Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Gross Misunderstanding

Really good article yesterday from Slate about the irrelevance of box-office grosses to the studios.

The piece is interesting overall - detailing the reasons why the box office is not as imporant as a judge of much anything these days - but it's most revealing portions was the discussion of how home entertainment has completely changed Hollywood.

Movie theatre ticket sales now make up less than 20 percent of the studios' revenues. Home entertainment provides 82%. In addition - Wal-Mart accounts for more than 33% of the studios' revenues in video and DVD. Wal-Mart is a power player in Hollywood - whodathunkit?

Hollywood is really driven these days not by what we go to see - but what we stay home to see, be it on DVD or TV or pay-per-view. Now, that is different.

No comments: