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

How the MPAA thinks:

[gooman]

"We could have made 20 Billion if it weren't for all of those pirates!"

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the next bits...

"Then by doubling ticket prices, changing a few laws and ripping our customers off repeatedly we can make that 30 billion."

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[eldavojohn]

"We could have made 20 Billion if it weren't for all of those pirates!"

Don't worry, they'll simply sue ten thousand people for a million dollars each to get their money back. They may need a government bailout in the meantime. Nearly every single one of your elected officials have enjoyed soft money from the MPAA to ensure that everyone rolls over and sits when the MPAA instructs them to.

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[grimJester]

That's unlikely. They'll claim they spend more than ever to make movies and just barely make a profit. What they think is "We need new laws and ways to prevent consumers from watching the same movie twice without paying both times, watching movies on hardware not made by the same companies that own the movie studios or watching movies not made by the big studios."

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[sjames]

No, but it is justification to call the "problem" of copyright infringement insignificant.

It is also justification for the viewpoint that copyright as it stands now is more than adequate to ensure more production of works. Were it not, they would have produced LESS each year. Since that is the only Constitutional purpose of copyright, we need add no more protections.

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[InMSWeAntitrust]

According to Hollywood's accountants.

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[haruchai]

When Stan Lee had to sue to get his cut of the proceeds from SpiderMan, I started to look at the MPAA's kvetching about pirates
with a jaundiced eye. If they want us to care about alleged copyright infringement, then don't try to fuck over the icons that made us
into fans and made them rich(er).

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[LBt1st]

Wikipedia has a nice explanation of Hollywood Accounting.

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[bloodhawk]

I don't like the movie studios much but the article is highly misleading, it only mentions total revenue and if you dig into the articles the article itself references it clearly shows a declining profit per movie and less movies being made which kinda supports the studios positions. Personally though I think the declining profit is because most movies made nowadays are utter shit.

Re:How the MPAA thinks:

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Also, people seem to always forget that the original purpose (however flawed) of copyright was ostensibly to protect the authors from .... the publishers, distributors and all sorts of assorted middle-men, since at that time those were the only people (and I use the term loosely) who had access to equipment capable of mass duplication of works of art.

Fast forward 200 years or so and you have the artists back in the dog-house and the assorted middle-men controlling everything. Which only encourages them to bray louder about being robbed by "copyright violators" while stiffing the artists at every opportunity ... a grand monument to the power of corruption of laws and societies by shameless, vicious, malignant greed.

Incidentally this behaviour, of preemptively and rabidly accusing everyone else in sight of the very crimes one is committing himself, is very common amongst various villains in all walks of villainy, such as career politics for example.

Um, what about inflation?

[602]

Why is it that news stories about movie revenues never take inflation into account?

Re:Um, what about inflation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well my paycheck doesn't, so why the hell should Hollywood's?

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.

Re:Um, what about inflation?

[pgn674]

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

And we've had deflation since March. The highest inflation rate since 2008 has been 5.6%.
Current Inflation

Re:Um, what about inflation?

[dikdik]

For a while I have been arguing that the debate should not be framed in the "innovator versus freeloader" view but in a "constitutional rights and individual property rights versus expansive intellectual property" view. Most Americans do not accept the idea that you have a right to give away a copy of a song to anyone who wants it. While we hear constantly about those numbers that "40% of internet users said they saw nothing wrong with pirating music" we cannot go by that. Americans are just like any other people; when we think we can get away with something that doesn't seem to directly hurt someone we do it. Downloading bootlegs doesn't seem to hurt anyone, but it can. If I had bootlegged the entire new Android Lust album instead of buying it on iTunes I would have not sent the chick behind AL any money. iTunes allowed me to send her maybe $2 for the album which I paid $10, probably a good $5 less than what I would have paid for a CD copy. We need to stress to the government that iTunes, not more legislation, is the key to getting the system working. We need to show them that bands like Metallica refuse to do their part because they want an all or nothing. Buy 20-30 songs on iTunes and you give Apple more ammo to counter the claims that piracy has no solution. They can just shrug in front of Congress and say "it's not our side, the legal downloading side, that has dropped the ball. They refuse to let people buy their tracks one by one because they want them to buy them all or nothing." There will always be politicians who will rail against piracy and ignore iTunes and other legal services, but many politicians will just look at these industries and say "the mechanisms are in place, why aren't you being a team player, why are you coming to us for help when there are companies dying to make the market work for you?" Politicans tend to be lazy, just look at how many Senate votes that John Kerry has missed in the past 12 years. Something like 1000 or more a year according to Fox News. We can appeal to the public by pointing out the supremacy of the 1st amendment over Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. The first amendment was ratified later so it supercedes everything in the original constitution, just as all parts of the constitution must be read in the context of the Bill of Rights. We should also point out how anti-backup provisions and attitudes like Jack Valenti's "if you want a backup, buy another copy" are against common sense, American tradition and capitalist principles. I have yet to read of a prominent capitalist theorist who would support the DMCA. Rand, Ricardo, Hayek and Smith are probably spinning in their graves over the DMCA and similar "seller protection legislation." The hollywood position is built on pure, unprincipled greed. Defeating it only means that we need to be consistant and show the public where the law is going to start biting them in the ass if they don't care now.

