Domestic box office is up for '06 - Variety 1/4/07

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Domestic box office is up for 2006

Movie biz finishes year with $9.13 bil

'The Devil Wears Prada' was an overachiever for Fox.

By Ian Mohr
Variety
January 4, 2007

Thanks in large part to a raft of overperforming midlevel pics -- from Fox's "The Devil Wears Prada" to Universal's "The Break-Up" -- domestic B.O. saw a 3.4% uptick from a year ago.

Overall movie biz finished the year with $9.13 billion in receipts, according to Nielsen EDI, up from 2005's $8.83 billion.

But last year's totals couldn't beat the $9.21 billion tally posted in 2004, when "Shrek 2," "Spider-Man 2" and "The Passion of the Christ" topped the charts.

Powered by "The Da Vinci Code," as well as "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and "Casino Royale," Sony took the market share crown with 18.59%.

Studio hit $1.69 billion in ticket sales.

Disney, however, managed to land just a few percentage points behind -- at 16.1% -- while releasing less product than its competish.

Studio also had the top two films, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and "Cars."

Rolling out 25 pics, as opposed to Sony's 30, the Mouse House generated $1.47 billion in domestic ticket sales.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=13&cs=1