Congrats America, you went to the movies...
January 2nd, 2003
Moviegoers in North America flocked to cinemas in record numbers in 2002 hoping that a comic book hero and a wacky Greek family could make them forget economic and political troubles in the real world.
Ticket sales for the year reached $9.37 billion, up 12 percent from 2001's record haul, according to data issued this week by box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The number of tickets sold jumped about eight percent from last year to 1.6 billion, breaking a record set in 1998.
But with the economy sputtering, the pressure was on Hollywood executives to deliver big hits for their corporate parents, and they succeeded by sticking to a relatively safe diet of sequels or feature versions of familiar characters.
The year's top movie was "Spider-Man," a comic book adaptation starring Tobey Maguire as a crime-fighting webslinger. It set a new three-day opening record of $115 million in May, and ended up with $405.7 million.
"Hollywood's reliance on franchise films paid off big time," said industry analyst Gitesh Pandya, editor at BoxOfficeGuru.com (http://www.boxofficeguru.com).
And movie fans can expect more of the same in 2003, as studios roll out two sequels to "The Matrix" the third installments of the "Lord of the Rings" and "Terminator" franchises, as well as follow-ups to "Legally Blonde," "Charlie's Angels," "Bad Boys" and "X-Men."
Comic book fans are also salivating over "The Hulk," which comes out in June.
"Creatively, it makes for a lot of reruns," noted Pandya. "But if people keep coming out, it means people are being entertained."
(Source: Variety)
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