October will be long remembered in the movie industry as the worst month for North American movie ticket sales in over eight years... and Hollywood is pointing its wrinkly old finger straight at Master Chief as the cause of it all.

Total cinema ticket sales in North American for the weekend of October 5 stood at $80 million- the lowest intake for the an October weekend since 1999, Advertising Age reported today.

And not surprisingly, industry executives are pointing at blockbuster game Halo 3, which was released in the US on September 26, as the reason for this drought. Halo 3, which analysts predicted would push Microsoft gaming division into profit did just that, earning over $170 million on only its first day on sale, and has gone on to earn Bungie and Microsoft over $300 million in profit.

Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, commented, "The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas. This could last for several weeks."

If Halo 3's outstanding success really is to blame for poor consumer interest in cinema realease this months, Hollywood has reason to be even more fearful this month. Grand Theft Auto IV, which is delayed until 2008 is actually being predicted to outsell Halo 3 2-to-1 since then.

Which, at the end of the day, can only be good news for us gamers, even if it's at Hollywood's expense.

Tags : Advertising Age : bungie : Grand Theft Auto : Grand Theft Auto 4 : Grand Theft Auto IV : Halo : halo 3 : hollywood : Master Chief : microsoft : Movies : rockstar games : take two interactive

Comments

By: Ganondorf

On: 10:10 Oct 16th, 2007
Offline

lol, poor hollywood but it might be true. You never know the cinema veiwers probably have a huge percentage of gamers mixed in with them so something like this would cause a dent in the cinema industries' profit.

By: Corrine

On: 11:33 Oct 16th, 2007
Offline

Maybe the bigger certain games get, the more the movie industry will pay attention; there are a wealth of good movies, but this could promote them to try harder.

...Or we could see more game-to-movie transitions, who knows?

By: Samuel

On: 12:27 Oct 16th, 2007
Offline

Right now, I have a picture in my head of master chief standing victorious over the broken corpses of hollywood stars, about to delvier the final crushing blow to Tom Cruise's over-inflated head...

Back to reality, YAY for Halo. This is truly the harkening of a new era for gaming.

By: ApplesauceNinja

Video Game Chat Member Avatar

On: 05:35 Oct 16th, 2007
Offline

Or, and maybe this is just me, Hollywood's overall production is 99%
total crap. For every 10 movies that come out, there are maybe 1-2
I'm actually interested in seeing, and half of what I actually do watch
ends up being marginal at best. Most of my friends feel the same
way.

By: Dragonfly

Video Game Chat Member Avatar

On: 07:22 Oct 17th, 2007
Offline

ApplesauceNinja;33846

Or, and maybe this is just me, Hollywood's overall production is 99% total crap.

This is certainly true, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking that this is something new; Hollywood has been churning out crap for decades.

The timing is simply too convenient. Halo 3 has been such a huge success that it's no surprise to see it impact on other forms of media entertainment.

By: boa

On: 10:01 Oct 17th, 2007
Offline

Crap movies + Halo 3 goodness + halo 3 expense = no more movies and proobably less DVDs/CDs/books

By: MistaRob

On: 10:13 Oct 17th, 2007
Online

Maybe if anything this will finally convince hollywood to stop greenlighting crappy movies as said above.

By: Evren

Video Game Chat Member Avatar

On: 10:20 Oct 17th, 2007
Online

I laugh heartily. AAHHAHAHA.

Anyway, im not surprised in any way. There are no good movies out right now, and there is Halo 3 to be played.

By: Ganondorf

On: 10:38 Oct 17th, 2007
Offline

Well, as one of my favorite critiques the escapist said Halo 3 is really just overhyped when compared to other games. The story line's difficulty is soo wavy and varies in intesity that it is ridiculous and the final boss is basically a match between Mastercheif and a blind guy in a wheel chair that's had too much KFC while you are armed with a fuel rod canon the size of a school locker.

Halo 3's standing as a game is really nothing new or worthy of a 10/10 or perfect like people say, it's basically the same game as halo 1 & 2 with a story about a war and a multiplayer that is practically useless to people that don't have live or more than one controller.

And before all the fan boys come to my door and try to blow it up with their plastic plasma grenades, I'm not saying Halo 3 is a bad game just that it's average, stereotype that microsoft has been flaunting around like it's the One ring to rule them all when it's really a shiny rock from the river.

It makes me look on other games a bit more charitably, like bioshock for instance.

It doesn't matter what I think though because Mastercheif will still be as popular as shoes and Microsoft will become rich enough to buy belguim, but when we are stuck playing "Captain obvious in another linear quest for chocolate pudding" and working as slaves in the coal mines of belguim run by mastercheif, I just want everyone to know that I called it.

**end of commentary**

I really don't think Halo 3 is good enough to have an impact on hollywood compared to other games, if anything the over rating and popularity is the only thing that really makes it a threat not the quality of the game, it's basically on the same level as hollywood crap only a bit more dignified and it's gory as late night satellite TV.