After last year's disaster that found the domestic box office slipping by 6 percent, this year it looks like it will finish between a 3 to 5 percent increase.
In typical Hollywood spin, they're making it look like everything is back to business as usual, and they're over the tough last year they had.
While it would have been a huge problem if they lost ground again, this isn't really much of a show of strength whatsoever as measured by any industry, across any business.
First, they still didn't make it back to the 2004 sales they had. That means that for two years in a row, they've lost ground on growth in the industry.
Second, it took more films to produce the numbers than last year produced, as last year, according to boxofficemojo.com, they tracked 544, while this year there were 578.
The point is that they were able to stop the erosion this year, but there has been no growth for a couple of years now; meaning that this isn't a rebound by any stretch of the imagination.
Brandon Gray, president of boxofficemojo.com, said "The good news is the bleeding stopped, but there was no serious rebound."
Spin it any way you like, it was still not a breakout year for the industry. I think next year will be much more telling as a number of big-name sequels will be offered, which will give a much better look at whether the industry is truly on the rebound in theater sales. That, and the growing competition for eyeballs by the Internet, which will be one year further along in rich media, will give a much more accurate look at the condition of the industry. This story is far from over.
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