7 ms·

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well b

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your couch. Box office ticket sales say people go to the theatre less often, not that people watch movies less often. Unless you specifically want "the movie theater experience" or you absolutely have to see a certain movie at launch you're not going to the theatre to watch a movie. The number of movie views per person may well be down (or up), but box office ticket sale counts don't really answer that question.

ghaff 1y ago
And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality. When I was an undergrad ages ago, going to the on-campus movies were a non-trivial part of the weekend experience. My understanding is that they're mostly dead at this point.
- quickthrowman 1y ago
  > And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality. The first two I agree with, the third one is a stretch. The quality of programming that HBO was putting out in the mid 90s and 00s is far higher than any streaming series that has ever been released.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    I don't have an HBO sub at the moment. But I do find quite a few mostly serialized TV shows on streaming.
nozzlegear 1y ago
I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be. So now we just wait for a movie we want to see to become available on Apple TV, and then we rent it.
- RandomThoughts3 1y ago
  > once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a tv. It’s not only the bigger screen and better sound system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience. Sadly, I have to say I agree with the article however in that 95% of the movies produced in the USA during the past two decades could as well not exist. Thankfully, the rest of the world still exist.
  - briliantbrandon 1y ago
    > The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience. I very much agree with this sentiment, unfortunately post-COVID that transformation has often been a negative one in my personal experience. This is entirely anecdotal, but I feel like there is an increase in the frequency with which I have had a public movie experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other, or even yelling in response to the events on screen. I feel like when a movie comes out now that I want to see, I am in a constant tension between dealing with a potentially rowdy or obnoxious public, or a less ideal viewing experience at home.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      > the frequency with which I have had a public movie experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other, or even yelling in response to the events on screen. I will not go to a theater that does not have a well established policy of not tolerating this. For me, that's Alamo Drafthouse.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Tastes vary. I was on the executive committee of my college film group yers ago and going to weekend films was a lot of fun. These days? Maybe an Imax film is a once a year experience. I keep in touch with a lot of people I was on the film committee with and I'd say the opinion is pretty much split between people who still go to the theater a lot and those who basically never do like myself.
ToucanLoucan 1y ago
^ All of that, and the COST. The last time the wife and I did a movie night for a big new flick we were excited about, we spent almost $80 when all was said and done for tickets and snacks for the TWO OF US! Fucking absurd.
x0x0 1y ago
Also, I know this sounds like get off my lawn, but people behaved better. Or maybe they didn't didn't, but the penetration of flashlights kept in people's pockets wasn't 100%. Which is pretty annoying now that a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn.
- nilamo 1y ago
  > a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn A ticket is less than $15 during the expensive times, and $10 off peak. Where in the world are you seeing movies? I get it, I don't go to the theater anywhere near what I used to, but the nice one near me with a bar and a player piano in the lobby is still nowhere near $75 for two tickets.
  - probably_wrong 1y ago
    I know there are smarter ways to invest your cinema money, but I checked how much I could spend in a fancy cinema in Munich, Germany for the OPs experience and came up with 19€ per ticket (balcony plus a popular superhero movie), plus 16€ for a (big) popcorn and two drinks, for a total of 54€ or ~USD 63. I agree that the average experience could easily cost half that, but the point of how expensive cinema can be (imagine adding a second popcorn or, God forbid, nachos!) is a good one.
  - Finnucane 1y ago
    $40 for popcorn.
  - xoxxala 1y ago
    Pricing greatly depends on location. Full-price tickets are $28.99 in New York for non-IMAX or special showing. Los Angeles is $22-24. My local theater in a small Arizona town is $10 full-price and $5 off peak. We just saw Superman in a Las Vegas IMAX and it was $85 including fees for three tickets. $75 for two seems perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY once you include concessions.
    - ProfessorLayton 1y ago
rightbyte 1y ago
Why do you bring up 4:3 as a bad property? Honestly I find watching 4:3 easier on the eyes and mind since you know where to look.
- Cpoll 1y ago
  You might be an outlier. Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. Furthermore, the 4:3 version of a movie is almost always a crop from the intended ratio, so information and intent is lost.
  - ogurechny 1y ago
    > almost always Well, you've just revealed which kind of “content” you watch (by revealing which kind you don't). A lot of well known films were shot on full frame, and never had any other variant. Frankly, seeing them in theatres “as intended” would require inventing a time machine, or not missing some special film screening event, as they were made quite some time ago. Also, back then, when they still had to make film prints for distribution, and had to deal with wide screen theatres and regular screen theatres (you couldn't just ignore the other half, and lose a potentially significant share of income), both filming and editing took that into account. Shots in one aspect ratio were usually composed to look god when cut to the other, and professional cameramen (working with both types) constantly kept that in mind anyway. Same for possible TV screening versions later. Now compare that to the modern nameless editors working for giant corporations which pretend that it's an impossible task that has never been done, and either crop automatically, or let the “smart computer” toss a coin to shift responsibility. Edit: By “theatres” I've meant types of film projectors installed in their halls. Some had multiple, switchable lenses, etc., some had only one. Keep in mind that to show a multi-reel movie without pauses you need at least two projectors (or a special feeding system for spliced together film if the number of screenings is worth the work), and a third one is often added for redundancy and required maintenance work, so there's a lot of investment to make already.
  - petters 1y ago
    > Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3
owlninja 1y ago
Plus the 30 minutes of previews and messages from the theater.
- waltbosz 1y ago
  That's now part of "the movie theater experience". I miss the days of the slideshows that would play while people where getting seated for the film. I loved the occasional trivia slides.
