Hollywood studios took in a record 9.6 billion dollars last year at cinema box offices in the US and Canada, but the huge sum was offset by the highest ever cost of producing major movies, the Motion Picture Association of America said Wednesday. ( dpa )
The MPAA said the average Hollywood film cost 106.6 million dollars to produce and market, about 6 million dollars more than in 2006.
The box office take was 300 million dollars more than the previous record, but represented a rise in ticket prices rather than any spike in the number of tickets sold. Roughly 1.4 billion million tickets were sold in 2007, well below the record 1.6 billion sold in 2002, according to the MPAA.
International box-office returns were also healthy, with global receipts totaling 26.7 billion dollars, up from 2006's 25.5 billion dollars.
The results represented a success for the movie industry in the face of increased competition from the internet, video games and movie downloads, said MPAA President Dan Glickman. "Consumers are open to the digital home and the movie house. All in all, 2007 proved pretty healthy."
According to the study, Hispanic moviegoers made up the fastest rising demographic; they saw an average of 11 movies a year, compared with eight in 2006. African-American moviegoers, who in 2006 saw more movies than any other ethnicity, dropped from nine movies per year in 2006 to eight last year. Overall, the typical moviegoer sees eight movies a year, according to the MPAA.