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Movies Piracy Star Wars Prequels

Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016 (variety.com) 142

Posted by EditorDavid from the Disney-domination dept.
Slashdot reader rudy_wayne writes: Despite constant claims of losing billions of dollars to "piracy", the North American box office closed out 2016 with $11.4 billion in ticket sales. That marks a new record for the industry, bypassing the previous record of $11.1 billion that was established in 2015.

Disney had four of the top five highest-grossing films, including "Finding Dory," the year's top film with $486.3 million. "When holdovers are taken into account, Disney had six of the year's ten highest-grossing releases, a group that includes Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which debuted in 2015," reports Variety. Other top films include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($408.2 million), Captain America: Civil War ($408.1 million), The Secret Life of Pets ($368.4 million), and The Jungle Book ($364 million).
Disney "controlled more than a quarter of the domestic market share despite releasing fewer films than any of the major studios," according to the article, which notes that the record was achieved despite the absence of big releases in several major movie franchises partly through higher ticket prices (and possibly also inflation).
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Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016 More

Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016

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  • ofcourse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Monday January 02, 2017 @05:32AM (#53591443) Homepage

    what these numbers don't seem to keep into account it the increase in ticketprices... Also the production costs of the movies are again higher than in 2015. So comparing the years purely on boxoffice income is useless..

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you're going down that road, you also need to factor in Hollywood Accounting to see true financials, and then add in all the DVD/blu-ray sales, plus the digital sales, plus the streaming revenues, and so on.

      I'd rather see a simpler X tickets sold, and ignore the monetary figures. The ticket may have been a matinee / early-doors cheap price, or a treble cost pseudo IMAX at peak-time. Both meaningless when looking to see how many people watched something.

    • Absolutely. Just by posting the cash taken proves very little.

      It has always irritated me that the money taken is used to claim that a movie is better than what came before.

      Backsides on seats is what should be counted. If you take more money but less people came, that isn't a better movie.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • what these numbers don't seem to keep into account it the increase in ticketprices... Also the production costs of the movies are again higher than in 2015. So comparing the years purely on boxoffice income is useless..

      Yes, and think of all those poor movie stars who took a pay cut in 2016 in order to bolster these numbers.

      Oh, wait...

      • Not to mention the studio execs and producers, the financiers that willingly accepted a lower payout to keep the dream that Hollywood is alive...

        C'mon, let's start a bailout campaign for them!

    • Number of tickets sold [statista.com] peaked in the early 2000s at over 1.5 billion, and has been on a very gradual decline to around 1.3 billion per year since then (for North America).

      The inflation-adjusted cost of a movie ticket [davemanuel.com] soared in the 1960s. So you could argue this either way - that the new price is the new norm, or that the theaters have been gouging us for 50 years. I wasn't around in the 1960s so can't really speculate as to what caused the rise in prices then. But in the last 40 years I suspect the adv

  • Sails under the black flag (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Because Piracy doesn't have the impact that the "study's" have projected and failed to take into account people who watch to see if its good then buys a copy or sees it in the cinema.

    Piracy isn't theft, nothing tangible is lost while it is morally wrong to view work you haven't paid for so walking by a busker and not putting in money or going to a "free" art galley, viewing art and not paying the artist or reading a book at a library and not paying the author.

    My morality is a little tarnished by my piracy b

    • The "study's" what? Come on, don't leave us in suspense...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The real thing is, people have a finite amount of money to spend on entertainment (and all products). If people didn't pirate movies, they'd watch TV or rewatch older movies they bought. And if people were prodded to buy the movie instead of downloading, they'd divert personal spending away from other entertainment to that, which means it's a losing game to spend taxpayer's money to enforce someone's copyright. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul as the saying goes.

  • If you look at the list of the most pirated TV series (releaseby TorrentFreak) and compare it to the most profitable TV series, you can almost mix up the two lists...

  • The films that cost a lot less to make, but eventually paid back their investors on the profits of small screening runs, video cassettes and DVDs are a dying, if not dead breed. The future is barnstorming blockbusters that make their budget back in the first week or so. The "long tail" was just a bullshit hypothesis that didn't pan out.

  • All about the money? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Wowsers ( 1151731 )

    The "piracy problem" is a sideshow, Hollywood (and music / TV industry) always wants more cocaine to shove up its, and politicians collective nose, while they all collude to sell defective products that the pirates fix (removing DRM from DVD / BluRay / data CDs passed of as Red Book Standard audio CDs etc).

