p2pnet - rss feed: Hollywood Christmas goldmine
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Hollywood is being bled dry by file sharers and counterfeiting criminals.
Day after day, support workers, writers, set makers, office staff, you name it, are being thrown onto the streets, according to Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).
Yet, somehow, they continue to report truly mind-boggling, eye-popping revenues without the slightest trace of embarrassment and without a single reference to these huge discrepancies by the mainstream media.
Global film audiences, "boosted the worldwide box office to an all-time high of $25.8 billion, compared to 23.3 billion in 2005," an 11% increase, the MPAA announced joyously at the beginning of the year.
It said US box office, "rebounded in 2006 to finish the year at $9.49 billion in revenues compared to $8.99 billion in 2005 - a 5.5% increase from the previous year, with 1.45 billion movie tickets sold in the U.S., ending a three-year downward trend in ticket sales,".
But, in the summer, ticket sales were expected to be a paltry $606 million or so, "only the sixth-best in modern times," said the MPAA.
The top five North American movies were:
1 Superbad - $18,000,000
2 The Bourne Ultimatum - $12,400,000
3 Rush Hour 3- $12,300,000
4 Mr Bean’s Holiday - $10,100,000
5 War - $10,000,000
And as p2pnet noted, "all of them have been freely and easily available on the P2P networks since day one, if not before".
Now, "The three-day weekend box office was up 34% over the same frame last year, while Christmas Day generated an estimated $65 million in box office receipts vs. $60 million a year ago, according to Paul Dergarabedian’s Media by Numbers," says Variety.
"That would seem to bode well for coming days as the Christmas-to-New Year stretch historically produces strong box office grosses."
It continues:
On Christmas Day, Fox sequel "Aliens vs. Predator — Requiem" and MGM’s "The Great Debaters" bowed to strong results, while Disney’s "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" continued to discover plenty of loot.
"Book of Secrets," which reteams director Jon Turteltaub and thesp Nicolas Cage, grossed $65.4 million from 3,823 theaters in its first five days, according to Rentrak. Sequel was one of five films opening last Friday.
The pic maintained its winning ways on Christmas Day as a slew of other pics bowed. Runner-up for the day was Warner Bros.’ holdover "I Am Legend," while "Aliens vs. Predator" opened at No. 3, posting an estimated one-day gross of $9.5 million from 2,563 theaters.
"Debaters," directed by and starring Denzel Washington, grossed an estimated $3.6 million from 1,164 in its Tuesday debut, placing No. 6 for the day and sporting a per-screen average of $3,096.
Also new that day was Sony’s family entry "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep," which grossed an estimated $2.3 million from 2,772 to hit No. 9.
So, given the MPAA’s claims that file sharing is devastating the movie industry, its efforts to thwart camcording pirates must be paying off handsomely, otherwise these movies wouldn’t be enjoying such tremendous success. Correct?
Actually, all of the aforementioned are readily available on the P2P networks, and have been for some time.
Also See:
all-time high - Hollywood reports record revenues, March 6, 2007
p2pnet - Hollywood’s eye-popping summer earnings, September 1, 2007
Variety - ‘Treasure’ finds box office gold, December 26, 2007
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December 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
We were lucky to make a profit this year with all the rampant piracy that’s been going on, and piracy severely cut into our profits.
This was a very good year, but it could have been a great year. Things will get better once we start suing all the people we find distributing our movies online…. MWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
December 27th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
While MPAA Rep may say this with tongue in cheek, trying to get a responce or debate going on, all to real is the industries attitude into this exact expression of feeling.
For that among other reasons, is why I don’t and won’t go to the movies, buy dvd movies, or even rent movies anymore. Nor do I recieve satellite, cable, nor public tv any longer. Instead I choose other forms of entertainment that don’t involve this activities. I will not support such an industry that goes after victims in such a manner. Nor do I believe I am alone in this boycott. Giving money to the industry in the form of sales only supports this ongoing type attitude of sue your customer and I don’t agree with it.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Well… Hollywood deserve what’s coming to em’. That’s what you get when you “rubber ear” a lone coder who has more basic intelligence than all the “suits” in Hollywood combined. See what happens when you don’t listen guys ??
You were originally approached openly and honestly by a superior brain and you fucked it !
How much money have you spent on lawyers/MPAA/RIAA staff/agents/processes/procedures all in vein. You are going to lose and you are going to lose HUGE !! You wanted a war - now you’ve got one.
Your only chance is to start to be more conciliatory - but I doubt you’ve got the honesty to even do that !