Could 2009 be the biggest year in US box-office history?

Last weekend broke the President's Day holiday box-office records, following the first $1bn month in history in January. With an impressive slate of massive blockbusters still to come, 2009 could prove that filmgoing is recession-proof

If Hollywood could be equated to a basketball or American football season, Tyler Perry would be Lionsgate's Most Valuable Player. The studio's been releasing this savvy entertainer's pictures at least once a year for quite a while now and has scored almost every time. The latest slice of family-friendly sermonising opens this Oscar weekend with Madea Goes to Jail and should easily entice his predominantly female African-American demographic into the cineplexes.
Lionsgate has stuck by the writer-director-producer-star ever since it introduced Perry and the Madea character in the comedy Diary of a Mad Black Woman in 2002, culminating in a first-look deal signed last summer, which means that Perry gives Lionsgate first option to board his upcoming projects. Madea Goes to Jail should rule the roost this weekend and is expected to sell in the region of $25m (£17.5m) worth of tickets. It could gross as much as $60m in cinemas before it sets sail for far more lucrative DVD and TV waters in its journey into profit.

The other wide release is a blah-sounding comedy called Fired Up! With the alarmingly lazy premise of a pair of libidinous high-school footballers getting themselves into cheerleading camp to satiate their sex drives, it has no stars and will do well to pass $10m in its first three days. 'Nuff said.

A strong debut by Madea Goes to Jail means that Friday the 13th and the romcom He's Just Not That Into You will have to scrap for second place in the $15-18m region. That would mean a roughly 60% drop in box office for the horror remake, which is about par for the course. Nonetheless, last weekend's $40.6m debut will linger long in the memory because it scored the biggest three-day horror launch in history and played a key role in propelling the President's Day holiday weekend to an all-time high too.

This weekend is expected to surpass the same period in 2008, when the top 12 releases took just over $90m and Vantage Point opened at No 1 on $22.9m. It's Oscar weekend and grosses are never huge, but what's worth noting is that confidence levels are sky-high at the North American box office these days. Last weekend's records follow the first $1bn month in history in January, proving that even during a recession, filmgoing remains a strong business. Yes, ticket prices have risen year-on-year (I'll get the exact figures at next month's annual ShoWest convention in Las Vegas) and, yes, the actual number of attendances are declining; but they're not declining by much (again, I'll try to get that data from Vegas next month) and it's true to say that during these tough times cinema is prospering because it's arguably the cheapest form of public entertainment out there.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that 2009 will be the biggest year in US box-office history. Maybe this will be true of the international marketplace, too. In the US, box-office receipts are already tracking some 20% ahead of the same year-to-date portion of 2008, and if you look at what's coming up over the next 10 months it seems reasonable to assume this year will be the biggest we've seen. Consider the evidence: in less than two weeks Warner Bros releases Watchmen, which is shaping up to be one of the bigger non-franchise movies of the year. Others, I would venture, include James Cameron's 3-D sci-fi spectacular Avatar, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (a franchise spin-off with franchise potential of its own), another sci-fi extravaganza in the form of District 9 (backed by Peter Jackson), Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy Bruno, Pixar's Up and the action adaptation GI Joe.

And don't be surprised if Quentin Tarantino's second world war romp Inglourious Basterds parlays a wild reception at its world premiere at Cannes in May into a solid autumn run through the Weinstein Company. Then there are the sequels, offering latest twists to such successful sagas as Harry Potter, Twilight, Star Trek, Transformers, The Da Vinci Code, Ice Age, Night at the Museum, The Fast and the Furious, and Hannah Montana. With this lineup, Hollywood can't lose. Now, the studio chiefs must be thinking from their lofty perches, if only those pesky Screen Actors Guild members could sign away their lives and end the contract dispute. Then 2010 and 2011 wouldn't look so terrifyingly barren.(guardian)