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Quest for best seller means lots of returned books
Friday, June 03, 2005
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, The Wall Street Journal
[url]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05154/515469.stm[/url]
There are two Time Warner Book Group warehouses on the outskirts of
Indianapolis. Although separated by only an eighth of a mile, between
them stretches a gulf of disappointment.
One building, dubbed the "happy warehouse" by one publishing
executive, is filled with about 60 million hardcover books and
paperbacks waiting to be distributed to stores across the U.S. The
other is the "sad" warehouse. Piled high are some of the 20 million
books returned every year by retailers. Many will be resold at cut-rate
prices. Two million to four million will have their spines sliced off
before being piled into a recycling machine the size of a Dumpster,
chewed up and spat out as bales of paper.
Hollywood's box office flameout
[url]http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/10/new.../summer_movies/[/url]
Movie fans are loving DVDs, but not theaters. Maybe it's time for a
big change in movie viewing.
May 11, 2005: 9:53 AM EDT
By Krysten Crawford, CNN/Money staff writer
Johnny, Hayden and Angelina are Hollywood's big bets this summer. Will
it be bliss or bust at the box office?
Johnny, Hayden and Angelina are Hollywood's big bets this summer. Will
it be bliss or bust at the box office?
The sixth and final
The sixth and final "Star Wars" installment promises to be a
blockbuster. It could also lure the masses into trying other summer
movie fare.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - There are all kinds of possible explanations
for why the first weekend of the summer box office was so depressing.
Maybe Orlando Bloom, the young heartthrob who starred in "Kingdom of
Heaven," released on Friday, and Paris Hilton, the wealthy
hotel-heiress-turned-gossip-generating-minx featured in "House of Wax,"
aren't ready for the big time.
Maybe the Idaho residents who got a light snowfall over the weekend
didn't realize that summer had started and it was time to beeline to
the movies.
Perhaps audiences are even more fickle given rising ticket prices and
the knowledge that any movie out today will likely be available on home
video before summer's end.
Or maybe, it's a combination of all three: uninspiring movies, a
shockingly early start to the season, and finicky fans.
"What sells nowadays is excitement," said Gitesh Pandya, a movie
industry analyst with BoxOfficeGuru.com. "A pretty good movie isn't
good enough anymore." To hit at the box office, "a movie has got to be
spectacular," he said.
This weekend's opening receipts sank a startling 22 percent from last
year, according to industry tracker Exhibitor Relations. Analysts had
expected year-over-year numbers to be down, given that 2004 had a
stronger inaugural weekend lineup, but not this far down.
It's early yet to declare a box office crisis.
Analysts say that either one of the summer's two anticipated
blockbusters, "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" from
Lucasfilm Ltd. and "Madagascar" from DreamWorks Animation (Research),
could turn mass stupor into a box office stampede. Both films debut
later this month, with "Star Wars" up first on May 19. (For more on
"Star Wars," click here.)
Still, while no one knows how the summer box office will fare, there
are reasons for Hollywood to worry.
The box office has slumped for 11 consecutive weeks, with year-to-date
ticket sales down 5.4 percent from last year even as ticket prices rose
a moderate 3 percent, to around $6.40 on average, according to
Exhibitor Relations. Theater attendance has tumbled about 8 percent.
"This was the worst weekend of the year at the box office and the
slowest start to summer we've seen in years," said Paul Dergarabedian,
president of Los Angeles-based Exhibitor Relations, who estimates
summer ticket sales account for about 40 percent of annual receipts.
And with sales down year-to-date, "there is a lot riding on this
summer," said Dergarabedian.
The slump is likely to continue this weekend, too. Jane Fonda's return
to the screen in "Monster-in-Law" isn't expected to jolt audiences
awake.
Going down, down, down.
[url]http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/10/new.../summer_movies/[/url]
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