Would you know the number of how many domestic theatrical tickets for the movies were sold in 1979 vs. 1998?
Here's the best we could do.
In the U.S. in 1975 just over 1 billion people (1,033,000,000) attended movie theaters. In 1996, that number had risen to over 1.3 billion (1,339,000,000). We found these statistics in the Statistical Abstract of the United States (1998 edition). We hope that you might find these useful.