Ahead of the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony to take place on 7 March (this Sunday), Reuters News commissioned Ipsos to find out whether people around the world consider movies and films to be their escape to a fantasy world which they visit as often as they can. Ipsos surveyed 24,000 adults, i.e. over 1,000 respondents per country, to find the answer.

And the answer was that 42% of those polled agree with the above statement.

In Turkey, 67% of the respondents seek escape from the real world in movie theatres/TV sets, followed by India (61%), South Korea (54%) and Australia (52%).

Sadly enough Hungary is on the bottom of this ranking, with only 24% of those surveyed seeking a way out of the real world and into the "Matrix".

This is an interesting outcome in perspective of the fact that already more than one million people - 10% of the population (!) - bought tickets, a never-before-seen record, to watch James Cameron’s breathtaking sci-fi/fantasy blockbuster Avatar. Just a thought...

In the region, Hungary tops the list of countries whose adult population feels alright in the real world and needs no artificial, CGI adventures, corny romcoms or blasting cars and buildings to forget about electricity bills, weekend shopping in the local hypermarket or wailing toddlers.

A similar kind of rejection of the film industry (76%) is seen in the Netherlands (74%), Mexico (74%), Sweden (71%) or Germany (70%). The Czechs are almost as happy with their absence from silver screen venues, with only 33% of them considering movies and films to be a "rabbit hole" and the Poles (36%) are largely of the same view."

Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal