For An Industry Being Destroyed By 'File Sharing,' Film Industry Keeps Reporting Record Numbers

from the well-how-about-that dept

The movie industry keeps sending very, very mixed messages. It keeps insisting that its business is being decimated by file sharing, but then keeps putting out reports bragging how well it's doing. Reader ethorad points us to a page put up by the UK Film Council about the movie business in the UK, where it makes a pretty compelling case that the movie business is thriving, despite all the reports of doom and gloom. Some key highlights:

* The core UK film industry has grown 50% over the last 10 years
* UK box office takings at record levels, with growth of over 60% over 10 years
* They have had a 500% return on their investments in film
* More films are being released, up over 30% in the last decade
* Independent films are performing quite well, taking in nearly half the revenue of major studio films

All of these points seem to go against the claims of an industry being decimated. Rather than the predicted decline in attendance, attendance is way up. Rather than the predicted decline in making films (both major studio and indie), more films are being made, and they're doing quite well. So... um... where exactly is the decimation happening?

Of course that figure would still be skewed by fanboys who see the film twice or more within a few days. <_< You know who you are.

Audience numbers might still be down because of the cinema prices. West end prices can be extortionate...

I didn't think anyone else knew of Mark's obsession with Twilight. (8-p)

And once more you betray my confidence in you, Edd.
I'm really starting to wonder why I continue to bother with you at all.

It seemed to have already been betrayed by someone else! I'm still tempted by that bait you offerred the other evening.

I'm still tempted by that bait you offerred the other evening.

>8+D

Audience numbers might still be down because of the cinema prices. West end prices can be extortionate and will more than make up for the odd yokel not watching. File sharing probably has little impact on the audience. They will either watch then delete, if they really like it they will get the disk at some point. If they hated it they would not have bought it. I can see that the future audiences for TV might be lower as people would have seen it previously, not appreciably. Though that has not really impacted on the viewers as Die Hard has been on countless times and still gets an audience, especially when everything on else is rubbish.

They have got pretty formulaic for a while. Inception looks very different. So some imagination out there.

Hollywood accounting is not limited to movies. An example is the Warner Bros. television series Babylon 5 created by J. Michael Straczynski. Straczynski, who wrote 90% of the episodes in addition to producing the show, would receive a generous cut of profits if not for Hollywood accounting.[citation needed] The series, which was profitable in each of its five seasons from 1993–1998, has garnered more than US$1 billion for Warner Bros., most recently US$500 million in DVD sales alone. But in the last profit statement given to Straczynski, Warner Bros. claimed the property was $80 million in debt. "Basically," says Straczynski, "by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."