Spidey, Transformers Pump Up '07 B.O.

Thu., Mar. 6, 2008 11:26 AM PST by Josh Grossberg

Spider-Man—with an assist from the Transformers, some pirates and a flatulent ogre—has once again saved the day, er, year.

The Motion Picture Association of America has just released its annual report on the state of the movie business and thanks to those big-screen heroes the numbers are good.

Domestic ticket sales for 2007 rose to $9.63 billion, a 5 percent increase over the previous year's $9.14 billion. Worldwide box office meanwhile climbed to an all-time high of $26.7 billion. nearly 5 percent over 2006's $25.5 billion.

While the uptick reflected the "healthy" state of major studios, especially compared to 2005's downturn, much of the boost came from jacked-up ticket prices. The average admission cost $6.88 in 2007, yet another 5 percent increase (we sense a trend) over the $6.55 it set a moviegoer back in 2006. At the same time, attendance remained relatively the same, with 1.4 billion clicking through the turnstiles.

Meanwhile, the MPAA-signatory studioes—20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Walt Disney, Paramount, Sony and Universal—saw the price of producing and marketing a movie shoot up to a whopping $106.6 million, up more than 6 percent from 2006's $100.3 million.

Once upon a time, a movie with such a price tag was considered a blockbuster. Now, it's merely the norm. (To further break things down, production costs for an average movie were $70.8 million, while studios spent $35.9 million on advertising and prints.)

Meanwhile, the summer of 2007 marked the first time in box-office history that four popcorn-crunchers crossed the $300 million barrier together: Sony's Spider-Man 3, Paramount's Shrek the Third and Transformers, and Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. This, despite the skyrocketing problem of global piracy.

All in all, it was a good year for moviemakers.

"From the threat and eventual reality of a writers strike to the global impact of film theft to concerns over the economy, the film industry faced significant challenges in 2007," said MPAA boss Dan Glickman. "But, ultimately, we got our Hollywood ending."