The summer movie season is finally over and the final tally is impressive—a record $4.5 billion dollars, a two-precent gain over last year’s record total. But those figures disguise what really happened. The number of tickets sold from May through Labor Day was only 552 million, the lowest number of admissions during a summer session since 1997 when just 540 million tickets were sold. Higher ticket prices, especially noticeable for the plethora of 3-D movies out this summer, masked a substantial drop in attendance.
