Film Production, Distribution and Audiences

Film Production and Distribution

The top 10 film distributors owned 93.7% of the 2010 market share in 2010. The top 6 distributors are known as "The Majors" and they dominate the UK and US film market; these companies own over 80% of the film distribution market themselves. The top majors are Warner Bros (18.3% with 31 films released) and 20th Century Fox (15.9% with 28 films released).

The cinema market can be broken down into three sections:

-High-budget tentpoles, or films that are designed for a large audience.
-Mainstream movies on wide release.
-Specialised films that require a more selective and considered release.

High-budget tentpoles, or "event movies," attempt to appeal to a large audience; The film industry call this audience 'the four quadrants audience' e.g everybody - children, young adults, parents, male and female.

Examples of tentpoles for 2012 are:

-The Avengers (Marvel/Disney/Paramount)
-Men In Black 3 (Sony Pictures)
-Ice Age 3 (Dreamworks)

Many tentpole movies, particually the Avengers, use merchandise to generate publicity and money. The Avengers has a deal with toy maker Hasbro to produce an offical line of Avengers toys to coincide with the movie release, annouced in Feb. 2011 (see previous blog for more details.)
Puss in Boots is an example of a film with a merchandise line that is produced along with a children's fast food menu; The restaurant McDonalds produces a themed-happy meal pack with a children's meal and free toy oftern from a children's blockbuster film which generates interest about the movie from the children.

More examples of past McDonalds toys produced can be found at:

http://www.kathysfastfoodtoys.com/

In 2010, film-based toys include toys themed from the films Megamind, Transformers, Shrek Forever After, Star Wars, How To Train Your Dragon, Alvin And The Chipmunks (The Squeakquel) and Madagascar. A full list can be found at:

http://www.kathysfastfoodtoys.com/McD2010.html

Similally, in 2010, Burger King produced its own ranged of movie-themed toys such as Iron Man 2 and Marmaduke.

The Avengers has a merchandise deal with Hasbro, Funko and Mondo to produce toys and sports-based products. See some of the products here:

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/?a=52053


The biggest budget ever for a film is $300,000,000 for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides while the most profitable movie is Avatar ($1,154,959,491 profit).

Source: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.php

Here is a link to cinema tickets sold and top movies of each year (1995-1011): http://www.the-numbers.com/market/

In addition, here is a chart of the top 100-selling movies on DVD (2011): http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2011.php




Film Audiences

UK film admissions

2011: 157,930,152
2009: 173,461,335
2007: 162,542,120
2005: 164,666,563
2003: 167,255,261

2011 experienced a 10-year low in cinema admissions (down by an average of around 10,000,000).
62% of people said they went to the cinema at least once last year, up by 2% on the year before; 19% said they went to the cinema at least once a month.
-On average, each person watched 81 induvidual films in 2010.
-80% of these viewings were on TV and only 4% in the cinema.
-Viewing on demand owned only 1% of the film audience and DVD/Blu-Ray the remaining 16%.
(Note- These figures do not take into account film viewing from illegal sources, such as illegal pirate website downloads)
-The total 2010 film audience is estimated at 4,609 million people.
-The main cinema audience for the top 20 films were aged 7-24 (about 48%)