Early summer looks good with 'Indy 4,' 'Narnia 2'
By Martin A. Grove
January 4, 2008

Summer season: As seasons go, nothing's more important to Hollywood's boxoffice health than the summer, but even a record setting summer doesn't ensure a memorable year. hat was, unfortunately, the lesson Hollywood learned in 2007. Before looking ahead today to see how the early summer of '08 is shaping up, it's worth taking a look back to see how last summer impacted on the year.

Paul Degarabedian's Media by Numbers, which tracks the boxoffice's weekly twists and turns, reported that last summer's boxoffice hit record heights with grosses of $4.184 billion from May 4 - Sept. 3. Summer revenues were up 3.92% vs. '06 when grosses were only $3.85 billion. It also helped that ticket prices rose about 4.6% from '06 -- $6.85 in '07 vs. $6.55 the prior year.

Thanks to strong summer ticket sales, as of Sept. 3 the boxoffice for the year to date was $6.89 billion vs. $6.414 billion for the comparable period of '06. At that point, revenues were up 7.42% and attendance was up 2.71%. Unfortunately, Hollywood had a mediocre fall season and much of the summer's gains were lost. 2007's fall revenues of $1.125 billion were down 4.74% from $1.181 billion in '06. Attendance in the fall '07 was down 8.91% from '06. By the time Christmas was over, the full year was at $9.3 billion. While that was up 3.91% from $8.95 billion a year earlier, it was down 0.2% in terms of attendance.

Nonetheless, the strong summer boxoffice went a long way towards reassuring Hollywood that the movie business is still very healthy. In the dismal summer of '05 many observers were ready to bury Hollywood, claiming that in the age of hi-def giant plasma TV screens and increasingly shorter DVD release windows Americans now preferred to see movies in the comfort of their own homes. Doing so meant not having to spend money on gas to get to theaters, hire babysitters, pay higher ticket and concession stand prices, go out for dinner afterwards and, better yet, not have to put up with rude fellow patrons talking on their cell phones during the movies.

The Hollywood Reporter
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