Domestic box-office revenues for 2010 won’t quite hit last year’s record-setting haul, but they’ll be awfully close.
Total movie-ticket sales will reach $10.556 billion, the tracking agency Hollywood.com said Tuesday. That’s a slight decrease from the $10.6 billion total from 2009, but it’s also only the second time that the annual box office has crossed the $10 billion mark.
At the same time, total attendance was down 5.36 percent from last year. That’s the biggest percentage drop year over year since 2005. This will also be the second-lowest attended year of the decade.
It looked as if 2010 might have set a new record at the beginning of the year, when 2009’s “Avatar” was still going strong well into February and March, said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. James Cameron’s 3-D sci-fi epic boasts the biggest box-office take in history, collecting $2.7 billion worldwide, nearly $750 million of which came domestically.
“I started figuring the wheels might come off this thing when the summer season was faltering, and by the end of the summer it was the lowest-attended summer in over a decade,” Dergarabedian said. “Then I thought, maybe we can make it up in the holiday season, with ‘Tron,’ ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Tangled’ and some other big movies on the way, but I didn’t know if there would be enough juice in the box office to make up for the loss of the summer, and it just didn’t happen.”
“Toy Story 3” was the highest-grossing film released in 2010, earning nearly $415 million. It’s one of many movies that were offered in 3-D or IMAX 3-D, which come with higher average ticket prices — which is partly what helped boost the annual total as far as it got, even as attendance sagged.
“Without that, we’d be looking at revenues that may not even have surpassed $10 billion,” Dergarabedian said.
But he has hope for another record in 2011, when sequels to the hit comedy “The Hangover” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise are due, along with the highly-anticipated comic book-inspired “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
“My biggest lesson learned from this year,” Dergarabedian said, “is it’s always about the product.”
Disney Pledges $15 million In L.A. Fire Aid As More Celebs Learn They’ve Lost Their Homes
The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More