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."

Comments

Hollywood Traditionally Does Well In Recessions

[The0retical]

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.

Proposed Anti-Anti-Piracy Advertisement

[eldavojohn]

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."

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 ... because even though my employer posts record revenues, the justice system makes you are a perfectly legitimate scapegoat."

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.

Re:Proposed Anti-Anti-Piracy Advertisement

[dwywit]

There's a spreadsheet you can download from the Screen Australia website - it's called the "standard short film budget" (there's one for feature-length, too).

People like writer, producer and director are "above the line" items, and everyone else is "below the line".

All the "below the line" items start at union award rates, and "above the line" items start at 10% of the budget (i.e. add up everything else, then add 10% for each person in that category). It's only a starting point - obviously anyone with a name or reputation can negotiate whatever they want, but I (the producer) am only obliged to offer you (key grip) the award rate. If I (the producer) want you (director), I should offer you at least 10% of the budget. I might also offer you a share of royalties, or even some merchandising income.

Re:Um, what about inflation?

[wizardforce]

Inflation would need to be nearly 10% for Hollywood to not have higher inflation adjusted revenues this year than last year.

Unbelievable growth

[easyEmu]

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.

Re:Going to the movies is different than buying on

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This analysis is totally ridiculous.

[mmkkbb]

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.

"Piracy"

[dikdik]

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....

Re:typical spin job

[daveime]

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 ?

Re:Going to the movies is different than buying on

[martyros]

As most technical people are very aware, if I'm selling a product in a marketplace where a virtually identical product is available, I need to add value in order to get people to purchase through me instead of the competition. Adding value for movie studios is easy. They are selling legal copies and supporting the people who made the movies. The added value is already there. However, to add value, they need to provide an equivalent experience.

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).