The Ebb & Flow of the Movie Business
The New York Times has published a spectacular infographic which explores the last 21 years of U.S. box office receipts and highlights the seasonality of the movie business. The use of a bi-directional y-axis slows comprehension but otherwise it is in an excellent visualisation of the data.
This is a snippet from 1986, the year that gave us Top Gun, Ferris Bueller, Aliens and Ruthless People. Back then a movie could hang around for months.
In recent years, however, movies have become much more transient cultural phenomena, often burning brighter but for shorter periods of time. This snippet comes from the 2007 summer season:
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