Box office finds recession legs (LAT, VAR, HWD)

By Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte

With the box office registering yet another up weekend, Hollywood is witnessing a phenomenon it hasn't seen in more than a decade - movies with legs. Indeed, judging by recent numbers, the recession has yet to make a big impact at the multiplex. Attendance in the first nine weeks of 2009, typically one of the slowest periods, is up 14.8% over last year, according to Media by Numbers. Box office revenue is up 16.5%.

Films like "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," "Taken," "Coraline" and "Gran Torino" have continued to attract audiences for several weeks after they debuted.

"Slumdog Millionaire," meanwhile, continues to be a must-see after 17 weeks in theaters.

Exhibitors and distributors attribute the upswing to a diversity of offerings that are drawing a wide range of moviegoers, The Los Angeles Times reports.

"Our industry continues to demonstrate that as long as there are appealing films that are connecting with the audience, we are very much recession-resistant," Mike Campbell, chief executive of Regal Entertainment Group, told the LAT.

Although the bump in ticket sales has been good for challenged theater operators, it means less for the movie studios because they earn the bulk of their profits from DVD sales, which have hit a huge slump.

Jeff Blake, head of worldwide marketing and distribution at Sony Pictures, said he has been surprised at how films are holding.

"We haven't seen this since 'Titanic,' where multiple pictures are doing three, four or five times their opening weekend gross," Blake told the LAT. "Titanic" remained the top-grossing picture for 15 consecutive weeks.

Blake attributes films� longevity to a broader audience. In the past several years, young moviegoers typically have turned out for a film on opening weekend while "Now you're also getting an older audience going week two and three," Blake said.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers, said gross receipts for a movie typically drop 40% to 50% in the second weekend and films that hold up for five or six weeks are "really unusual."

Still, the box office will be tested over the next several months as studios roll out a spate of films that approach the level of summer blockbusters. Among them, notes Variety: "Race to Witch Mountain" (March 13), "Duplicity" (March 20), "Monsters vs. Aliens" (March 27), "Hannah Montana: The Movie" (April 10) and "State of Play" (April 17).

"You are going to have a lot of goodwill built upon on the part of moviegoers," said Disney president of domestic distribution Chuck Viane. "It also means more people are seeing trailers for summer films."

Over the decades, there have been plenty of winter and spring hits, but Hollywood usually dismissed them as flukes, says Variety.

One exec maintains that a key remaining challenge is convincing filmmakers and talent that it can be a good thing to avoid summer. "Part of the issue is perception. Talent thinks that a studio doesn't believe in their movies."