philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

A Year of Disappointment at the Movie Box Office

[The New York Times]

With five days left in 2011, ticket sales in North America are running about $500 million behind last year — despite higher prices — prompting a round of soul searching by studios trying to determine what went wrong and how best to proceed. ...

Revenue, for instance, has been propped up by a glut of 3-D films, which cost $3 to $5 more per ticket. Studios made 40 pictures in 3-D in the last 12 months, up from 24 last year, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, a movie database. Theaters have also continued to increase prices for standard tickets; moviegoers now pay an average of $7.89 each, up 1 percent over last year.

Attendance for 2011 is expected to drop 5.3 percent, to 1.27 billion, continuing a slide. Attendance declined 6 percent in 2010.  ...

“As bad as the economy is for adults, it’s worse for teenagers,” said Phil Contrino, editor ofBoxOffice.com, by way of an explanation. “Because they have less disposable income and because they are more plugged in to audience reaction on Facebook and Twitter, the teenage audience is becoming picky,” he added. “That’s a nightmare for studios that are used to pushing lowest-common-denominator films.” ...

“There may be a correlation to the recent strength of video game sales,” he said. “You look at a game like the new ‘Call of Duty’ selling $400 million in its first 24 hours and say, ‘What? How is that even possible?’ ”

On the other hand, several movies aimed squarely at older audiences attracted stronger-than-expected revenue, “The Help” was the prime example. That period drama cost DreamWorks about $25 million to make and took in more than $169 million in North America. ...

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