Film Industry in the US: A Journey from 2000 to 2019

The film industry uses box office revenue, or, the amount of money generated through movie ticket sales, to measure the commercial success of the films it produces. The global film industry shows healthy projections for the coming years, as the global box office revenue is forecast to increase from about 38 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to nearly 50 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

Figure: Box office revenue in America from 2000 to 2019 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Data Source: Domestic Movie Theatrical Market Summary

  

However, the statistic above presents data on the annual box office gross revenue for the last 20 years in the US. In 2018, 11.96 billion U.S. dollars was earned at the box office which is a growth of over 2.2 million over the past decade. In 2019, the country has made 11.18 billion U.S. dollars so far.

Ticket sales account for a sizable portion of the film industry’s total revenues. Over 1.3 billion tickets were sold at the American box office in 2018. The US is the third-largest film market in the world in terms of tickets sold per year, ranking behind China and India. There are about 5,869 cinema sites in the US as of 2019, although this number has steadily decreased since the year 2000, and stood at 7,798 back in 1996.

Figure: Number of movie tickets sold in the United States from 2000 to 2018 (in millions)

The statistic above presents data on the annual ticket sales at the American box office from 2000 to 2018. In 2000, almost 1.4 billion tickets were sold at movie theaters in the US. The figure stood at just over 1.3 billion tickets in 2018 with an average ticket price of 9.11 U.S. dollars.

Why don’t more people visit movie theaters?

Figure: Average ticket price in the United States from 2000 to 2018 (in U.S. dollars)

Going to a movie theater has been a growing expense since 2000 when admission cost was 5.39 U.S. dollars. Five years later in 2005, this price had risen to 6.21 U.S. dollars. To watch celebrities on the silver screen in 2018, an average American needed to pay 9.11 U.S. dollars. This means that the cost of seeing a movie has almost doubled in 18 years. Admittedly the increase in price has been gradual, growing by roughly 10 to 50 cents each year, which does not sound like much. However, for a family of four in 2018, the cost of a trip to the movies could amount to over 35 dollars, and that’s without any trimmings like popcorn, soda or snacks, which moviegoers say they like to buy.

In June 2019, Morning Consult: The Hollywood Reporter conducted an online survey among 18 years and older age group and 2200 audiences responded to the survey. From the survey, it was found that just 14 percent of US adults visited a movie theater one or more times per month, but 46 percent stated that they went to the cinema to watch a movie once in a year or less.

Figure: Frequency of going to movie theaters to see a movie among adults in the United States as of June 2019

Another survey earlier in the same year revealed that visits to the cinema can vary according to generation. On average, 34 percent of Gen Xers had seen one movie within the last month, compared to 43 percent of those classed as being members of Generation Z. Meanwhile, Boomers had seen far fewer movies recently than their younger counterparts. Again, 21 percent of Hispanic Americans said that on average they had seen two movies in a cinema in the last month, compared to 11 percent of White Americans who said the same. White respondents were less likely to visit movie theaters in general, with almost 50 percent of adults in this ethnic group saying that they had not seen any movies in a cinema in the last month. Additionally, just 2 percent said that they had seen 4 films in a theater on average in that time frame, compared to 9 percent of Hispanic respondents.

Is streaming affecting movie theater attendance?

It has been noted that the growth of entertainment options offered by streaming services could have an effect on whether or not people are willing to leave their homes to visit a movie theater. Why leave the house and pay around 9 dollars per ticket when people already pay for a streaming subscription and can choose from hundreds of different movies from the comfort of their own couch? The sheer amount of options on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO make it all too easy for film lovers to decide against going out and to spend their dollars on subscription upgrades instead of cinema tickets. With the increasing take-up of streaming services, leaked movie files available online and rising movie theater ticket prices, the gradually decreasing amount of cinema sites in the US is just one way in which the film industry and the act of going to the movies have changed.

But the analysts refuse to blame the streaming services for the decline in ticket sales. They think it's all about the release schedule. They maintain a calendar while scheduling the movie release date that has nothing to do with which movies came out last year versus this year. An Ernst & Young study commissioned by the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) shows that streaming is not pulling film fans from seats in front of the big screen. The data suggest that those who stream the most content also visit movie theaters most regularly. The inverse is true, too. "People who go to the movie theater nine times or more a year are also heavy streamers, so the notion that people who are staying at home streaming a lot are not going to movie theaters doesn't ring true," said NATO's Phil Contrino.

It’s hard to ignore that times are changing and that movie theater attendance may never be what it once was. But, as long as streaming services continue to offer an abundance of films within different genres from all across the world, the movie fans out there will still have a way to engage with film in the way they choose.