  • Production dollars shifting to "right" content? (Score:3)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday January 02, 2017 @07:31AM (#53591667)

    It almost looks like what should be happening here is a kind of natural selection process where Hollywood shifts their money spent making theatrical films where the theater plays a major role.

    1) Animated films oriented towards kids. When our son was younger, we went to a lot of animated film because it was a reasonable family activity that got everyone out of the house.

    2) Visual-heavy blockbusters which do well in the various IMAX/3D formats or for which all but the most elaborate home theater isn't competitive with a large-scale cinema screen.

    They should make fewer traditional films oriented towards "theatrical" distribution because there's little reason to see these in a theater unless the theater experience (going out, meeting friends, a date, etc) itself is nearly more important than whatever it is you see.

    This money should be spent instead on making "mini-series" or other multi-episode films or streaming series, since it seems like the economics of a six episode serial is about the same as a 2 hour theatrical film.

    • It almost looks like what should be happening here is a kind of natural selection process where Hollywood shifts their money spent making theatrical films where the theater plays a major role.

      Exactly right. There is really not much point in going to a movie theater unless they can offer you something you cannot get at home. I have a 70" flat screen with a decent sound system in my house. That means that seeing a movie in a theater that doesn't involve a LOT of visual/audio wow-factor really is a pointless exercise. I can see a romcom in my living room and the experience is not lessened for it. But very few people have a home theater where you can really get the full experience of seeing God

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • "Despite"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bryan Ischo ( 893 ) * on Monday January 02, 2017 @08:13AM (#53591721) Homepage

    Just because the entertainment industry is making record breaking money doesn't mean that they are also not losing alot to piracy. The "despite" term in the Slashdot headline is inaccurate and clearly shows a leech slant.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just because people are watching without paying doesn't mean that the companies are losing money. Your accusation is inaccurate and clearly shows a slant.

      And we have evidence: despite the claims of trillions of dollars, which SHOULD show up here, they're doing better than ever. The EVIDENCE appears to support the companies are making MORE money with MORE piracy. Asserting the opposite is even LESS accurate than the headline, which only asserts the fact that despite the claims of piracy, they're still making

    • Re:"Despite"? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday January 02, 2017 @09:51AM (#53591955)

      Just because the entertainment industry is making record breaking money doesn't mean that they are also not losing alot to piracy. The "despite" term in the Slashdot headline is inaccurate and clearly shows a leech slant.

      There's a valid reason for this headline. This industry doesn't merely try and claim they're being damaged from piracy; they try and claim how they're being destroyed by piracy, which is total bullshit and does nothing more than justify the millions spent by this industry maintaining a legal army of jackbooted thugs to go on piracy witch hunts.

      They're not hurting, and as a result, exactly zero A-list actors have had to take a pay cut in the last few decades because of it. And if I want to get up early on a Saturday morning to see a opening-weekend movie, I can still pay less than ten bucks for it, so piracy isn't even impacting ticket prices.

      Gone are the days of struggling to find revenue in this industry even when making shitty movies, because there's always going to be a large enough consumer base for monopolies of mindless entertainment.

    • You cannot pirate experiences (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday January 02, 2017 @09:57AM (#53591979)

      Just because the entertainment industry is making record breaking money doesn't mean that they are also not losing alot to piracy.

      Actually it means EXACTLY that. Piracy is not necessarily a bad thing for the industry and the relationship between piracy and profits is complicated. The simplistic notion that every pirated copy equals a lost sale of equivalent value is demonstrably nonsense. Most pirated content would not have resulting in additional sales. It's been demonstrated that piracy in many cases actually INCREASES sales.

      Movie theaters aren't (or shouldn't be) selling a mere viewing of a movie. I can get that without involving them. They have to be selling something I cannot get elsewhere. A huge screen and an awesome sound system that I cannot replicate at home. Smarter theaters like Alamo Draft House sell pretty decent dining as well. Some theaters offer super comfy seats and other amenities. One near me has a bowling alley and bar. Many have video arcades. THAT is what I am paying for and it is not possible to pirate that experience. If all people wanted was to watch the movie on whatever crappy screen I could find then movie theaters would have been out of business a long time ago. Sure piracy might lose a few marginal customers but if their business model was so poor that piracy could make a real dent then they deserve to lose money.

      Movie theaters aren't in the business of selling movie viewings. They are in the business of renting large projection and sound systems and providing entertainment. The movie is just the loss leader to get you in the door. It's like Las Vegas. Nobody really needs to go there just to gamble. I have three casinos in my home town. I go there for an experience that I cannot get at those local casinos and that those local casinos cannot really replicate.

