with it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"We couldn't have made 10 Billion if it weren't for all of those music pirates!"
Fixed that for you.
And I mean it. Movies have the benefit of being social occasions, where groups of kids go to see a movie and share their thoughts after etc. It's a fraction the cost of a concert by the pop musicians they download, and recorded music doesn't stand a chance for their entertainment dollar. "Hrm, should I actually buy one of the 500 CD's I've downloaded, or should I try to make out with that new girl during Twilight, having already downloaded it too to see that it sucks..."
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Considering the economic issues that we are dealing with, why doesn't the public have a problem with Hollywood. I was visiting some friends on thanksgiving, so I tagged along to watch Ninja Assasin. I payed $8.50 to get in and the theater was packed. I didn't have enough time to get something to eat before the movie so I bought a bag of popcorn and a large drink $16.45(I was really hungry). I then watched a movie that I would have normally turned off in the first 30 min or at least be distracted easily if at home. I feel that after that experince I have payed my fair share to hollywood for every movie that I have ever downloaded or will download for the next 10 years. That money could have gone to so many better things than an actor or director or writer or whoever got a share. We waste our money on trivial things and don't have a problem with people taking an assload of our money for theater, sports and other things. Government caps on actors and athletes as well as the executives should be considered when reports of these kind of earnings come out. The problem is we shouldn't need the government to keep us from wasting our money. If there wasn't another movie made ever again then I believe the world would be better for it. If all the athletes were average people just playing a game without sponsors and multi-million dollar contracts then how much more productive could our society be. Why waste the resources on a movie or game when we have real problem that need solved. I admit that I download movies to watch when I have nothing better to do but we live in a society that watching a movie or a game is the best thing to do most of the time.
While trying to avoid putting too much spin on it, I'd rather just look at it in context.
$10 billion dollars means they took $1.50 from every man, woman and child on the plant.
While piracy may be hurting them, don't you think that a $10 billion profit means perhaps, just perhaps, the cost of their product is STILL TOO HIGH ?
And if they did a little bit of supply / demand analysis, by maybe only skinning a buck instead of a buck fifty, piracy might actually go down as the product would be *more* accessible (read cheaper) for the masses ?
Biggest ever gross revenue.
Less profit per movie.
Fewer movies made.
That doesn't mean "movies are shit", because with fewer movies and the biggest gross revenue ever, they have either had the higher ticket prices or more tickets sold. Since 2008 was about 10 billion and 2009 is ~10.6 billon we're looking at an 6% increase in ticket prices or ticket numbers. Probably a mix of the two.
But if fewer movies were released in 2009 vs 2008, then the 6% increase in ticket prices/ticket numbers won't cover it.
What is more likely though, is that the average cost of a movie has gone up. If we have an 6% increase in gross revenue, but a 10% increase in average cost of a movie, you'll re declining profit. But a 10% increase in the cost of a movie cannot not be caused by copyright infringement - copyright infringement can only reduce income, not increase expense. In other words, the movie industry only has itself to blame for decreased profits when they set box office records with fewer movies.
Without having the exact numbers for 2008 and 2009 (tickets sold, average ticket price, number of movies released, average budget etc), we can't know for certain.
Imainge if when you bought a DVD, it had no copy restrictions, it contained on it versions formatted for copying to a hard drive and for various smaller players (such as the iPhone), and instead of the "FBI WARNING: IF U STEEL THIS WE'LL COME AND GET YOU" (which only people who have already paid see), you saw one of the main actors saying, "Hi, this is Denzel Washington. I realize that you could have downloaded this illegally, so I just want to express my personal thanks to you for supporting the movie industry by opting to pay for this DVD instead. Please enjoy the show."
Piracy would probably only go down a few percent, but you could probably sell the DVDs, but overall DVD sales would grow, because people would be happy buying a DVD, instead of feeling screwed (as I always do).
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.