Hollywood Races Toward It First $10 Billion Year

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 30, 10:46AM EDT · Published Dec 23, 5:10AM EST

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The movie theater business was supposed to be ruined by TV. Then the VCR was supposed to draw audiences from movie houses, then DVDs, VOD, cable, and internet video. None of that has happened, at least not based on box office numbers.

Hollywood.com predicts that total movie ticket sales will hit $10 billion later this week. The website, which tracks movie revenue reports, says, “Through this past Sunday, December 20, year-to-date revenue stood at $9,964,000,000, just $36 million short of crossing the $10 billion mark.”

There are several potential blockbusters which could make the second half of December ticket sales figures especially strong. One is the new futuristic movie “Avatar”, which is already doing well. “Up In The Air” staring George Clooney is out next week as are “Sherlock Holmes” with Robert Downey Jr. and “It’s Complicated” with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep. “Nine”, a movie about a film director which has an all-star cast, is also expected to do well.

Mark Twain’s quip might apply to the movie theater business: “Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.