And, Once Again, Hollywood Is Making Tons Of Money At The Box Office

from the and-yet-they-complain dept

For years, we've pointed out that as Hollywood kept insisting that piracy was killing its business, and all anyone would do is watch films for free at home, box office revenues kept increasing. 2011 was a slight blip -- in that US box office revenue dropped a tiny bit, even as the global box office set new records. And the drop in US box office was mainly due to a bunch of less than stellar movie options. So it's little surprise that this year, on the backs of things like The Avengers, the latest Batman and The Hobbit, the US box office is back on the rise. It's interesting to note that this year there's even an increase in number attending rather than just in revenue collected.

So, once again, we're left wondering two things. First, why does the industry keep insisting that piracy is killing it and second why has the theater industry still done so little to improve the movie going experience, to capture the clear interest in the public to go see movies in the theaters? Yes, some people will argue (as the MPAA likes to) that it's not the box office they're concerned about, but rather the home video market. But, really, that's pretty rich, given that it was less than 30 years ago, the very same MPAA was doing its damndest to make sure there was no home video market as it sought to kill off the VCR. That they should now be complaining that they can't make as much money there -- at the same time they've often failed to make their own movies available digitally in a reasonable manner -- reeks of just bad business, rather than any sort of existential threat.