By the time the page is turned on the last day of the year, Hollywood insiders will have much to cheer about: despite a dismal economy, box office grosses for the year are expected to hit US$10 billion for the first time in history.
Although that's a staggering figure, and something to celebrate at a time when other sectors - from restaurants to real estate - are taking a hammering, there is something else to keep in mind: as experts point out, just because US$10 billion was spent on movie tickets during the year doesn't mean that more people were going to the movies. Instead, rising ticket prices - anywhere around US$3 to US$4 a pop - were responsible for the uptick.
Still, that's hardly something to quibble over. Instead, the year has proved - if nothing else - that it's almost impossible to predict what is going to be a howling success and what will be left whimpering on the sidelines and barely able to get out of the gates. Take, for instance, Terminator Salvation. Directed by McG, who is so of the moment that he doesn't even need a full name (which is Joseph McGinty Nichol), the movie was hotly anticipated - not surprising, given its pedigree. And, with a reported production budget of US$200 million, expectations were high. But the film brought in only about US$125 million in the US (althoughit fared much better overseas). Similarly, Land of the Lost, starring A-lister Will Ferrell, netted only US$65 million globally, making it an unmitigated disaster. Even so, it was a good year for some who didn't expect it. 'The biggest surprise hits of 2009 were The Hangover and Paranormal Activity,' says Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com and box office analyst for CNN International. 'The Hangover was a terrific comedy that clicked with movie-goers and it had amazing playability month after month, something we don't see much of any more.'
The movie - starring little-known actors and made for a comparatively miniscule US$35 million, went on to make almost US$460 million worldwide. Horror flick Paranormal Activity, which was shot in a week by an Israeli videogame designer and had a production budget of US$11,000, brought in more than US$107 million in the US alone.
And there were other high points. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a broad comedy with Kevin James, was a surprise smash, as was the Liam Neeson action drama Taken and District 9, another small-budget science fiction film that went on to make more than US$200 million worldwide.
As always, some stars had better years than others: Sandra Bullock scored with romantic comedy The Proposal and her newly released football drama The Blind Side. The combined take so far of those films is more than US$350 million, giving the actress the two biggest hits of her career in one year, and no doubt making up for the colossal disaster that was All About Steve, a very unfunny comedy that made a paltry US$34 million at the box office.