Motion Picture Theatre in US seating capacity (1 show): 15,000

Average weekly attendance at picture theatre: 7,605,000

Admissions paid annually: 520,000,000

Average number of reels used for 1 performance: 8

Average number of seats in picture theatre: 507

Number of persons employed in picture theatre: 105,000

Persons employed in picture production: 50,000

Permanent employees in all branches of Motion Picture industry: 300,000

Investment in Motion Picture industry: $1,250,000

Approximate cost of pictures produced annually: $200,000,000

Salaries & wages paid annually at studios in production: $75,000,000

Cost of costumes, scenery, and other materials and supplies used in productions annually: $50,000,000

Average number of feature films produced annually: 700

Average number of short reel subjects (excluding news reels) annually: 1,500

Taxable Motion Picture property in US: $720,000,000

Percentage of pictures made in California: 84%

Percentage of pictures made in New York: 12%

Percentage of pictures made elsewhere: 4%

Foreign made pictures sent here for sale: 425

Foreign made pictures sold and released for exhibition: 6

Theatre running 6-7 days per week: 9,000

Theatre running 4-5 days per week: 1,500

Theatre running 1-3 days per week: 4,500

Lineal feet of film exported in 1921: 140,000,000

Lineal feet of film exported in 1913: 32,000,000

Percentage of American films used in foreign countries: 90

Film footage used each week by news reels: 1,400,000

Combined circulation of news reels weekly: 40,000,000

Number of theatre using news reels weekly: 11,000

Amount spent annually by producers and exhibitors in newspaper and magazine advertising: $5,000,000

Hospitals and charitable institutions in US equipped to show pictures (as of 1/1/23): 7,000

Number of schools and churches in US equipped to show pictures (as of 1/1/23) almost equals the number of theatre.

- appeared in 1924 Film Daily Year book. Source: That Marvel- the Movies by Edward S. Van Zile, 1922, G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Many thanks to Mike Blake!

More pages of facts…

Silent Era Trivia
A list of the most popular movies in 1922-27
A very brief and not so thorough history of animation in the silent era
More facts from the 1924 Film Daily Yearbook
What silent stars have their prints in Grauman's (Mann's) "Forecourt of the Stars?"
Want to talk like a Shiek or a Sheba? Learn the lingo of the teenagers of the Twenties
A list of directors' salaries in 1926
The typical cost of a big-budget production in 1920

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