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Monday, March 02, 2009

Movies: A Bright Spot Amidst the Gloom

Chatting with the manager of one of my local theaters, the Showcase Cinemas in Revere, I asked him how business had been -- given the general economic malaise we seem to be mired in.

I was there on a slow Wednesday night, so it was hard to tell how things were going.

But Ken told me that he was astonished at how busy they've been. He said there have regularly been weekend nights lately that felt to him like mid-summer.

Then, a few days later, the New York Times published this piece, noting that ticket sales and attendance are up by 16-17 percent so far this year.

Interesting snippet:

    In 1982, theater attendance jumped 10.1 percent to about 1.18 billion (the top seller was “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”) as unemployment rose sharply past 10 percent. Then admissions fell nearly 12 percent, an unusually sharp drop, in 1985 (the “Back to the Future” year), as the economy picked up — suggesting that theater owners have sometimes found fortunes in times of distress, and distress in good times.

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3 Comments:

  • I want to say movies have gotten cheaper to watch or that movies have gotten extremely better, but movies like "The Love Guru" and "SuperHero Movie" tell me different. Maybe Americans want an escape from reality however stupid the movie is. Oddly enough, alcohol sales have gone down.

    Bad Economy Jobs

    By Blogger Ace, at 8:21 AM  

  • The price to rent a movie is almost as much to buy a ticket! Thats my explanation haha

     http://www.nyfa.com/film_school/programs/

    By Blogger what the crust, at 3:57 PM  

  • Interesting. I certainly find, for myself, that when work is hectic, I can just never get to a movie. The 7 o'clock show is too early (I'm still in traffic) and the 10 o'clock show is too late (I wont' be home until 1 am, and have to be up at 6:00 am).

    By Blogger Helena Handbasket, at 6:41 AM  

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