Lines are becoming shorter at theaters nationwide with the most dramatic decrease in ticket sales since 1991.
According to Variety Magazine spokesperson Anthony Dallesandro, who tracks box office earnings, ticket returns for 2003 in the United States and Canada totaled $9.2 billion. This is a one percent difference from last year, which finished at $9.3 billion.
According to industry figures, it now costs an average of $6.03 to attend a movie, as opposed to $5.85 in 2002, and in some major movie theaters it costs over $10.
“Here there is [a decrease in sales], but that’s just because we don’t get a lot of the big movies anymore,” said Beau Boiteaux, assistant manager of the United Artists theatre on Siegen lane. “We get a lot of the independents.”
It is possible that the decrease in ticket sales is due to increased ticket prices and families opting to watch movies in their homes on DVDs for under $10 rather than $10 a person in some New York theaters.
But Boiteaux does not blame ticket prices.
“I think people would go see a movie either way,” he said.
He does, however, agree that DVD sales could be a factor.
“There’s a lot of people who’d rather watch a DVD than go to the movies,” he said.
In a recent article in In-Focus magazine, a publication of the National Association of Theatre Owners John Fithian, the president of the organization, defended 2003 as a strong year for theaters.
“2002 was an extraordinary year – the best year for ticket sales since 1957,” he said. “We sold 1.64 billion U.S. tickets in the last year, a 10.2 percent increase over 2001. This year admissions only trail 2002 by six percent. It’s still the second-best year we’ve had in 45 years.”
Fithian also does not believe that the movie industry will not be ruined due to DVDs.
“Movie theatre operators heard the same question with the advent of television, videocassettes, pay-per-view, video-on-demand and now DVDs,” he said. “People want to go out to the movies, to share in a communal experience with a big screen, to enjoy an exciting environment, and to eat snacks that someone else prepares.”