29th
Hollywood Spin Doctor
From Marc Andreessen’s Blog
“This week you probably read headlines to the effect of, Hollywood has biggest box office year ever.
That’s technically true if you are counting gross domestic revenue, and you don’t adjust for inflation.
Bloomberg digs into the numbers.
Turns out, gross domestic revenue (US and Canada) was up 4 percent from last year to $9.6 billion.
Unfortunately:
One, that doesn’t adjust for inflation.
Two, that doesn’t adjust for an aggregate 4.6 percent rise in ticket prices.
Some of that rise in ticket prices can be attributed to keeping up with inflation, but not all of it.
Three, ticket sales tell a different story.
About 1.41 billion tickets were sold this year, about the same number as last year. However, in 2002, 1.61 billion tickets were sold.
So, ticket sales are down 12% over the last 5 years.
The big macro story is that once upon a time, most Americans routinely went to the movies. Today, only a minority do. And that minority continues to shrink.
From here on out, Hollywood can — and will — continue to raise ticket prices to offset shrinking audiences. But that will presumably just cause the audiences to shrink faster.”
- Blog.pmarca.com
The “magic” of going to the movies is lost on me. Besides rising ticket costs, there is the ongoing issue of absurd pricing for sodas, water, popcorn and candy. I think a bottle of water at The Grove theatre in LA cost me $4 the other day. The only place in the world that rivals prices like that is the airport bodega. Then there is the time factor. To get decent seats at a popular movie you have to get there 30 minutes in advance. If you dont, you face the possibility of not sitting with the person you went to the movies with (this happened to alana and I the other day at I Am Legend). All this hassle and cost just so I can see a movie on a big screen with surround sound?
In a perfect world, movies would be released on-demand when their marketing blitz begins. Afterall, this is when I want to see a movie the most. I guarantee that I would see far more movies this way. Think about it - a guaranteed seat on my couch, access to whatever is in my fridge, the ability to start the movie on my schedule, no worries about parking or getting to the theatre early and definitely no fear that some giant is going to sit in front of me and ruin the whole movie.