Box Office Slump: The Numbers
I thought I'd look into the actual box office numbers for this year's movies. As we've often discussed, there's been a lot of talk about a slump in the movie business, and we are pretty skeptical of that. Movies this year have simply stunk, and, not surprisingly, the public have stayed away. Over time, though, movies have gained in popularity, and I'm interested in looking at that history.
Unfortunately, I was only able to find data to 1981. If anyone can find older data, please let me know. On that link, you can find a lot of interesting information on the industry as a whole. In every category, growth has been significant for the last 25 years: tickets sold, ticket cost, total screens, production costs, etc. One column I'd add to the table would be Gross Revenues Adjusted for Inflation, so here it is:
Year - Gross(Adj Inf) - % Change
2005* -- $8,010.00 -- ??
2004 -- $9672.59 -- 0.22%
2003 -- $9650.9 -- (1.37%)
2002 -- $9785.14 -- 7.25%
2001 -- $9123.44 -- 7.24%
2000 -- $8507.83 -- 0.16%
1999 -- $8494.61 -- 5.49%
1998 -- $8052.3 -- 7.34%
1997 -- $7502.02 -- 4.55%
1996 -- $7175.52 -- 4.98%
1995 -- $6834.85 -- (0.78%)
1994 -- $6888.35 -- 1.65%
1993 -- $6776.81 -- 2.73%
1992 -- $6596.59 -- (2.68%)
1991 -- $6777.97 -- (9.25%)
1990 -- $7469.12 -- (4.80%)
1989 -- $7845.71 -- 8.45%
1988 -- $7234.37 -- 1.19%
1987 -- $7149.35 -- 10.18%
1986 -- $6488.82 -- (2.48%)
1985 -- $6653.56 -- (10.83%)
1984 -- $7461.27 -- 3.72%
1983 -- $7193.82 -- 2.70%
1982 -- $7004.88
(*2005 numbers are incomplete, of course)
As you can see, the decade of the Aughts has been stellar for the industry. Since 1997, the industry has been booming, so a bit of a pullback isn't that surprising or unprecedented. From 1982 until 1976, industry growth was close to zero, with some notable booms and busts. I'm sure that the significant declines in 1985 and 1991 were attributed to VHS just as this year is being blamed on DVDs and large home televisions. It was likely just a bad year for quality movies.
The current year is projected to be lower than the previous three, but still should bring in more revenue than any year that proceeded it. The movie industry remains very popular, and this current year's slump appears to be nothing new. There's still something special about going to the movies that can't be duplicated at home.
posted by Mike @ 12/09/2005 11:53:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Inflation, as you have illustrated, is an important stat, because it does show that ticket sales have basically declined. Not to a great degree, but they have. A lot of businesses have seen units decline over the years...there's a lot of distractions nowadays.
We've also seen numbers decline for television shows, album sales, and all sorts of media. It doesn't mean people aren't buying and that it isn't profitable, it's just that you're not going to see as much growth anymore (and that's only in units sold, because the price will always go up to cover the money end).
I think business needs to be regarded differently than what it was in the eighties, or whatever model the analysis draws from.
If you look at the first link, you see that ticket sales have increased from around 1.1 billion sold in 1982 vs. 1.5 billion last year. That's an increase for certain. I'm not sure if it's grown as fast as the population, though.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. It probably is misleading due to percentage of population numbers as you suggest, but that is an increase.
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