Cinema Takings Dented By Crap Films

From The Telegraph:-

DVD rentals and cinema takings collapsed in the three months from July to September as people “watched the Olympics instead”, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Output in the “motion picture” sector fell 9.4pc in the quarter, the steepest decline in more than five years, and – along with a drop in online shopping – was the clearest evidence of the impact the Olympics had on economic activity.

Firstly, If you look at BoxOfficeMojo, the most reliable source of movie box office, you see that July 29, August 3-5, and August 10-12 were all actually quite good, with August 3-5 being the biggest box office week of the year at the cinema, and compared to previous years, higher. August 10-12th was low, but when you look at the films, you had a nothing of any significance showing except The Dark Knight Rises which had already played itself out.

I'm not sure about DVD rentals, but let's bury this "everyone was watching The Olympics" nonsense. Most weekdays, the audiences for the Olympics were around 1 million higher than Eastenders (around 9.5m compared to Eastenders 8.5m). The Saturday night broadcasts were 9m and 12m, not far off, on average, what Strictly Come Dancing gets. The only exceptions were the 100m final, the closing ceremony and the opening ceremony, two of those were on a Sunday, which isn't a big DVD rental night.

The main problem was that the movies were poor. Once The Dark Knight Rises had run out of steam, you didn't have much else. There was the sleeper hit Ted, but most of the kids films didn't fare well. The other big action movies sank and none of the kids movies set the world alight. Offer up some lousy products, don't be surprised if people don't take them.