2018 was the biggest box office year the United States has ever had in the history of cinema. According to The Hollywood Reporter global box office revenue for 2018 hit an all-time high of $41.7 billion dollars and that’s thanks to a nearly 7 percent growth in the US box office alone.

The domestic revenue in the US came in at a record $11.9 billion dollars whereas the previous historic milestone was $11.4 billion in 2016.

What this tells us is that going to the movies was a major outing that many people in the United States took more than once in 2018.

What this does not tell us is that the reason for the growth is not due to an enhancement in the product itself.

The top grossing films of the year were Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Jurassic World: Fallen kingdom and Venom. I myself have only seen one of these films; Black Panther — and although it was a great yarn, the other three films listed fare no better in scale than their respective prequels from years gone by (Venom being the exception).

What I mean is I don’t consider 2018 to be a year in which a better class of film hit the cinema screens. Instead, 2018 was the year in which movie distributors and cinema chains provided cinema goers with a guarantee.

A guarantee that if you part with the $20 or $30 dollars it costs to come and experience our luxury leather seats, gigantic cinema screens, 5.1 stereo-mixed audio surround sound, experience our selection of sugary treats — we guarantee that you will be away from home for two and a half — three hours watching something in a genre you can bet you are comfortable with and that you can rely on to give you the minor thrills that will satisfy your expense.

The increase in the United States box office is the sum of two parts;

An increase in movie length combined with a proven plot formula. A state of the art, comfort inspired cinema-going experience.

This has equaled a greater percentage of the population coerced to come and experience what these businesses (distributors and cinema chains) have to offer more than once in a calendar year.

This model will have to fight off more and more competition from home streaming services as they try and push the envelope in entertainment services for the consumer in 2019 and beyond.

This tug of war means that for independent filmmakers, now has never been a better time to produce regular content on free platforms like YouTube as often as you can.

This is because if this is all that the major corporations, distributors and exhibitors as well as streaming services have to offer — products for a mass audience only: the fringes will be hungry for something else.

The more and more that corporations like Disney (who is on the verge of acquiring 20th Century Fox — turning them into an even bigger mass producer of content) produce for the masses, the more and more special interest and niche groups will not be serviced.

And this is great news for filmmakers looking to make content for the fringe markets.