Hollywood movies suffered an unprecedented 80 per cent slump in box office revenue in North America in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic closed movie theatres and studios held back the release of scores of new films.
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12 | the publication reaches you by | Bahrain NewsThe 2020 revenue marked an almost 40-year low, according to historical data from Box Office Mojo.
Comscore did not release worldwide data for 2020, but Variety said global returns slumped some 71 per cent.
The pandemic forced movie theatres to close around the world in mid-March, bringing some small and big chains like AMC Entertainment to the brink of bankruptcy.
Theatres have still to reopen in the biggest US markets of Los Angeles and New York City.
Some 274 movies – including blockbusters like “No Time to Die,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and the ninth “Fast and Furious” action film – were moved to 2021 release dates, according to the Comscore report.
That left Sony Pictures cop caper “Bad Boys for Life,” released in January last year, as the top-earning movie in North America for 2020 with $206 million.
In 2019, “Avengers: Endgame” ruled the domestic box office with $858 million.
Thriller “Tenet” from Warner Bros, which hoped to tempt movie-goers back into theatres in the summer, took in just $58 million in the US and Canada.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with Comscore, said that 2020 revenue – much of it from drive-in venues – was grounds for hope given that some industry observers had feared the figure would be even smaller.
“That should be extremely encouraging to anyone who was worried that movie-going would not come back at all,” Dergarabedian said.
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The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).This excludes the non-Arab state of Iran. All of these nations except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
