With the multitude of modern inventions such as iPods, Xboxes and portable DVD players, old-fashioned movie theaters have been losing popularity. According to CNN.com, movie attendance has been lagging -- this year's attendance was 8 percent behind that of last year. That is, until "Harry Potter" showed up.
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" took over the industry with a whopping $54.9 million over last weekend, according to CNN.com, which referred to the flick as the "savior of the box office." Despite recent dwindling, last weekend actually had the second-highest grossing period of Thanksgiving holidays.
Two questions may arise from this news:
1. Why are movie theaters becoming less popular?
2. Why is "Harry Potter" so great?
According to second-year College student Christy Ours, one reason why students do not go to the movies as much as they used to is because of increasing ticket prices.
"I personally don't go because prices keep going up," Ours said. "When a movie is $9, I don't want to pay to just see an OK movie."
Ours said in her opinion, the quality of movies is not what it used to be.
"I feel everything has been done," Ours said. "There's only so many variations that can be made of the same idea."
One reason why Ours said she thinks "Harry Potter" is so popular is because it is something new that does not follow the same old plots of the other movies in the theaters.
"'Harry Potter' may be different from all of the action movies and romantic comedies," Ours said.
Second-year College student Temitope Awosogba agreed with Ours that movies are not as good as they used to be and that "Harry Potter"stands out to audiences as something new and different.
"I thought 'Harry Potter' was fantastic," Awosogba said.
Awosogba said its popularity may be due to the fact that the movies are based on a book series that is already a favorite among people.
"Since people read the books it already has a following," Awosogba said. "So more people are wanting to see the movie, in addition to those who are just interested."
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