"IT'S a wonderful life!"

Not a phrase uttered often during the economic downturn unless, that is, you happen to own a cinema.

Restaurants and retailers in the United Kingdom are counting the cost of the recession, but cinema has enjoyed rather a different year. Mass escapism and a surge in 3D blockbusters have put UK box offices on course for record takings of £1 billion ($1.7 billion) in 2009.

It has been a year of big hits and this week's release of Avatar, James Cameron's 3D spectacular, is set to see 2009 go out with a bang.

Hard-up consumers have opted for nights at the cinema over more costly meals at restaurants and have flocked to big releases such as Star Trek as well as less-expected hits such as Slumdog Millionaire.

"It's an incredibly immersive shared experience," Film Distributors' Association chief executive Mark Batey said. "That's why people still make a beeline for it. It's this special experience that can't be replicated at home."

Cinema takings for the first 10 months of the year were £142.2 million, according to the association. It expects the year to have the best attendances since 2004.

"The projection is for revenues to top £1 billion for the first time in living memory - of course there were regularly more than a billion admissions in the 1940s, with 1946 the peak," Mr Batey said, referring to cinema's golden year when postwar audiences hungry for entertainment and without central heating squeezed into warm cinemas.

Digital 3D films, where movie-goers don slick plastic glasses rather than the flimsy old cardboard ones, have accounted for 10 per cent of box office takings this year despite making up only 3 per cent of the hundreds of films released.

Production of 3D films is increasing fast and it is not just coming from the big studios. The UK Film Council is funding StreetDance 3D, the first 3D film to be produced in the UK by a local production company.

Where people have a choice between 3D and 2D they opt for the new version by a ratio of three to one, the association says.

The beauty of 3D for cinema businesses is the option of charging more for tickets, while the production studios are comforted by the fact the films are harder to pirate. Although there have been reports of 3D films inducing nausea in some movie-goers, the industry believes this brave new world is one people will find impossible to resist. It is a watershed moment for film on the scale of Citizen Kane, 3D technology pioneer Michael Lewis says.

"This is the biggest thing since sound and colour," added the founder of RealD, the leading provider of 3D projection technology. "Once someone sees this and what the difference is they don't want to go back. I like to think of it as high-definition on steroids."

Mr Lewis's company has been pushing 3D for years, basing its technology on the projection systems used by NASA and the US military. It is now behind 4500 3D screens worldwide and there are thousands more under contract. Mr Lewis sees cinemas becoming 3D specialists where customers can watch sport and rock concerts as well as films.