World box office defies expectations and grows in 2006

Piracy and the explosion of video on the web did not impact people's hunger to see films on the big screen last year, with world box office takings up 11% to an all time high of $25.82bn. After a dip in 2005, the US box office also rose 5.5% to $9.49bn according to figures from the MPAA.

 The average cost to make and market a major studio film was $100.3 million in 2006.  This includes $65.8 million in production costs and $34.5 million in marketing costs. The total number of films released in the US continued to increase in 2006 with 607 films released, an 11% increase over 2005's 549 films. Internet advertising rose to 3.7% of a films budget  from 0.9% in 2002.