JAMAICANS spent a record $182.8 million at the movies over the three months prior to September which was 24 per cent more than a year earlier due in part to rising Montego Bay movie goers.

Box office ticket sales accounted for about 60 per cent of the spend and the remainder on popcorn, hot dogs and refreshments according to data released by Palace Amusement Company, which runs the island’s cinemas.

Carib 5 in Kingston continued to earn the bulk of box office receipts at $67.5 million followed by Palace Multiplex in Montego Bay at $29.5 million, Palace Cineplex in Kingston at $23.2 million and Odeon Cineplex in Mandeville at $8.4 million. At the same time, food sales at these cinemas were roughly $29 million, $11 million, $10 million and $4 million, respectively.

Montego Bay had the highest increase in moviegoers over the period of up a sizeable 55 per cent to $29.5 million which allowed the multiplex to regain the title of the island’s second busiest movie cinema when compared with the similar quarter in 2009. Palace’s results, however, contained no chairman’s statement to explain the results but islandwide box office sales up 25 per cent continue to outperform the 10 per cent price increase last December.

The increased sales contrasts with the dip in annual attendance at cinemas from a high of 1.2 million in 1994 to under 900,000, according to data from previous Palace annual reports. The decline is attributed to $100 bootlegs DVDs and streaming web movies. Increased access to high-speed Internet has enabled users to stream or download movies legally or otherwise.

Currently, Internet users bypass the cinemas on a number of websites.

Top summer films were led by pre-teen stars, including The Last Airbender and The Karate Kid 2 along with traditional comic hero Iron Man 2. Previous summers were dominated by action heroes and mega-movie stars.