Trading Places: Global Box Office Dethroned by Spending on Home Entertainment
March 21 2019 - 9:29AM
Dow Jones News
By R.T. Watson
Global audiences spent more to watch online entertainment than
they did on tickets to sit in movie theaters for the first time
last year, according to data released by the Motion Picture
Association of America.
Driven by online video-streaming services' increasing
penetration of international markets, world-wide digital
home-entertainment revenue leapt to $42.6 billion last year from
$32.9 billion in 2017. Although digital-entertainment spending in
the U.S. had previously outpaced domestic theatrical revenue, it
happened for the first time on a global basis in 2018, when $41.1
billion of movie tickets were sold.
Spending on streaming services such as Netflix Inc. and
Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime Video led the way for digital media's
ascendance.
Box-office revenue in the U.S. and Canada rose in 2018 while
international box office declined, a reversal from 2017, when
overseas growth propped up sluggish ticket sales in North
America.
Domestic ticket sales grew 7% last year after falling in 2017,
the Hollywood trade group said, generating a record $11.9 billion.
Internationally, box office fell 1% as countries outside the
Asia-Pacific region struggled, with sales in both Latin America and
its largest market, Brazil, plummeting 22%, in part because of
currency fluctuations.
Although Chinese box-office returns continued to climb, they did
so by only 12%, compared with a 21% leap in 2017. Globally, ticket
sales revenue edged up just 1% despite the number of screens rising
7% to nearly 190,000.
Hollywood's continued commitment to franchises paid off.
Box-office returns increased even though the major studios
collectively churned out slightly fewer films than the year before:
127 in 2018, down 2% from 2017 and 20% below the number in
2009.
The biggest-grossing titles of the year included a pair of
Marvel films from Walt Disney Co., "Black Panther" and "Avengers:
Infinity War," and "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," the latest
installment in the series from Comcast Corp.'s Universal
Pictures.
In previous years, rising ticket prices have sometimes driven
box-office revenue higher even as the number of tickets sold
declined. But in 2018 both revenue and admissions increased in
North America. The MPAA reported that Americans and Canadians
purchased a total 1.3 billion tickets, up 5% from 2017, as the
average moviegoer bought five tickets, versus 4.7 in 2017.
Write to R.T. Watson at rt.watson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2019 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
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