- 7thaccount 1y ago
  This is so frustrating for me. By the time the movie actually starts I'm exhausted and ready to leave. It's also the same commercials over and over. The previews are rarely something I want to see too.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  A local non chain theater has no commercials before movies. Just the trailers. Makes me want to only go to that theater.
pixl97 1y ago
Also it doesn't take skipping many movies now to be able to put a decent sound system with your 50"+ TV. There are still some fun things to do at particular theaters, like Twisters in 4dx. But there is little compelling reason to otherwise.
privatelypublic 1y ago
This doesn't account for the decline starting in 2002. I'd like to see piracy numbers though- particularly the "official" mppa and riaa numbers
- JeremyNT 1y ago
  Back in the year 2002... Internet access was widely available. Blockbuster video was a thing in almost every town. Netflix mail service was getting big, making huge back catalogs available. DVD players often included S/PDIF out for surround sound, which was becoming a more common part of home theaters. Plasma TVs were becoming far more common, dramatically improving picture quality and size versus CRTs. HBO and other premium channels had already gone digital with set top boxes (that also often supported surround sound), and the death of analog broadcast TV was (theoretically) scheduled for 2006. So while I probably couldn't find any single specific reason for a peak in 2002, we had a whole series of tech improvements in place that were slowly chipping away at the edges in quality and content availability.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    DVD player sales were also just starting to boom; they overtook VCR sales the next year.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Honestly I wish I had put "(or maybe a new fangled DVD)" instead of "or DVD" because people seem to interpret that as "DVD wasn't good enough to have any impact on movie sales" rather than "either VHS or DVD at the time were still shit compared to the options now so does a decrease in ticket sales really guarantee a decrease in movies watched?" DVD adoption (and later Blu-Ray) was certainly a huge factor in the gradual changes and 2002 was when people really started amassing them at home https://i.imgur.com/OHZ9H69.png https://i.imgur.com/OHZ9H69.png. I'm sure piracy has a role as well too, but most of the deltas listed were also gradual changes which had their start prior to 2002, same as piracy. The only thing special about 2003 is it's the year the momentum changed, not that it's the year something brand new was introduced.
shaky-carrousel 1y ago
Nah, I don't buy this. In 2002 your "low quality DVD" was peak quality for us. Same way the blocky renders of PS1 was peak video-gaming for us. It only looks low quality when compared with today. For us at the time, it was magnificent.
- gretch 1y ago
  > For us at the time, it was magnificent. At the time, did you think the quality of that DVD was about the same as the experience you got in the theater? The parent post is arguing that the gap in experience between home theaters and theater theaters has shrunk immensely. Right now I have a 85" wide OLED in my living room - That's not a thing that existed in 2002
  - Broken_Hippo 1y ago
    No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time. We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs. The "movie theater experience" wasn't worth the hassle for anything but movies with good action and graphics - things like comedies didn't get uniquely better at the theater. It didn't need to be about the same or better, it just needed to be good enough to appreciate that you weren't dealing with the downsides. The theaters weren't that good back in the late 90's (in fact, most of the ones I visited in my teens have renovated to be more current sometime around 2010 or something). All people needed was more realistic alternatives. More and more folks were getting cable, DVD players were more affordable, and places like walmart sold DVDs for a cheaper price than you'd pay for a full price movie. Netflix started in the late 90s too. Yes, I know folks could rent videos before this. I remember walking down to rent NES games when I was young - right next to the movies at the grocery store. This was a far cry from the stores of the late 90s, though. They got better (and worse).
    - crazygringo 1y ago
      > No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time. We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs. I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. No it wasn't. Movies on TV weren't glorious at all. They weren't "amazing." They were what you made do with. And when a classic movie played at your local arthouse theater you grabbed a ticket because it was so much better. The image quality. The sound. Seeing the whole image rather than a bunch of it hacked off. That's why we went to the theater. Not just for action. For comedies too. Which is why comedies made tons of money at the theater!
busterarm 1y ago
I put almost $20k into a home theater setup. And with what I bought and how I set it up it punches way above its weight. I only have to wait 3 weeks to 3 months to be able to watch a movie at home now. Why would I go to a theater!? I used to make exceptions for independent films when I lived near an IFC theater, but streaming/vod services now have me covered there too and I don't live near one anymore.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Now you should sell tickets to people to come watch movies at your house.
freejazz 1y ago
Okay, what happened in 2003 then?
- zamadatix 1y ago
  There was a ~3% delta in absolute ticket sales. I take it you really mean "so why wasn't 2003 the peak year instead of 2002" to which I'd say "I'm not trying to explain one needs a 55" widescreen 4k TV before you'll ever consider going to the movie theater less often, rather that this kind of difference over time is why you can't say movie theatre ticket sales in 2002 were higher so people must therefore have watched more movies then."
  - freejazz 1y ago
    No, my question is why did it start going down in 2003 for the reasons you cited, which seem to be contemporary
    - zamadatix 1y ago
      Not sure I follow, why should there be a single year people started e.g. buying bigger TVs?
      - freejazz 1y ago
        I didn't say there was, but what do you think changed that year that they went down? It's your assertion, not mine...
        zamadatix 1y ago
        Now I'm doubly confused... where did I assert what about 2003? My comment is about why you can't look at movie theater ticket sales between 2022 and 2002 as evidence alone to say people have stopped watching movies as much. I don't think I ever said anything about why ticket sales peaked in 2002 specifically? If I had to throw a guess at the largest contributors I'd say 2002-2003 is when people really started buying lots of DVDs for the first time as well as the start of the modernization of TV sets. Even though much better versions of these were common 20 years later I feel they very likely helped make the absolute peak of ticket sales be 2002. This is getting more into speculation of what did happen rather than saying ticket sale data is not enough to support the conclusion though, which is what my comment was focused on.

