2009 Box Office Review: Monthly Grosses

2009, as befits the biggest year at the box office, registered a string of monthly records. 2009 broke the monthly records for January, February, April, May, June, October, November, and December. Why? Because of a string of surprise hits, from Paul Blart and Taken to The Hangover and The Proposal to Avatar, which kept the box office on fire from beginning to end, even considering the slump in March and September. The standout here is clearly January, which bested the previous January record by almost $200m.

It remains to be seen whether 2010 can match or surpass the $10.6B tally for 2009, but it is off to a promising start; thanks to Avatar's massive success, 2010 is currently running almost 15% ahead of 2009.

Month	Gross	M-to-M	Cumulative	Est. Adm.
January	$1,014,386,445		$1,014,386,445	138,011,761
February	$769,343,451	-24.16%	$1,783,729,896	104,672,578
March	$651,567,920	-15.31%	$2,435,297,816	88,648,697
April	$695,111,135	6.68%	$3,130,408,951	94,572,944
May	$1,018,427,704	46.51%	$4,148,836,655	138,561,592
June	$1,086,729,130	6.71%	$5,235,565,785	147,854,303
July	$1,161,129,344	6.85%	$6,396,695,129	157,976,781
August	$905,308,293	-22.03%	$7,302,003,422	123,171,196
September	$543,558,798	-39.96%	$7,845,562,220	73,953,578
October	$692,565,754	27.41%	$8,538,127,974	94,226,633
November	$989,594,601	42.89%	$9,527,722,575	134,638,721
December	$1,066,136,750	7.73%	$10,593,859,325	145,052,619
Total	$10,593,859,325			1,441,341,405

Monthly Pie Chart

The two most glaring things here are 1) the low gross for September, traditionally the weakest month, and 2) the generally even distribution between many of the months. It's staggering that January almost matched the summer months and December, which are usually far ahead of the other months.

Month-to-Month Cumulative 2009 Gross

One striking thing about 2009 is that the box office was already halfway past its middle point halfway through the calendar year; usually, the summer period is the time when strong numbers compensate for the weak first half and push the year onward toward the holiday period at the end. Once again, it is due entirely to the strong January and February grosses.