The box office revenue in North America collapsed by
80% in the year 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic-prompted lockdown that kept movie
theaters closed and new releases on halt for months, said research firm Comscore on Tuesday.

According to year end report released by Comscore, the North American box office generated 2.2 billion dollars in 2020, compared with 11.4 billion dollars in 2019.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with Comscore, said “2020 revenue – much of it from drive-in venues – was grounds for hope given that some industry observers had feared the figure would be even smaller.”

“That should be extremely encouraging to anyone who was worried that movie-going would not come back at all,” Reuters quoted Dergarabedian as saying.

The
2020 figures marks the lowest in 40 years, as per the historical data from Box
Office Mojo, after 1981 when the industry recorded the lowest revenue with a
total of 918 million dollars, the year that saw the release of ‘Superman II’

Meanwhile,
the box office revenue on the global scale slumped some 71%, according to a Variety
report.

The pandemic restrictions brought some small and big
chains like AMC Entertainment to the brim of bankruptcy with theaters still due
to re-function in some of US’ biggest markets like Los Angeles and New York
City.