Hollywood's dire warnings about the effect of piracy seems to be far and wide of the mark, as the movie industry enjoyed a spectacular 2015 in terms of ticket sales and profit.
With two of the top four all time box office hits being released in 2015 ('Jurassic World' and 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'), it was a record year for box office takings in North American and around the world.
For the first time ever, ticket sales in North American broke through the $11 billion barrier, up 9% from a year ago. Globally, box office receipts were also at a record breaking $38 billion, with China, a previous (and perhaps current) piracy hotbed, now being the second largest market in the world.
The actual number of tickets sold also increased, by more than 5%, suggesting that it's not just the rise in ticket prices that's accounting for the higher takings.
All of this comes despite 2015 being another massive year for piracy, with the increasing threat of easy to use piracy platforms such as the "Netflix-for-pirates" Popcorn Time enjoying huge popularity among eager movie pirates.
It appears for now though that piracy's effect on the movie business can be contained, and certainly seems to be more optimistic than the previous predictions of bankruptcy, job losses and even the entire end of movie-making business.
Home
