After three dismal holiday season months in which the box office was down from the previous year, January 2012 came in 10 percent higher than January 2011.
Hooray for Hollywood, right?
Hardly. Topping January 2011 is like beating a 4-year-old at arm wrestling: Easy. Jan. 2011 was horrendous.
In fact, this “improved” January, with a domestic box office total of $831 million according to boxofficemojo, was still down 21 percent from Jan. 2010 and 18 percent from 2009. And remember, that’s even with ever-increasing ticket prices. And inflated 3-D prices.
The month’s biggest hits were actually holdovers from December, most notably “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” which brought in $80.7 million, for a running total of $203 million domestic and over $600 million worldwide. If Tom Cruise walks away from this franchise, he’s crazy.
None of the month’s big earners were Oscar best picture nominees. In fact neither of the top nomination recipients — “Hugo” and “The Artist” — even cracked $13 million. So while January may have been better than last year, no one’s breaking out the bubbly yet.
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