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beginning of 1946 to $36,279,000. Last year’s figure represents the dollar value of 61 contracts, bringing the total awards since 1946 to 622. These figures were compiled by Maclean’s Building Reporter of Toronto.
The 1951 figures—61 awards worth $2,713,900—is a tremendous drop from the previous year, when 107 contracts, valued at $6,173,600, were let. In percentages the decrease amounts to 56 per cent, the exact reverse of the trend of all construction in Canada, which showed in 1951 an overall gain of 50.4 per cent over 1950.
It must be remembered that the figures are based on estimates only and, as is well known, the cost at the finish is invariably much higher. Over the six-year period this factor adds many millions of dollars to the overall total of industry construction.
The ban on amusement building, imposed a year ago, helped slow down the pace of theatre construction in Canada, which seemed to have reached its peak late in 1950. The circuits had completed their post-war program of new establishments and remodelling of old ones, as had the Independents, and a natural decline in the amount of new contracts was expected. However, it was thought that the decrease would not be very great, since many of the awards made in 1950 would not be completed until 1951 and at the beginning of the latter year there were 121 new houses in various stages of work. It was believed that this would keep the figures at a fairly high level and the sudden decline was surprising.
In actual theatre openings for the sixyear period the score is 79 new houses
77
in 1951; 147 in 1950, which was an alltime high; 128 in 1949; 75 in 1948; 109 in 1947; and 28 in 1946. There is no doubt that the figure for 1952 will be much less than that of 1951, unless reStrictions are lifted and most likely not even then.
The above figures, which set the total of new Canadian situations since 1946 at 566, were gathered by Canadian Film Weekly and include replacements for outdated theatres and several destroyed by fire.
Dividing the awards and their values into smaller areas to give a clearer picture of the 1951 activity, Maclean’s reports that in the Maritimes there were seven contracts, worth $398,400; in Ontario 25 for $925,100; in Quebec 10 for $469,000; in British Columbia two for $300,000; in Alberta 10 for $391,500; in Saskatchewan three for $58,000; and in Manitoba four for $171,900. In Ontario’s totals were five awards, worth $402,500, in Toronto and in Quebec’s there were five contracts, for $315,000, in Montreal.
To the $36,279,000 figure must be added many millions of dollars more for equipment and furnishings if the extent ot the unprecedented surge of building in Canada is to be realized. This tremendous activity, unmatched anywhere else in the world, was accompanied by an increase in boxoffice receipts, which is now more than double the amount taken in only ten years ago.
This era of expansion, unprecedented in the history of the Canadian motion picture industry, is coming to a close. It seems unlikely that there will be anything in the future to equal it.