I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – 2009 was a good year at the box office. Although there were worries that the recession would drive attandence down at the cinema, it’s actually had the opposite effect, with ever more people heading to the multiplex for a bit of entertainment to cheer them up.
As a result, both the domestic (i.e US and Canadian) and international markets have reached new record grosses for the year. In America and Canada, the likes of Transformers 2, Harry Potter and Avatar spurred the box office to $10.61 billion for the year, the first time its ever topped the $10 billion mark. This marked an 8% increase on 2008 and a 4% rise in attendance. The fact more people have actually bought tickets this year is particularly good news, as for the last few years, any increase in overall box office has largely been down to rising ticket prices. Even so, with 1.41 billion tickets sold, it failed to beat the 1.6 billion sold in 2002.
Outside America the international box office also reached record levels, hitting $10.7 billion, 7% ahead of the $9.942 billion record set last year. In fact the international box office is going through massive expansion, particularly in the far east (hence why Hollywood is making quite a few Chinese themed movies at the moment). Every year sees a new record total, with 2009 a whole 20% ahead of where the market was only three years ago, which is pretty impressive growth. However it is noticeable that while blockbusters tend to do better overseas than they do in the US (with the noticable exception in 2009 f Star Trek), other movies still tend to lag behind.
As a results of all this, it inevitably means there’s a new global box office record of $21.31 billion. Now we just need to see whether 2010 has the films to rival this massive tally, although with Avatar having just hit a billion dollars globally in under three weeks and likely to make a fair bit more through January, the year is off to a good start.