Record B.O.

When you're fragrant with money, it's all good.

... North American box-office revenue has hit an all time record year-to-date, a significant achievement after last year's downturn.

Through Tuesday, revenue for 2015 stood at $6.863 billion, narrowly besting the $6.783 billion earned between Jan. 1 and Aug. 3 in 2013.

"Look at the huge franchise films we've had this year," said Rentrak analyst Paul Dergarabedian. He also credited titles such as American Sniper, Cinderella, Fifty Shades of Grey and Kingsman: The Secret Service.

So far, the top-grossing title of the year domestically is Universal's Jurassic World with a T. Rex-like cume of $632.2 million, the second-best showing of all time behind Avatar ($760.5 million) and Titanic ($658.8 million); Disney and Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron ($456.9 million); Universal's Furious 7 ($351 million); Disney and Pixar's Inside Out ($330.4 million); and Universal and Illumination's Minions ($289.6 million). ...

Kindly note that animation of one type or another makes up a huge part of the above mix of films.

Happily, the pure animated features have not cannibalized each other. More happily, the idiot trade press is no longer talking about one animated feature chewing into the box office of the other because "too many animated features" is an invention of analysts with minimal basis in reality.

It's like saying "live action movies are cannibalizing each other." It's parrot talk, designed to side-step the reality that animation and live-action formats are delivery systems, not content. And audiences go to movies based on content. When they want to see a movie, they go see it. Period. Some day the "analysts" who claim to know the intricacies of the motion picture market might admit this truth, but I tend to doubt it.