WAITING TO REEL IN RESULTS '04 BOX OFFICE MAY SET RECORD.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

The movie industry may or may not be popping open champagne bottles to celebrate a domestic box office record on New Year's Day. As of last Sunday, revenues were neck and neck with 2004's total of $9.270 billion in ticket sales.

The staggering popularity of the Universal Pictures comedy ``Meet the Fockers,'' which has already crossed the $100 million mark, could help push this year's final box office total past the 2003 haul, as well as the all-time record of $9.317 billion set in 2002.

That's the good news.

Since overall revenue has been helped by an average ticket price inflation of 19 cents (up to $6.22 from $6.03 last year), the bad news is that attendance figures could actually be down for the second consecutive year and by as much as 2.5 percent, according to figures compiled by the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co.

How could attendance be down when ``Shrek 2'' alone grossed $441.2 million this summer, followed by summer smashes ``Spider-Man 2'' ($373.6 million) and ``Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'' ($249.5 million)? In addition, ``The Passion of the Christ'' was a surprise spring blockbuster ($370.2 million) and ``The Incredibles'' dominated the holiday season, with grosses of $245 million and counting.

``Moviegoers are willing, ready and able to come to the theater, but I think they've become more selective,'' said Exhibitor Relations President Paul Dergarabedian. ``Post-summer, we had a major slump in the marketplace in the fall period. That definitely hurt the box office with people distracted by the election and fixated on other things.''

The box office drought that began Labor Day weekend stretched on through the beginning of November with all but two weekends failing to match the grosses of the same date a year earlier. Only the animated hit ``Shark Tale'' made any kind of impression on its way to a gross of just under $160 million.

``Some of the really big hits got bigger and some of the bad flops got worse. Certainly there were extremes there,'' said Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com. ``A number of movies crossed the $250 million mark, but movies like 'Alexander' ($33.9 million) and 'The Alamo' ($22.4 million) were big disasters.''

Movies that grossed between $100 and $200 million were: ``The Day After Tomorrow,'' ``The Bourne Supremacy,'' ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' ``I, Robot,'' ``National Treasure,'' ``The Polar Express,'' ``50 First Dates,'' ``The Grudge,'' ``Troy,'' ``Meet the Fockers,'' ``Van Helsing,'' ``The Village,'' ``Collateral,'' ``Shark Tale'' and ``Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.''

Other 2004 releases that seemed poised to cross $100 million include ``Ocean's Twelve'' and ``Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.''

A number of films such as ``The Notebook,'' ``Mean Girls,'' ``Anchorman,'' ``Princess Diaries 2,'' ``Starsky & Hutch'' and ``Along Came Polly'' all made $80 million or more, but several smaller-budget, independent films generated the best word-of-mouth among moviegoers.

``A lot of the hits that instilled good will in moviegoers were not those that contributed huge amounts to the bottom line,'' Dergarabedian said. ``Movies like 'Sideways,' 'Napoleon Dynamite,' 'Garden State' and 'Super Size Me.'''

But the two biggest independent releases, ``The Passion of the Christ'' and ``Fahrenheit 9/11,' both benefited from being at the center of major controversy resulting in invaluable free exposure for each film and filmmakers Mel Gibson and Michael Moore respectively.

Said Pandya: ``It was the year of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and 'The Passion of the Christ.'''

Final weekend numbers will be released Monday.

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com