      • Piracy is not necessarily a bad thing for the industry and the relationship between piracy and profits is complicated. The simplistic notion that every pirated copy equals a lost sale of equivalent value is demonstrably nonsense.

        I absolutely agree with these statements. HOWEVER, it does not necessarily follow that since "every pirated copy != lost sale" THEREFORE "the industry isn't losing 'a lot' to piracy."

        I frankly don't know how the balance works. It's complicated, as you note. But you focus solely on theatre revenues and the "experience" of going out to see a movie on a large screen. But that's definitely NOT the only place people pirate -- in fact, one might argue that substitution is the LEAST likely scenario where peo

        • Thank you for filling out my statements with much greater detail. I agree with everything that you say and I appreciate your even tone and fair viewpoint.

          For those anonymous cowards who like to sling insults rather than making coherent statements, please read the parent post and be informed.

    • McDonald's is also losing sales to Burger King, Wendy's, Whataburger, and so on, and the venerable grocery store. Maybe we should outlaw grocery stores and close all other burger restaurants for copying McDonald's ideas?

      Private book, record, and movie sellers have always had to compete with the public library and the used book and record store. And now there's another competitor, the (relatively) new kid on the block, the Internet. Big Media would of course prefer that these alternatives be shuttered,

  • What happens when you actually make good movies that aren't all trailer fluff that people actually want to see. Even though I still haven't seen Suicide squad, I just felt that I had to see Captain America, Rogue One, and I was amazed at how well done Jungle Book was. I am sure piracy is still big, but those were really people who probably wouldn't pay for a movie ticket anyways.

  • Video Games (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    An the total box office for the world is $38.4B, in terms of box office revenue.

    Whereas the global video games revenue for 2016 was $101B.

    Just thought that'd be an interesting comparison to the Slashdot crowd.

    • And don't forget Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn for $26.2B, that puts things in perspective for me.
      A social network that no one actually uses is worth more than twice the entire revenue of of the movie industry in North America on a record breaking year.

  • I and many others make them lose billions by not watching at all anything that's not on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Oh, the horror!

  • The local theater chain near me now has "Prime Seating". They changed the color of the two rows of seats in the exact center of the auditorium, and CHARGE EXTRA to sit in them. If you sit behind those seats (which now have reclining mechs) you get the "priviledge" of having your knees attacked as if you were on an airliner.

    I'm waiting for them to bring in the pay toilets and parking meters soon.... :P

    • Sounds quite lucrative. Maybe someone should open a theater across the road, or maybe people are actually willing to pay for those seats so what you're experiencing is a pricing structure that is well suited to the economics of that cinema.

    • Damn, that sucks. The trend around here has been a positive one in a different direction. They've been converting theaters to assigned seating and 100% recliners with sectional row divides, so no matter where you sit you have a nice comfy seat without having to worry when getting your ticket, with the same ticket price. It's made movie-going about 100% more bearable for me and my girlfriend and I've noticed the theater capacity utilization seems much higher than it used to be.

  • They better have increased revenue, because the cost to make a movie will eat up a huge chunk of money...these days movies are more expensive than ever. Remember when Avatar was considered a big budget? Consider the LOTR movies or any of the X-Men movies.

    Captain America: Civil War cost somewhere around $250 million, so there goes a big piece of 11 billion. Finding Dory was probably about the same cost - there goes another piece. Batman v. Superman supposedly cost more than $400 million. They damn well be
  • They put out some good movies and the revenue goes up despite piracy. So crazy.
  • If it wasn't for piracy, they would have made $100 Billion
  • This is like saying the world population is going up in spite of homicides, so homicides are now ethical.

  • The losses are not the box office but the old fashioned video sales DVD/Bluray/Digital distribution. If the studios would just release their digital versions faster and with no DRM and drop the price to a more reasonable level they would make a lot more money. Right now, it's far easier to pirate and get what you want sooner and for free. This is how music piracy was before Apple iTunes started the turn around. You have to make it easier to be legit.

    The movies are released in theaters overseas sometimes

    • Television is even more messed up. Within an hour after a new show airs, it's been pirated and uploaded, indexed and ready for download. Commercials have been stripped and the quality is 720p or 1080p. Game of Thrones was the most pirated show ever. HBO Now is trying to change that and it's already making HBO some serious money. $15/mo with no contract gains you access to the entire HBO library including old shows like Sopranos and Deadwood. They need to expand international availability of HBO Now an

  • I don't NOT go to the cinema because I can get a copy of the film (legitimately or otherwise) on my PC. The experience is completely difference - it's a shared entertainment option that costs me £15, and almost entirely unrelated.

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