ghaff 1y ago

And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality. When I was an undergrad ages ago, going to the on-campus movies were a non-trivial part of the weekend experience. My understanding is that they're mostly dead at this point.

quickthrowman 1y ago
> And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality. The first two I agree with, the third one is a stretch. The quality of programming that HBO was putting out in the mid 90s and 00s is far higher than any streaming series that has ever been released.
- ghaff 1y ago
  I don't have an HBO sub at the moment. But I do find quite a few mostly serialized TV shows on streaming.

nozzlegear 1y ago

I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be. So now we just wait for a movie we want to see to become available on Apple TV, and then we rent it.

RandomThoughts3 1y ago
> once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a tv. It’s not only the bigger screen and better sound system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience. Sadly, I have to say I agree with the article however in that 95% of the movies produced in the USA during the past two decades could as well not exist. Thankfully, the rest of the world still exist.
- briliantbrandon 1y ago
  > The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience. I very much agree with this sentiment, unfortunately post-COVID that transformation has often been a negative one in my personal experience. This is entirely anecdotal, but I feel like there is an increase in the frequency with which I have had a public movie experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other, or even yelling in response to the events on screen. I feel like when a movie comes out now that I want to see, I am in a constant tension between dealing with a potentially rowdy or obnoxious public, or a less ideal viewing experience at home.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    > the frequency with which I have had a public movie experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other, or even yelling in response to the events on screen. I will not go to a theater that does not have a well established policy of not tolerating this. For me, that's Alamo Drafthouse.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Tastes vary. I was on the executive committee of my college film group yers ago and going to weekend films was a lot of fun. These days? Maybe an Imax film is a once a year experience. I keep in touch with a lot of people I was on the film committee with and I'd say the opinion is pretty much split between people who still go to the theater a lot and those who basically never do like myself.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

^ All of that, and the COST. The last time the wife and I did a movie night for a big new flick we were excited about, we spent almost $80 when all was said and done for tickets and snacks for the TWO OF US! Fucking absurd.

