It has been a massive record breaking year at the Australian box office. Currently running well over $800m, 2009 is on track to be the first year in history that the box office pushes the $1b mark. This success in part can be attributed to the high calibre of movies that are being released week-in week-out.

This growth in box office takings over the past year has also shown positive results in the latest Roy Morgan research. Frequent cinemagoers (been to the cinema in the past 4 weeks) have increased amongst all segments of the Australian population in the past year.

The best is yet to come with the Summer months ranking as some of the most popular times for moviegoing:

For Families / Kids - Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson lends his voice to the highly anticipated animation Planet 51, Alvin and the gang follow up their 2008 box office hit in Alvin & The Chipmunks 2, Wes Anderson directs the Roal Dahl classic The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Spike Jonze breathes life in Maurice Sendak's timeless tale Where The Wild Things Are and director Ron Clements (Beauty & The Beast, Aladdin) returns with The Princess & The Frog.

For Teens - It will be a summer with bite as the worldwide phenomenon The Twilight Saga: New Moon graces our shores in November, Paul Weitz (The Golden Compass) rides the Vampire trend with The Vampire's Assistant and Megan Fox (Transformers) also Vamps up in Jennifer's Body.

For Older moviegoers - Roland Emmerich returns with his latest epic disaster movie 2012, Ricky Gervais is sure to tickle the funny bones in Invention Of Lying, James Cameron returns for the first time since 'Titanic' with Avatar, John Travolta and Robin Williams star in Old Dogs, Peter Jackson directs the best-selling novel by Alice Seabold The Lovely Bones, Rob Marshall (Chicago) directs an all star cast in Nine, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. team up to tell the classic tale of Sherlock Holmes, and Academy Award Winner Meryl Streep returns in the romantic comedy It's Complicated.

For information on other highlights ahead visit our website or contact your Val Morgan Representative for details.