The Christmas weekend saw a slow couple of days at the box office, as
many people celebrating the holiday spent time with family, driving from
place to place to open gifts and, generally, enjoying the time away
from the rush of everyday life. But that doesn’t mean that the movie
business shut down altogether, of course. Tom Cruise’s "Mission
Impossible – Ghost Protocol" still racked up a hefty $26.6 million in
the U.S. in the first full weekend of its release.
That brings the total for the movie to $59 million thus far, after it
expanded nationwide last Wednesday. Estimates by Paramount were that it
would exceed $72 million by the close of business yesterday, though the
numbers aren’t yet in. This latest installment was the fourth
installment of the over the top action/adventure franchise. But while
that film continues with its success, Hollywood in general has thus far
been a bit beat up during the holiday season that stretches from
Thanksgiving through New Years. 2011 revenues from films, predicted to
be reach record-setting marks, have actually lagged a bit.
It is estimated that Hollywood should rack up a total of $10.1 billion
in revenues in the U.S., a number that is down 4.5% from last year.
Those numbers look even worse when you consider inflation – ticket
prices have gone up almost universally, meaning that fewer fans are
seeing movies as well. In 2011, roughly 1.27 billion people will watch
films in the theaters, down 5.3% from last year. Says analyst Paul
Dergarabedian, "Thank God 2011 is almost over, because we’ve had a real
rough run here at the end of the year. We always count on the holiday
season to give us a big boost at the end of the year, and it just didn’t
happen. These admission numbers this year just tell me that we maybe
have to set our sights a little lower in terms of attendance every
year."
No comments:
Post a Comment