x0x0 1y ago

Also, I know this sounds like get off my lawn, but people behaved better. Or maybe they didn't didn't, but the penetration of flashlights kept in people's pockets wasn't 100%. Which is pretty annoying now that a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn.

nilamo 1y ago
> a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn A ticket is less than $15 during the expensive times, and $10 off peak. Where in the world are you seeing movies? I get it, I don't go to the theater anywhere near what I used to, but the nice one near me with a bar and a player piano in the lobby is still nowhere near $75 for two tickets.
- probably_wrong 1y ago
  I know there are smarter ways to invest your cinema money, but I checked how much I could spend in a fancy cinema in Munich, Germany for the OPs experience and came up with 19€ per ticket (balcony plus a popular superhero movie), plus 16€ for a (big) popcorn and two drinks, for a total of 54€ or ~USD 63. I agree that the average experience could easily cost half that, but the point of how expensive cinema can be (imagine adding a second popcorn or, God forbid, nachos!) is a good one.
- Finnucane 1y ago
  $40 for popcorn.
- xoxxala 1y ago
  Pricing greatly depends on location. Full-price tickets are $28.99 in New York for non-IMAX or special showing. Los Angeles is $22-24. My local theater in a small Arizona town is $10 full-price and $5 off peak. We just saw Superman in a Las Vegas IMAX and it was $85 including fees for three tickets. $75 for two seems perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY once you include concessions.
  - ProfessorLayton 1y ago

rightbyte 1y ago

Why do you bring up 4:3 as a bad property? Honestly I find watching 4:3 easier on the eyes and mind since you know where to look.

Cpoll 1y ago
You might be an outlier. Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. Furthermore, the 4:3 version of a movie is almost always a crop from the intended ratio, so information and intent is lost.
- ogurechny 1y ago
  > almost always Well, you've just revealed which kind of “content” you watch (by revealing which kind you don't). A lot of well known films were shot on full frame, and never had any other variant. Frankly, seeing them in theatres “as intended” would require inventing a time machine, or not missing some special film screening event, as they were made quite some time ago. Also, back then, when they still had to make film prints for distribution, and had to deal with wide screen theatres and regular screen theatres (you couldn't just ignore the other half, and lose a potentially significant share of income), both filming and editing took that into account. Shots in one aspect ratio were usually composed to look god when cut to the other, and professional cameramen (working with both types) constantly kept that in mind anyway. Same for possible TV screening versions later. Now compare that to the modern nameless editors working for giant corporations which pretend that it's an impossible task that has never been done, and either crop automatically, or let the “smart computer” toss a coin to shift responsibility. Edit: By “theatres” I've meant types of film projectors installed in their halls. Some had multiple, switchable lenses, etc., some had only one. Keep in mind that to show a multi-reel movie without pauses you need at least two projectors (or a special feeding system for spliced together film if the number of screenings is worth the work), and a third one is often added for redundancy and required maintenance work, so there's a lot of investment to make already.
- petters 1y ago
  > Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3

owlninja 1y ago

Plus the 30 minutes of previews and messages from the theater.

waltbosz 1y ago
That's now part of "the movie theater experience". I miss the days of the slideshows that would play while people where getting seated for the film. I loved the occasional trivia slides.
7thaccount 1y ago
This is so frustrating for me. By the time the movie actually starts I'm exhausted and ready to leave. It's also the same commercials over and over. The previews are rarely something I want to see too.
jimbokun 1y ago
A local non chain theater has no commercials before movies. Just the trailers. Makes me want to only go to that theater.

pixl97 1y ago

Also it doesn't take skipping many movies now to be able to put a decent sound system with your 50"+ TV. There are still some fun things to do at particular theaters, like Twisters in 4dx. But there is little compelling reason to otherwise.

privatelypublic 1y ago

This doesn't account for the decline starting in 2002. I'd like to see piracy numbers though- particularly the "official" mppa and riaa numbers

