Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

We're really tired of obsessing on CI-NE-MA, but THE ANSWER MAN has trouble with a QUESTION:

Q. If this was such a great year for movies, why are box-office receipts so far down from last year, even though admission prices are at an all-time high? Do you feel that there is such a growing disconnect between Hollywood and America that Hollywood had better wake up or face serious consequences?

Cal Ford, Corsicana, Texas

A: No, I don't, because the "box-office slump" is an urban myth that has been tiresomely created by news media recycling one another. By mid-December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, receipts were down between 4 percent and 5 percent from 2004, a record year when the totals were boosted by Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $370 million. Many of those tickets were sold to people who rarely go to the movies. 2005 will eventually be the second or third best year in box-office history. Industry analyst David Poland at moviecitynews.com has been consistently right about this non-story.

We note the cliche "urban myth" and the defensive use of "history", plus the sneer at all those Philistines who saw WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! The Jesus Slasher Movie and will never see another again (we can't blame them). Of COURSE the movie BIZ set a BOX-OFFICE RECORD in 2004. It might NOT have if tickets were still A QUARTER EACH. The best guesses (and there may be few good ones) are that weekly movie attendance in the late 1920s was at least FOUR TIMES what it is today; in per-capita terms it's been in decline since 1950. Of course what gets THE ANSWER MAN mad is that if people aren't going to the movies that insinuates the movies aren't so hot, and we know that ISN'T true from Rog's many THUMBS UP. As for Dave, we've tried to read his musings, but he strikes us as a VOLOKHHEAD of film -- wordy and conceited. We have better ways to waste our time -- like NOT GOING TO THE MOVIES.