By the Numbers: U.S. Summer Movie Box Office Lower Than 2011

By Karla Robinson
September 6, 2012

Last year saw the lowest number of movie tickets sold since 1995, coming in at 1.3 billion. That summer, only 543 million movie tickets sold, compared to the 629 million during the summer ten years ago.
Although 2012 has seen slightly better attendance and revenue than 2011, only an estimated 529 million tickets were sold this summer, reports TIME.
“That’s 100 million fewer tickets,” Exhibitor Relation’s Jeff Bock told USA Today in a related article. “That’s a really troubling number for the industry if you look at it that way, which reflects how the movie business is really doing.”
“While some experts say that ‘rising ticket prices mask attendance drops,’ there’s also an argument to be made that attendance drops have come directly as a result of rising ticket prices,” notes TIME.
“Nonetheless, despite declining attendance, and the obvious cause-effect in which raising prices will decrease attendance further, plenty of analysts have suggested that jacking up ticket prices is the solution for the struggling movie business.”
The article suggests that making better movies could help the issue. Social media has allowed people to quickly determine if a movie is worth seeing, and the high ticket prices make viewers much more selective. Good movies would validate spending the money on tickets, especially for expensive 3D.

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