JeremyNT 1y ago
Back in the year 2002... Internet access was widely available. Blockbuster video was a thing in almost every town. Netflix mail service was getting big, making huge back catalogs available. DVD players often included S/PDIF out for surround sound, which was becoming a more common part of home theaters. Plasma TVs were becoming far more common, dramatically improving picture quality and size versus CRTs. HBO and other premium channels had already gone digital with set top boxes (that also often supported surround sound), and the death of analog broadcast TV was (theoretically) scheduled for 2006. So while I probably couldn't find any single specific reason for a peak in 2002, we had a whole series of tech improvements in place that were slowly chipping away at the edges in quality and content availability.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  DVD player sales were also just starting to boom; they overtook VCR sales the next year.
zamadatix 1y ago
Honestly I wish I had put "(or maybe a new fangled DVD)" instead of "or DVD" because people seem to interpret that as "DVD wasn't good enough to have any impact on movie sales" rather than "either VHS or DVD at the time were still shit compared to the options now so does a decrease in ticket sales really guarantee a decrease in movies watched?" DVD adoption (and later Blu-Ray) was certainly a huge factor in the gradual changes and 2002 was when people really started amassing them at home https://i.imgur.com/OHZ9H69.png https://i.imgur.com/OHZ9H69.png. I'm sure piracy has a role as well too, but most of the deltas listed were also gradual changes which had their start prior to 2002, same as piracy. The only thing special about 2003 is it's the year the momentum changed, not that it's the year something brand new was introduced.

shaky-carrousel 1y ago

Nah, I don't buy this. In 2002 your "low quality DVD" was peak quality for us. Same way the blocky renders of PS1 was peak video-gaming for us. It only looks low quality when compared with today. For us at the time, it was magnificent.

gretch 1y ago
> For us at the time, it was magnificent. At the time, did you think the quality of that DVD was about the same as the experience you got in the theater? The parent post is arguing that the gap in experience between home theaters and theater theaters has shrunk immensely. Right now I have a 85" wide OLED in my living room - That's not a thing that existed in 2002
- Broken_Hippo 1y ago
  No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time. We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs. The "movie theater experience" wasn't worth the hassle for anything but movies with good action and graphics - things like comedies didn't get uniquely better at the theater. It didn't need to be about the same or better, it just needed to be good enough to appreciate that you weren't dealing with the downsides. The theaters weren't that good back in the late 90's (in fact, most of the ones I visited in my teens have renovated to be more current sometime around 2010 or something). All people needed was more realistic alternatives. More and more folks were getting cable, DVD players were more affordable, and places like walmart sold DVDs for a cheaper price than you'd pay for a full price movie. Netflix started in the late 90s too. Yes, I know folks could rent videos before this. I remember walking down to rent NES games when I was young - right next to the movies at the grocery store. This was a far cry from the stores of the late 90s, though. They got better (and worse).
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    > No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time. We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs. I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. No it wasn't. Movies on TV weren't glorious at all. They weren't "amazing." They were what you made do with. And when a classic movie played at your local arthouse theater you grabbed a ticket because it was so much better. The image quality. The sound. Seeing the whole image rather than a bunch of it hacked off. That's why we went to the theater. Not just for action. For comedies too. Which is why comedies made tons of money at the theater!

busterarm 1y ago

I put almost $20k into a home theater setup. And with what I bought and how I set it up it punches way above its weight. I only have to wait 3 weeks to 3 months to be able to watch a movie at home now. Why would I go to a theater!? I used to make exceptions for independent films when I lived near an IFC theater, but streaming/vod services now have me covered there too and I don't live near one anymore.

jimbokun 1y ago
Now you should sell tickets to people to come watch movies at your house.

freejazz 1y ago

Okay, what happened in 2003 then?

zamadatix 1y ago
There was a ~3% delta in absolute ticket sales. I take it you really mean "so why wasn't 2003 the peak year instead of 2002" to which I'd say "I'm not trying to explain one needs a 55" widescreen 4k TV before you'll ever consider going to the movie theater less often, rather that this kind of difference over time is why you can't say movie theatre ticket sales in 2002 were higher so people must therefore have watched more movies then."
- freejazz 1y ago
  No, my question is why did it start going down in 2003 for the reasons you cited, which seem to be contemporary
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    Not sure I follow, why should there be a single year people started e.g. buying bigger TVs?
    - freejazz 1y ago
      I didn't say there was, but what do you think changed that year that they went down? It's your assertion, not mine...
      - zamadatix 1y ago
        Now I'm doubly confused... where did I assert what about 2003? My comment is about why you can't look at movie theater ticket sales between 2022 and 2002 as evidence alone to say people have stopped watching movies as much. I don't think I ever said anything about why ticket sales peaked in 2002 specifically? If I had to throw a guess at the largest contributors I'd say 2002-2003 is when people really started buying lots of DVDs for the first time as well as the start of the modernization of TV sets. Even though much better versions of these were common 20 years later I feel they very likely helped make the absolute peak of ticket sales be 2002. This is getting more into speculation of what did happen rather than saying ticket sale data is not enough to support the conclusion though, which is what my comment was focused on.