This Year at the Movies: The Commercial View

Since the 1970s North Americans have typically gone to the movies four to five times a year. When the figure falls toward the low end of the range, the entertainment press screams that This is the End. When it rises toward the high end, the talk of bust turns to talk of boom.1

In 2012, North American theaters sold an estimated 1.36 billion tickets, just under 4 tickets per capita - hardly a rip-roaring year at the box office, despite some notable successes (like The Avengers). Still, marking as it does the first increase in ticket sales since 2009, and an improvement on the low point of just 3.7 tickets per capita of the low point of 2011, which (helped along by rising ticket prices, and IMAX and 3-D charges) translated to a record gross of $10.8 billion, this is being received as good news.

In line with the partial revival of consumer spending seen this year, it is a reminder that the film business does not operate in a vacuum but is subject to the ups and downs of the rest of the economy. It is a reminder too that entertainment journalists have the same tendency as the rest of their profession to wax dramatic over small market fluctuations.

1. The best performance since the 1970s, 2002's 1.575 billion tickets, represented an exceptional 4.9 per capita average, over 20 percent higher than 2012's, 30 percent higher than 2011's.