"Movies"

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Candice: Welcome to Cracker Croakers. I'm Candice Bergeron, your hostess with the mostest.

Colton: And, I'm your other host, Colton Wyatt.

Candice: Hollywood's major movies seem to be holding their own when it comes to entertainment dollars.

Colton: Films such as "Bumblebee" and "Mary Poppins Returns" are very popular in theaters across the country.

Candice: And, "Aquaman" leads the way after its opening weekend performance to the tune of sixty-eight million dollars.

Colton: These successes cap a record-breaking 2019 at the box office.

Candice: They also seem to indicate movie theaters are not fading as many experts thought to be happening.

Colton: Movie-ticket revenues are also up for 2018.

Candice: However, these reports come with some dark clouds that portend the longevity of movie theaters may be far from assured.

Colton: One of these concerns is only a few movies lead the box office charge.

Candice: For 2018, it has been ten films out of the more than 700 movies released.

Colton: Animated motion pictures and superhero adventures are keeping the movie industry numbers afloat.

Candice: As an economic indicator, the movie box office only partly exposes the studios' financial health.

Colton: This indicator fails to reflect such factors as marketing and production costs. And, these keep rising yearly.

Candice: In 2017, admissions to America's 41,000 movie theaters dropped to 1.24 billion attendees.

Colton: This was the fewest number of tickets sold since 1995.

Candice: The March 2018 release of "Black Panther" grossed more than 700 million dollars in revenues.

Colton: The third most of all time. This performance was closely followed by "Avenger: Infinity Wars" that grossed 679 million dollars.

Candice: Overall, the American box office set a new record on the strength of these figures, more than 111.38 billion dollars.

Colton: It seems like the movie box office is in good shape headed into 2019.

Candice: Well, that about wraps us up for this edition of Cracker Croakers.

Colton: In that case, smarty-pants, we better say adieu. She's Candice!

Candice: And, he's Colton!

Candice and Colton: And, we invite you to join us again tomorrow for another entertaining edition of Cracker Croakers (Featuring Candice and Colton).

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