New Box Office Records!

In dollars, if not ticket sales...

We can all jump and cheer as new records at the nation's turnstyles were set this summer:

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp.'s ``Spider-Man 3'' and ``Shrek the Third'' from DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. helped fuel a record summer box office for Hollywood, with sales of $4.15 billion eclipsing the 2004 mark.

Sales from May 1 through Labor Day are projected to rise 7.8 percent from a year earlier and break the $3.95 billion U.S. record set three years ago, researcher Media By Numbers LLC said today in an e-mailed statement.

Tickets sold fell 7.3 percent to 605.8 million from the 653.4 million record set in 2002, according to Media By Numbers. They rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Studios released 14 sequels over the summer, the busiest time for movie-going. A record 14 films released since May 1 topped $100 million in sales, according to Encino, California-based Media By Numbers.

Even with the happy news, I think the trend-line to watch here is that the numbers of tickets sold isn't going up in any big way. Long-term, in fact, they're going down.

Hardly surprising with all the new distractions and platforms available to the average consumer (the average consumer being a fifteen-year-old male). There's video games, i-pods, i-phones, computers and big-screen teevees.

Who's got time to traipse to the corner AMC? (Thank God a sizable component of those who do hike into the stadium theaters showing animation.)