Re:Um, what about inflation?

[gmhowell]

Speaking of innovations, there's this wonderful new invention for writers called the paragraph.

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.

Re:Hollywood Traditionally Does Well In Recessions

[gmhowell]

That's why births tend to spike 9 months after a days-long power outage. Not a whole lot else to do to entertain yourself ;)

While it is an entertaining idea, it is false.

Re:Hollywood Traditionally Does Well In Recessions

[Hurricane78]

While snopes.com is an entertaining idea, it is false.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

"Canada, Prague, or other random foreign countries"

Its good to know that geography teaching is US schools is reaching such high levels, despite the constant job losses!

Re:Proposed Anti-Anti-Piracy Advertisement

[kkwst2]

I think they were referring to the fact that Prague is actually another planet.

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:Proposed Anti-Anti-Piracy Advertisement

[Aceticon]

Here's a suggestion:

Scenario:
Movie studio office, 1930's style. Large expensive looking desk, semi-naked woman lying in it. Big fat movie executive wearing a 1930's style suit, holding a large lit cigar in his hand sitting on a chair behind the desk. Behind him, a window shows a sunny Californian day, with some palm-trees and an expensive sports car visible.
Around the office, other similar looking man are sitting in sofas surrounded by beautiful semi-claded women. Expensive looking sculptures and paintings are spread all over the office (possibly including one or two well known paintings).

Action:
Camera pans around the office, centers on the executive sitting in the chair with the desk (and woman) in front and the window behind.
Executive snorts a line of coke from the woman's belly, turns to the camera and says:
"I can't feed my family. Because thieves steal my work online."

Re:Proposed Anti-Anti-Piracy Advertisement

[jedidiah]

> That theory in itself invites enough debate without having to throw in the "the salaried employees have already been paid" straw man.

It's not a straw man.

Past a certain point, YOU PERSONALLY are not going to benefit from any more sales of the product even if YOU PERSONALLY contributed to it's production.

Either way, it's probably not going to matter. A bad film is going to bomb and a good film is going to make profits for the studio that they studio will never admit to. Piracy won't change that. All Piracy does is inflate the sense of entitlement felt by the high level management at the studio. They mistake demand for the product at the ZERO price point as real value.

Piracy primarily skews the percieved value of the work.

Going to the movies is different than buying one

[LockeOnLogic]

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.

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.

10 Billion and only one movie I liked

[Anonymous Coward]

Which the inner geek in me embraces Star Trek but oddly the girlfriend would not go with me to the theater to see so I got it on dvd.
We did go see Twilight god help me got being so whipped.

Re:10 Billion and only one movie I liked

[arb phd slp]

Which the inner geek in me embraces Star Trek but oddly the girlfriend would not go with me to the theater to see so I got it on dvd.
We did go see Twilight god help me got being so whipped.

My wife loved the new Star Trek and she wouldn't be caught dead going to Twilight. Sucks to be you.

Re:10 Billion and only one movie I liked

[R3d M3rcury]

We did go see Twilight god help me got being so whipped.

No wonder you're an Anonymous Coward. Dating 13 year old girls...tsk tsk...

Re:10 Billion and only one movie I liked

[PitaBred]

I don't know about that...

Torrent Freak not telling the whole truth again

[brit74]

From the article:
"The 2009 total was aided by a 28 cent increase in ticket prices from the year before to an average $7.46.

The total number of tickets sold, or admissions, is expected to reach 1.4 billion, up from 1.34 billion in 2008. Still, that figure is not expected to break the record 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, said Hollywood.com Box Office."

The reason for the higher revenue? Higher ticket prices. Ticket sales are down 12% since 2002. If you look at a long-term graph of ticket sales, you can see that it's been basically flat in the 2000s, compared to upper single-digit or double-digit growth nearly every year between 1970 and 2000. It's pretty much been stagnant since 2002.

Here's some numbers showing the trend:
2009 - Total Gross $9,782.4
2008 - Total Gross $9,630.6
2007 - Total Gross $9,663.7
2006 - Total Gross $9,209.5
2005 - Total Gross $8,840.5
2004 - Total Gross $9,380.5
2003 - Total Gross $9,239.7
2002 - Total Gross $9,155.0
2001 - Total Gross $8,412.5
2000 - Total Gross $7,661.0
1990 - Total Gross $5,021.8
1980 - Total Gross $2,749.0
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/

1980->1990 = 83% Growth in 10 years, average of 8.2% per year
1990->2002 = 82% Growth in 12 years, average of 6.8% per year
Then, *mysteriously*, something happened around 2002:
2002->2009 = 9.2% Growth in 7 years, 1.3% per year (using the $10 billion number, not the $9,782.4 for 2009)
To put that in perspective, 1.3% is less than the growth of inflation.

