The "average" is the mean of gross revenue ($10.6 billion for 2010) over audience numbers for the year (1.4 billion). This would include both 2D and 3D movies, plus matinee and child ticket prices. It's not clear if they include 3D glasses "rental", but my main assumption is that NATO has always calculated the average this way and they are always truthful with their totals (could be a big assumption).
I agree that a mean loses a lot of information about how ticket prices are distributed. It would be very interesting to see how these numbers trend over time for various percentiles - 5th for cheapo tickets, 50th for median, 95th for high end...
I agree that a mean loses a lot of information about how ticket prices are distributed. It would be very interesting to see how these numbers trend over time for various percentiles - 5th for cheapo tickets, 50th for median, 95th for high end...
Sources:
http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsadmissions.htm
http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsboxoffice.htm