Box office analysts Media By Numbers say the $4bn figure outclasses summer ticket sales of $3.95bn (£1.95bn) set in 2004.There's a similar picture at our cinema, we've experienced a better summer than the past few years and that's without any summer blockbusters as we tend towards the arthouse end of the market.
Their estimates suggest that this summer's box office returns will stand at $4.15bn (£2.05bn) by the time the season officially ends on 3 September.
But they added that actual summer ticket sales are expected to be about 606m, only the sixth-best in modern times.
It seems that the death knell of the movie industry sounded by the MPAA in the US has been premature to say the least if in spite of rising numbers of people using BitTorrent to download movies that box office revenue is on the up too.
In fact MPAA research statistics would seem to indicate that it has not only been a good summer 2007 at the box office but that the figures for the year 2006 showed a rising trend across the board.
