Warner Bros. has won the domestic box office for a third consecutive year, reporting revenue of nearly $1.9 billion for 2010.
The studio led all comers in market share despite the fact that its domestic revenue was down more than 11 percent for the year.
Research firms Hollywood.com and Exhibitor Relations released figures Monday confirming that the overall domestic market is down $40 million-$50 million from its record $10.6 billion haul in 2009, while unit sales of tickets were down about 5 percent.
Warner is still tabulating its international totals. The race for the foreign box-office title is closely contested between Warner and Fox, with both studios coming in at just over $2.9 billion in international revenue.
Warner expects to shatter its all-time global box office record of $4.01 billion, set last year, driven by worldwide hits including "Inception" starring Leonardo DiCaprio (pictured right) and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1."
Official revenue numbers on the total domestic, foreign and global box offices will be released in February by the Motion Picture Association of America.
As for the domestic side, the market finished just slightly off last year's $10.6 billion total, despite a huge first quarter that was driven by the 3D performances of "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland."
In fact, according to BoxOffice Mojo, the January/February/March domestic box office set a record with a total gross of $2.65 billion, up 9 percent over the first quarter of 2009.
However, the market couldn't maintain that momentum, with the second quarter registering a 3 percent year-to-year decline.
And the box office hardly finished the year with a kick, with no surprise breakout hits (a la 2009's "The Blind Side"), and numerous films — including "The Tourist," "How Do You Know" and "Gulliver's Travels" — notably underperforming.
Here's how domestic market share broke down by studio, according to BoxOffice Mojo (Fox and Fox Searchlight totals have been combined, as have Universal and Focus Features revenue):
Studio rank Market share Revenue
1.) Warner 18.3% $1.88B
2.) Paramount 16.1% $1.67B
3.) Fox 15.4% $1.59B
4.) Disney 13.6% $1.41B
5.) Sony 12.3% $1.27B
6.) Universal 8.9% $0.92B
7.) Summit 5.1% $0.522B
8.) Lionsgate 5.0% $0.519B
