Movies are popular in recession

Those long lines at area movie theaters aren’t your imagination. Attendance has picked up. Seems everyone’s looking for a little escape from the recession — even if it’s just two hours in the dark.

“When times are tough economically, the movies are still very affordable,” said Justin Scott, a spokesman for Kansas City, Mo.-based movie giant AMC Entertainment, which has 307 theaters in the United States and Canada, including 12 in metro Atlanta. AMC is one of the top three movie chains in the world.

“Movies are an escape. It’s a two-hour mini-vacation from everyday life,” Scott said. “You can’t duplicate the immersive, communal environment of a movie theater by running a DVD [at home].”

Movie attendance and box office sales have grown in five of the last seven recessions, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners, a Washington, D.C.-based group of 600 members representing 30,000 screens in the United States and Canada.

NATO first noticed a bump in movie-going during this recession about a year ago. But it became starkly obvious during last September’s credit crisis. Box office sales rose 10-15 percent in the months between September and December, according to NATO spokesman Patrick Corcoran.

“For 2009, we’re up 9 percent for box office and about 5.5 percent for attendance,” Corcoran said. (Separate figures for metro Atlanta were not available.)

In the first four months of 2008, only one film grossed more than $100 million. This year, five films have grossed more than $100 million during the first four months.

One other change the recession has wrought at theaters: what time people go to the movies. Attendance at matinees, usually a cheaper ticket, has soared as people look for ways to save.

While people continue to complain about the price of a movie ticket, Corcoran noted that it’s still cheaper than going to a concert or sporting event. Even DVDs have taken a hit during this recession. DVD sales were down about 9 percent last year and are expected to see a similar decline this year. (DVD rentals, however, are up, a sign that people are changing their spending habits.)

Given the choice, who wouldn’t rather see “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” with all its ear-splitting sound effects, on a 40-foot movie screen than a 42-inch flat screen?