This projects out to 10 billion in annual sales. That really is pretty bad.
Not when you consider it in terms of the industry's usual take. Hollywood's not nearly as big as some are led to believe--the shoe industry, for example, rakes in astronomical sums compared to Hollywood.
On the one hand, it depends on who you ask about this year's box office:
"The season, which lasts roughly four months starting the first weekend in May, earns movie studios as much as 40 percent of annual ticket sales. Already this year the box office is up, and highly anticipated films such as "The Da Vinci Code" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" have optimism running high. "The marketplace is definitely on an upswing," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Inc. "'M:I:III"' is the type of movie that will set the tone" for the summer ahead. But Dergarabedian sounded a cautious note saying that just one slip-up could lead to box office gloom, which is what happened last year when the season began with a bomb, "Kingdom of Heaven." That is why the "M:I:III" start is so important. ADVERTISEMENT When the season ended, the box office was down 8.5 percent from 2005 at $3.6 billion, and attendance was off 11.4 percent at 565 million, according to Exhibitor Relations. By contrast, year-to-date ticket sales in 2006 are up 6.7 percent at $2.6 billion and even slightly ahead of 2004. Attendance is also up, by 3.4 percent at 397 million.
http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/va/20060426/114608890700.html
On the other hand, what's box office been like overall the last few years?
US box office for 2005 was $8.99 billion. For the fourth straight year, domestic cumulative box office from all studios continues to hold near $9 billion. (Refer to page 2 of the 2005 Theatrical Market Statistics Report)
http://www.mpaa.org/researchStatistics.asp
So ten billion would be one of the biggest box office years ever.
That's at the theaters. Remember Hollywood makes between 2/3s and 3/4s of its money on each movie OUTSIDE the theaters, novelizations, tie-ins, soundtracks, cable, and DVD account for the rest. That's 30 billion in total annual revenue, hard to call that a disaster.