AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By R.T. Watson 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (March 22, 2019).

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 22, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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