Hollywood pretends to be poor

Motion Picture Association is keeping the industry’s success secret

The movie business is booming during the recession, but the Motion Picture Association of America would prefer not to talk about that. The organization has not yet issued its report on last year’s box-office take, and won’t give the report much publicity when it does come out; business was so good last year that there are fears that it might lead to attacks from Washington politicians, and further attempts to take away tax breaks and other goodies from Hollywood. In times like these, it’s good to know that there’s one business whose problem is that it’s doing too well.

Variety