Movies are economy-proof. When times are tough, more tickets are sold. Moviegoing was never more popular in the U.S. than during the Great Depression.
If people wanted to see a movie this past summer, it did well at the box office: Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Grand Budapest Hotel. The problem was the rest of the movies, not ticket prices.
Oh, and the author is wrong when he says studios get a 25 percent return on tickets sold in China. It’s 10 percent or less. Why any studio bothers releasing in China is beyond me.
I’m not sure if the Great Depression would be a great measuring stick...seeing that ‘talkies’ may have been popular just because they were a novelty.
At no time in my life has my disposable income been so constricted...property taxes, energy costs, groceries are all outpacing inflationary raises. I am not alone - and frankly, there’s no money in the budget to go to a movie. And I’m employed. The spin is we are in recovery...the ugly truth is consumers are still not enthusiastic about the future.
No matter how ‘recession proof’ movies used to be, they no longer are - if for no other reason that they compete with themselves on price, and people just wait it out until the Red Box has it.