Weekend box office

Summer’s over for the movie business, and there’s good news, and not so good news. Although the season wrapped with an unexpectedly weak Labor Day weekend, final numbers on the seasonal gross and ticket sales are in line with earlier projections. Thanks to higher average ticket prices, grosses set a summer record of about $3.9 billion, 2% ahead of the 2003 figure.

Admissions are down 1.5% from last summer, according to box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. That’s a tad better than the 1.8% projected earlier, but still the second consecutive summer that admissions have declined.

Movies overall grossed roughly $3.86 billion for May 7 through Labor Day, according to box office tracker Nielsen EDI. Exhibitor Relations, which uses slightly different methodology, had a higher figure of $3.96 billion.

Among studios, DreamWorks is the summer market share leader with 18% (five movies tracked), according to Nielsen EDI, followed by 20th Century Fox with 16.4% (12 movies), Warner Bros. with 14.5% (14 movies), Sony with 13.6% (10 movies) and Universal with 9.6% (seven movies) rounding out the top five studios.

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*--* Movie 4-day Total Venues Average Weeks (Studio) Gross (Millions) Per Venue 1 Hero (Miramax) $11.5 $35.2 2,092 $5,504 2

2 Without a Paddle $9.0 $39.9 2,756 $3,271 3 (Paramount)

3 Anacondas ... (Sony) $8.0 $23.9 2,905 $2,757 2

4 Paparazzi (Fox) $7.9 $7.9 2,115 $3,714 1

5 The Princess Diaries 2 $7.5 $85.5 3,139 $2,401 4 ... (Buena Vista)

6 Wicker Park (MGM) $6.8 $6.8 2,598 $2,625 1

7 Collateral (DreamWorks) $6.5 $88.9 2,348 $2,760 5

8 Vanity Fair (Focus) $6.3 $7.4 1,051 $5,965 1

9 The Cookout (Lions $6.2 $6.2 1,303 $4,773 1 Gate)

10 The Bourne Supremacy $5.3 $164.8 1,717 $3,095 7 (Universal)

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Sources: Nielsen EDI, Exhibitor Relations Co.