With the year officially more than half over, it’s time to take another look at the headline dominating box office slump that plagued Hollywood last year. What happened to it? Is it gone? Yes it is… sort of.
2006 box office receipts are marginally ahead of where they were at the same time last year. Total yearly revenues sit at $4.6 billion, 5% higher than they were in 2005. Superman Returns’ $84 million in five days was a help. Of course when you factor in still rising ticket prices (because the best way to get audiences back is to charge them more of course), attendance is only up by 1.7%.
Still after last year’s movie going nose dive, any rebound is probably a good one. What’s disheartening for moviegoers though, is that Hollywood learned almost nothing from last year’s bad attendance numbers. They’ve raised ticket prices, they’re still burying original scripts in favor of remakes, sequels, and re-imaginations of already done ideas. I suppose there have been halfhearted efforts from some theater owners to curb the bad behavior of audiences and improve the overall movie experience, but then they ought to give me gold plated seating accommodations if I’m paying $10 or $11 a ticket.
Now that things seem to be on the upswing, any possibility of Hollywood changing their ways seems slim. Instead, they’ll probably attribute their marginal rebound new efforts to curb piracy (which by the way don’t work). Or maybe they’ll point to their new policy of barring critics from screening bad movies in order to fool audiences into seeing more crap. That last one might actually be working.
So far, this summer has been one filled mostly with disappointments. But audiences have showed up anyway, showering mediocre efforts like X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code with cash, when last year they avoided movies like Stealth and The Island entirely. If that trend continues, no matter what garbage Hollywood shoves out the door, this could be a better year for moviemakers. Cinema’s not quite dead. In fact, it may feel like going for a walk.
