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Bloomberg
The Oscars: Hollywood drowns its sorrows

Today Hollywood anoints a new class of darlings as nominees for the 2015 Academy Awards are announced. The glitzy celebration of last year’s best films and performances, televised next month, will obscure the unglamorous reality that 2014 was a bad year for movie-going. Around 1.28 billion tickets were sold in North America, according to Box Office Mojo (which tracks the film business), fewer than in any year since 1995. Several big-budget releases, such as “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and the latest in the “Hunger Games” franchise, failed to wow audiences. Nowadays if a film is bad, there’s no hiding it; criticism on social media can seal its fate. And the competition for people’s time is as relentless as a duel in an action movie: the quality of television programmes has increased, and technology has allowed viewers to enjoy movie-like experiences in their own homes. Just ask those who watch the Oscars on their flat-screen televisions.

Jan 15th 2015
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