I wouldn’t say this issue is nearest and dearest to my heart, exactly — business reportage and boardroom shuffle talk interests me far, far less than the artistic elements of filmmaking — but news from The Wrap noting that summer movie ticket sales are down 100 million from a decade ago is both saddening and not wildly surprising.
That’s individual admission ticket sales, again, not gross dollars or anything like that. This year’s summer slate grossed $4.27 billion combined, down a little over 2.8 percent from last year’s $4.4 billion haul. Admissions, however, were at 526 million, down from 629 million admissions in the summer of 2002. Yes, there were the Olympics at summer’s end this year, but this box office gate information again highlights that grosses are being propped up by inflated ticket prices (cough, cough, 3-D) and, less discussed, a handful of sequels and the like.
Franchises always have their (top-shelf) place in Hollywood, especially during the summer, but with few exceptions the industry is into risk management and brokered financial returns far more than any creative endeavors. They’ve done an extraordinarily crummy job of growing and conditioning a new generation of film fans, instead using the wares of videogames and comic books as the equivalent of fishing lures. At a certain point, this tack becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you have less and less people excited by the idea of sitting in a darkened room with a lot of strangers and experiencing something new together.
