New stats show holiday shoppers spent more this season than last
Some Christmas cheer for retailers and good news for the economy today. Consumer spending during the period of November first through Christmas Eve rose 3.6 percent. That’s a heck of a lot better than what happened last year, when fears of economic disaster had shoppers holding tight to their money and thus sales plunged 2.3 percent, according to a report on Reuters.
For more on those earlier figures, analysts’ reaction to them, and a look at some of the retail winners and losers click here for the full story.
The money just keeps rolling in for the Hollywood Studios
Is there a recession in Tinseltown? You wouldn’t know it by the way the big studios are making the green at the Box Office. The Christmas weekend turned out to be the best ever, bringing in $270 million, up 34 percent over last year, according to Box Office Mojo. Thanks to a slew of crowd pleasing flicks like “Avatar,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” and “It’s Complicated.”
The previous record for the most profitable weekend was July 18-20, 2008, when “The Dark Knight” and “Mamma Mia!” opened.
Meanwhile, the Warner Bros. Pictures Group announced today that it reached a ninth consecutive $1 billion-plus year for the distribution of domestic and international films. Warner is projecting a domestic Box Office of $2.13 billion and foreign returns of $1.86 billion, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A whole lot of local folks are hoping see some of that studio cash get pumped into new film productions right here in the Southland, real soon, like in 2010.
