Movies Really Are Recession-Proof

Back in the fall, as it became clear just how deep this recession was going to be, there was a lot of talk that this time around, the entertainment industry, and in particular Hollywood, wasn’t likely to be as “recession-proof” as it was reputed to be. (Box-office receipts rose in six of the last seven recessions, and the Depression, famously, was the heyday of movie attendance in America.) The reason proffered for Hollywood’s newfound susceptibility to an economic downturn? The Internet, of course. With so many free pieces of entertainment available on the Net, the argument goes, people were much less likely to schlep to the theatre and shell out eleven bucks for a film.

So much for that idea. Box-office receipts over the Christmas/New Year’s period were up almost twenty per cent from a year ago, with a wide range of films—from “Marley and Me” to “Benjamin Button” to even critical bombs like “Seven Pounds”—all doing solid business. In part, this may be simply because there are so many watchable movies out there—even by Hollywood standards, the studios seem to have inordinately backloaded their schedules this year. But it also seems likely that the idea that the movies are, relatively speaking, recession-proof is right, and that in tough economic times Hollywood really does offer escapism (not just in an interior sense, but in a physical sense—the theater is an escape from work and home) for a relatively small price. Certainly every time I went to the movies in the past two weeks, the theatres were crowded, and it was impossible to resist the thought that this was the right business to be in when times got tough.