Hollywood Reclaims Its Audience

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Maybe Hollywood tried harder. Or maybe it didn’t try quite so hard.


Whichever the strategy, the movie business climbed its way out of a dismal pattern of declining audience to more solid footing in 2006, the New York Times reports. With most of the year’s movie receipts counted, the box office is up 6.5 percent over last year, and attendance has risen nearly 5 percent.


This weekend was just the latest litmus test of Hollywood’s overall health. As young men and other gamers lined up to buy Sony’s PlayStation 3, the box-office pulse beat strong. Warner Brothers, despite having one of its roughest years in recent memory, scored with the animated penguin musical, “Happy Feet,” which took in an estimated $42.3 million at the domestic box office.


And “Casino Royale,” the overhauled James Bond franchise with the pug-faced Daniel Craig in the lead, took in an estimated $40.6 million at the box office for Sony Pictures Entertainment. The movie took in another $42 million in a handful of major markets abroad (including Britain), evidence that the studio’s big-budget bet on a grittier Bond would pay off.



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