If the motion picture industry’s performance in 2007 were a feature presentation, the marquee would read “Massive Box Office: Smashing Records—the Sequel!” At $9.63 billion, box office revenue set another record in 2007, a full 5 percent above the record set in 2006.1 An astonishing 1.4 billion tickets were sold in 2007. But beyond the headlines, the industry is a study in contradictions: