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Don't let Roger Ebert fool you. BOP does not understand why he is so desperate to convince people that there is no box office slump occurring. The numbers don't lie, though. Ticket sales are off 11% from 2005, and there is no disputing the fact that the entire process of movie delivery has changed. Nothing represents this better than the fact that any technophile with a new iPod or PSP has the ability to watch a movie wherever they are at the moment. You could watch Seven Days in Tibet while climbing a mountain in Tibet if so inclined. These same consumers, the non-traveling ones, have the ability to watch their choice of three different DVDs at any time without doing anything more than opening the mail. The fallout from this unprecedented movie availability is only now being appreciated in cinemas across North America.

The most telling signs that box office behavior was altered came during the summer of 2005. Prior to the release of Fantastic Four on July 8th, overall box office receipts declined every week of the summer. That's right, I said every week. For a period of 19 consecutive frames beginning the week after President's Day, 2005 failed to match the intake of 2004 each and every weekend. Even worse, after the brief spike from Fantastic Four and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in mid-July, box office once again precipitously declined. In the time leading up to Labor Day weekend, overall box office was down 24 out of 27 times. That means for a period of just over half-a-year, box office fell from the previous year's frame almost 90% of the time. Despite what Roger Ebert says, that's a slump.

In every disaster, there is that defining moment which is a microcosm of the unfolding drama. In the case of summer 2005 box office, we have two such disastrous snapshots. Amazingly enough, they came on consecutive weekends. The first sacrifice at the altar of evolving consumer behavior was The Island. The film was directed by Michael Bay, a man whose critics are numerous but whose box office exploits are the stuff of myth and legend. He had never had a financial failure in his entire career. When he finally went down in flames, though, he did it in style. His $122 million production earned roughly 10% of that tally back on opening weekend on the way to paltry final receipts of just under $38 million. Comparison films given to describe this behavior involved words such as Ishtar and Cutthroat Island. Perhaps it's fitting that the director of Pearl Harbor would be assailed in such shockingly emphatic fashion. The most amazing aspect, however, was how quickly Bay had company in the Land of Monumental Failures.

Rob Cohen was the director of xXx and The Fast and the Furious, each of which opened north of $40 million. His next project was a film starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, arguably the hottest name in Hollywood. The problem was that the production in question, Stealth, had been cast before Foxx's star had rapidly ascended. As such, he was only a small part of the movie. The actual stars were semi-unknowns Josh Lucas and Jessica Biel. The marketing department faced an uphill battle from the get-go, but few expected the title to fail so completely. Like The Island, this $130 million production earned barely 10% of its budget opening weekend. At $31.7 million, its final receipts were somehow several million lower than the bombing Bay production. So Stealth goes down as the slightly bigger loser financially in theatrical release. This is the box office equivalent of being the winning date in a game of Dogfight.

What have we learned thus far? Summer 2005 box office saw 24 out of 27 weekends of box office decline from the previous year while containing two of the largest financial disasters ever. What was the cause of this box office behavior? Apologists would have you believe any number of suggestions. Some argued that box office had been too good for several years and a correction was due. A few pointed to the unexpected success of The Passion of the Christ in 2004, arguing that its presence artificially inflated pre-summer receipts. Those were deemed to be irrelevant. They just shouldn't count for some nebulous reason that never was fleshed out. BOP analysts always got a particular kick out of that one.

The most frequent target in the Blame Game, however, was movie quality. Pundits pointed out that there just wasn't the usual assortment of quality offerings at theaters in 2005, especially compared to 2004. While this last one wins the closest to the pin competition, it's still innately flawed. Are we really to believe that audiences felt that 2005 films were inferior to 2004 titles 24 out of 27 times? Of course not. Instead, it's a much more obvious explanation. Consumer behavior has changed.

Emerging technologies allow viewers to watch television programming at their convenience through the magic of TiVo. The aforementioned Netflix marketing concept is a masterstroke of business which almost single-handedly destroyed Blockbuster's perceived monopoly. Similarly, PPV sales are at an all-time high. This is to be expected in combination with the usage of TiVos and other PVRs. A person may order a movie, then watch it at his/her convenience. The very dynamic of supply and demand has been fundamentally altered in this manner.

And then there is that tiny little object which drives Netflix, the DVD. Historically, consumers went to films because they were not inclined to wait for a production's release on home video. Since the advent of DVD, however, the time frame between a title's theatrical release and its availability at the local Wal-Mart has changed from an extended period of time to an average of three months. We have even witnessed a few late September/early October titles make their way onto DVD in time for Christmas. In short, there is no longer the same incentive for consumers to see a movie before it exits theaters. If they miss it, there is an easy fallback method for consumption in place.

Finally, the gap between a title's exodus from cinemas to its availability for purchase is nonexistent. Studios don't mind this, since they get a much larger share of the profits from DVD sales than from the shared contracts they have with exhibitors. Consumers love that they may quickly and economically add favorite titles to their person catalogues. In point of fact, the only people getting screwed in all of this are theater chains. That dynamic will only grow more notable in coming years, as studios further tinker with the day and date of release. Sadly, this means that the changing box office behavior we saw in 2005, as exemplified by Stealth and The Island, is not a fluke. Box office malaise is a trend.