The good news for Hollywood: Summer movie revenue is up worldwide as studios have rebounded from a slow start to the year. The bad news: Domestically, revenue has increased only a fraction compared to the previous year, while actual movie attendance dropped for the fourth consecutive year.
Taken together, the summers of 2010 and 2011 combined for the smallest domestic audiences since the summers of 1997 and 1998. Since peaking at a modern high of 653 million tickets sold in summer 2002, domestic attendance has wavered generally downward, dipping to 551 million in summer 2010 and sliding again this summer to 543 million, according to projections from box-office tracker Hollywood.com. One so-so summer can be an aberration, a consequence of movies simply failing to grab fans. Two so-so summers in a row may indicate studios face a tough task in keeping theater seats filled at a time when audiences have more entertainment options than ever. Many in Hollywood expected summer 2011 to be a knock-it-out-of-the-park season. Summer did erase most of this year’s deficit on revenue, which back in spring had been running as much as 20% behind last year’s. According to Hollywood.com, domestic receipts from the first weekend in May through Labor Day weekend should finish at a record $4.38 billion, up 0.7% from summer 2010. But factoring in this year’s higher ticket prices, actual attendance will be down 1.4%.
