Movie Theatre Attendance Dropped To Lowest In 23 Years In US

A new report has a lot of interesting information about the health of the movie theatre business--and some of the results might surprise you. Starting with total revenue, the total US box office haul for 2017 was $11.1 billion, which is down 2 percent from 2016's best-ever $11.6 billion. The global box office, meanwhile, reached a record $40.6 billion thanks in parts to gains posted in China, according to the Motion Picture Association of America's newest report (via Variety).

As for attendance, the number of tickets sold in the US dropped 6 percent to 1.24 billion, marking the lowest figure since 1995. Ticket prices rose in 2017, which explains how the total stateside revenue dropped less significantly (down 2 percent) on a percentage basis.

There are a number of other interesting takeaways from the MPAA's report. These include:

• Spending on home entertainment (i.e. video streaming and other digital channels) rose by 11 percent to $47.8 billion. Spending in the US jumped by 20 percent, with international spending rising by 41 percent.
• "Frequent moviegovers," those who go to the theatre at least once a month, accounted for 12 percent of US movie-watchers, but made up almost half of all tickets told.
• 24 percent of the North American population don't watch movies in the cinema.
• Some US demographic details were shared, too:
  • Latinos watched 4.5 movies per year in the cinema, compared to Asian movie-watchers (4.3). Caucasians accounted for 59 percent of all moviegoers.

Go to Variety to see a full breakdown of the MPAA's report. One of the next big movies of 2018 is Avengers: Infinity War, which comes out at the end of the month. We are morbidly curious about who might die in the film--here's a rundown of who might not make it out alive.