The Motion Picture Association of America says the global take at the box office in 2009 was an all time record, up 7.6% from 2008. Domestic box office was up primarily because of higher 3D ticket prices – but attendance overall was up 5.5 percent as well, though still below the record, which was set in 2002.
The Wrap has analysis, as does the Los Angeles Times, which offered this interesting point:
But the report was more notable for what it omitted: key financial data on the average cost of making and marketing movies, what used to be the only authoritative sources of such information.
For years, the Motion Picture Assn. of America released a statistical analysis showing the average movie costs of its members, made up of the major studios and their specialty labels. Then the trade group stunned many in Hollywood last year when it didn’t release the closely watched data, citing the difficulty of obtaining accurate information.
The MPAA followed the same script again this year. In 2007, the last year for which data was released, the average cost of producing and marketing a studio movie was $106.6 million, up 6.3% from the year before.
Two interesting items found in Mediapost today, both on where the money is going.
For the first time digital advertising revenue is expected to exceed print advertising revenue. Mediapost quotes a study by Outsell:
Altogether, U.S. advertisers and marketers plan to spend $368 billion in 2010, Outsell found — up 1.2% from about $364 billion in 2009. Within the 2010 figure, 32.5% ($119.6 billion) will go to digital, versus 30.3% ($111.5 billion) for print.
The local media mess seems to be still getting worse. The only good news is that the next three years are expected to get better, though mostly because of continuing growth in digital revenue:
Media forecaster BIA/Kelsey says local advertising revenues for television and radio will reach $34.3 billion in 2014, up from $29.9 billion in 2009. That’s a 2.8% compound annual growth rate. Digital revenues for local TV and radio are expected to soar nearly 18% over the same period.
The Wrap has the latest on actor Danny Glover’s call to boycott Hugo Boss clothing because the company is exporting 300 union jobs to a non union plant outside the United States:
“The workers are productive and the plant is profitable,” Glover writes. “But Hugo Boss has decided it can make even more profit by moving the production to Turkey or Eastern Europe.”
“Hugo Boss says it wants to expand business in this country, and the brand depends on Hollywood cachet. Please tell the world you won’t be wearing Hugo Boss on March 7.”
The next lines are too obvious…
The Hollywood Reporter counts 83 pilots produced so far this season, up from 74 last season, though still down from pre-WGA strike levels. THR notes, as we have previously, that AFTRA has signed virtually all the pilots this year:
“SAG has been pushed out of the primetime picture — just as in the ’70s and ’80s, when AFTRA was dominant as shows were filmed on videotape.”
Posted
on March 4, 2010, 5:04 PM,
by WW,
under
We Remember.
Whether a nurse or, more typically, someone’s mom, over a fifty year plus career, gifted actress Nan Martin had a reputation truly bringing her characters to life. Famously, as the stuck up mother in “Goodbye Columbus,” even her daughter in the film, Ali MacGraw thought Martin just didn’t like her. In fact, MacGraw later wrote, Martin was just staying in character.
In addition to dozens of television and film roles, Martin spent much of her time on the boards, and was nominated for a Tony in the 1950s, and was a regular in New York’s Shakespeare in the Park series during the 1960s.
Martin died at her Malibu home at age 82. She had suffered from emphysema.
It’s being called a dispute over how to split revenues, and we suppose it could still get solved by Friday, which is when Comedy Central says it’s pulling shows off of Hulu. But we see it as more recognition that giving away the product doesn’t work.
