According to the Motion Picture Association of America, global box office numbers were up 1 percent in 2014 over 2013, but ticket sales in North America dropped about 5 percent. The MPAA notes that China saw significant growth, a 34 percent increase year-over-year. Global ticket sales climbed to $36.4 billion last year — with $10.4 billion recorded for the U.S. and Canada and $4.8 billion in China. While domestic per capita ticket sales increased among moviegoers 50 to 59 and slightly among those 40 to 49, sales among viewers younger than 40 dropped.

“The report brought few surprises, as the pattern of decline at home and growth abroad was clear through much of the year,” reports The New York Times. “But the survey spotted trends in ticket-buying habits that, should they continue, could provoke change in films or their marketing and distribution.”

The sharpest drop (almost 20 percent) was seen among those 25 to 39.

The report points to an all-time high for 3D screens in North America (16,146), while 2014 box office sales for 3D movies dropped 21 percent from 2013, and 36 percent from their peak in 2010.

“In one sign of industry growth, the number of films released last year by major studios and their subsidiaries rose for the first time since 2006, to 136 from 114 in 2013,” notes NYT. “The total number of films released in the domestic market grew 7 percent, to 707, from 659, continuing a long-term expansion that has been fed by smaller independent movies that are often released in only a few theaters before moving to on-demand services.”