The US theater industry saw audiences drop to their lowest level since 1995 in 2017, but higher ticket prices meant overall revenue dropped only 2%.

Loading

9 New Avengers: Infinity War Images 9 IMAGES

In a report put together by the Motion Picture Association of America (per Variety ), last year saw 1.24 billion tickets sold, a 6% drop on 2016's attendance levels.However, ticket prices cushioned that drop, bringing in $11.1 billion over the course of the year. It's also worth pointing out that 2016's $11.6 billion was a record high for the industry.By comparison, home entertainment spending rose 11% to $47.8 billion, primarily because of video streaming services. Streaming service subscriptions rose 33% to 446.8 million.The unrivalled theatrical success story of 2018 so far has been Black Panther, which recently overtook Jurassic World to become the fourth highest-grossing movie in US history - but it may face some competition from Marvel stablemate Avengers: Infinity War when it arrives on April 25 in Australia, April 26 in the UK, and April 27 in the US.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he spends all his money on laserdiscs, just to throw an outlier into stats like these. Follow him on Twitter