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  3. Hollywood racked up another "record" year at the box office. But the higher ticket sales mask fundamental issues in the U. S. mo

Hollywood racked up another "record" year at the box office. But the higher ticket sales mask fundamental issues in the U. S. mo

admin2010-05-25  95
问题      Hollywood racked up another "record" year at the box office. But the higher ticket sales mask fundamental issues in the U. S. movie industry, where the so-called blockbuster strategy is causing movies to open with big tallies that fall off faster than in previous years. Movie ticket sales reached an estimated 8.35 billion in 2001, up 8.4% from 7.7 billion in 2000, the largest gain since 1998. Moreover, the number of tickets sold — a more reliable indicator — rose to an estimated 1.49 billion, according to box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. The strong sales were aided by the post-Christmas, pre-New Year weekend. Although many observers thought people would stay away from the theaters after the 9•11, the numbers have been up 5% industry-wide since then from year earlier levels.
     Those positive trends, however, gloss over deeper problems facing the Hollywood studios and movie theater chains, where real audience growth has been marginal. Box-office totals have nearly tripled during the past decade, while the number of tickets sold has risen 30%, indicating the box-office record is driven by higher ticket prices, not increase in movie attendance. A more dangerous development, at least for theater operators, has been the trend toward movies opening to large box-office figures during the first weekend and then quickly trailing off. Theater operators earn most of the money from movies playing in their theaters after the second week. Studios, in contrast, collect the majority of a movie’s ticket receipts the first week.
     But, for the Hollywood studios that distribute the bulk of the movies seen by the public, the blockbuster strategy of putting as many marketable high profile movies into theaters as possible will continue in 2002 "I call it the year of the sequel," says Paul, a box-office analyst, noting the coming year’s lineup includes Men in Black 2, Stuart Little 2, Spy Kids 2, second installments for Harry Potter and Lord of the Ring. "Studios are playing it safe," he says. Such hyper-marketed movies can open big at box office, but they don’t tend to hold up in subsequent weeks, as the core movie-going audience — teenagers and adults in their 20s flock to the next "big" movie. Some of last year’s largest openers, such as Planet of the Apes, The Mummy Return and Jurassic Park saw their box-office number plunge by 50% or more the second weekend.
     One possible outcome is that the decades-old relationship between studios and theaters will undergo changes. If the studios persist in pushing "blockbuster" movies, then the traditional system of the studios taking a larger share of the box-office receipts in the first weeks could be revised to something more equitable.  Studios, however, would be expected to fight any effort to revamp the current system.
The fundamental issue in the U.S. movie industry is that
选项 A、the box-office figures have been declining ceaselessly without any improvement.
B、as the ticket price is going up rapidly these years, fewer people can afford it.
C、big movies open with a large box-office figures, but decline quickly after a short period.
D、high quality movie are becoming marginal and the core of the movie-going audience is limited.
答案C
解析 细节题。根据第二段提到的“A more dangerous development，at least for theater operators，has been the trend toward movies opening to large box-office figures during the first weekend and then quickly trailing off．”，可见大片在第一周的票房收入不错，但是到了第二周就迅速降低，故正确答案是C  A  中…without any improvement不对，B  和D  无法从原文中推断出。
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