In other news, the number of AIDS patients is higher than ever, and yet, the average lifespan continues to grow. I'm sure we all can see the correlation here: AIDS = longer lifespans. Torrent Freak spins reality even more than FOX news. I wish Slashdot wasn't such a fan of the pro-pirate spin.

Re:Torrent Freak not telling the whole truth again

[Culture20]

The reason for the higher revenue? Higher ticket prices. Ticket sales are down 12% since 2002. If you look at a long-term graph of ticket sales, you can see that it's been basically flat in the 2000s, compared to upper single-digit or double-digit growth nearly every year between 1970 and 2000. It's pretty much been stagnant since 2002.

Here's some numbers showing the trend:
2009 - Total Gross $9,782.4
2008 - Total Gross $9,630.6
2007 - Total Gross $9,663.7
2006 - Total Gross $9,209.5
2005 - Total Gross $8,840.5
2004 - Total Gross $9,380.5
2003 - Total Gross $9,239.7
2002 - Total Gross $9,155.0
2001 - Total Gross $8,412.5
2000 - Total Gross $7,661.0
1990 - Total Gross $5,021.8
1980 - Total Gross $2,749.0
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/

1980->1990 = 83% Growth in 10 years, average of 8.2% per year
1990->2002 = 82% Growth in 12 years, average of 6.8% per year
Then, *mysteriously*, something happened around 2002:

Nine... *The audience leans forward, waiting for Myoral Candidate Lois Griffin's next word*
Eleven. *Raucous Cheering* It was near the end of 2001, and people were sheepishly afraid of gathering in large groups (except at church). Once they stared renting DVDs more at home, they realized that they liked it better.

Or, maybe it was the advent of the HDTVs

Or: The reason ticket sales are down 12% since 2002? Higher ticket prices.

Re:Torrent Freak not telling the whole truth again

[wtbname]

Sooooo....

What you are saying is that the Movie Industry made more movies, and more money than ever before, despite their claims of piracy hooligans destroying their business, but that it's all an illusion based on your rigorous statistical analysis, and out of line reference to the horrible disease, AIDS.

???

Profit?

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.

Re:Why would anyone go to a theater?

[spektricide]

Because to some of us movies are fun. Sorry if my idea of fun is lame. I could theorize that any attempt to replicate a theater experience at home is also "lame" but that would be rather presumptuous.

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.

Re:Why would anyone go to a theater?

[couchslug]

"I could theorize that any attempt to replicate a theater experience at home is also "lame" but that would be rather presumptuous."

It could be quite interesting and not "lame" at all.,,

Invite as many derelicts as you can find over for whiskey and popcorn, then hand out prepaid cellphones so they can enjoy them while watching the movie.

"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:Why would anyone go to a theater?

[gmhowell]

So, wait, you and your potential mates are so insecure and immature that you constantly need to be giving and receiving physical contact and interaction? You haven't grown up enough or don't appreciate the other person enough to just be in their presence from time to time? In the words of Mia Wallace: "That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence."

Re:Big Suprise!

[uuddlrlrab]

They could have afforded all three gold-plated Humvees filled with whores and coke, instead of only springing for two per person. Poor deprived movie execs...

Doubt it

[__aazsst3756]

The theaters get to keep very little from ticket sales, almost all of their profit is from refreshments.

Re:Going to the movies is different than buying on

[Nimey]

By superior do you mean "volume's too loud" and "a quarter of the audience are self-centered assholes"?

That's an innovative definition you've got there.

Re:And in other news...

[Spad]

Who said anything about it being beneficial? That's a rather piss-poor strawman.

The argument is that despite Hollywood decrying piracy as being be downfall of the movie industry, that they were losing money hand over fist, that ordinary people in the industry were losing their jobs left, right and centre because of it, that the entire economy of America was in danger because of these dangerous pirates, who were probably also funding international terrorism and all paedophiles as well, they've somehow managed to make record profits during a substantial recession.

Michael Bay should direct this...

[incognito84]

I love how Hollywood just sends Michael Bay out with the single mission to fill cinemas.

If Hollywood really just wanted to make a quick buck, they'd just throw together a trailer full of tidal waves, nuclear bomb test footage, explosions, robots, Michael Bay's name, then release the obligatory blockbuster movie trailer with such delightful quips as: "in a world... explosion... awesome... teenage cleavage... het-er-o-sex-u-al... stuff you liked when you were twelve..."

It doesn't even matter if there is an actual movie. It will make BILLIONS.

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).