It looks like the film industry might not be heading into a recession after all. At $5.5 billion, we spent 1% more on our DVDs and Blu-rays in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2007.

Now here’s the interesting part. While DVD sales were down 1.2% compared to the first quarter of last year, Blu-ray sales were up 351%. If you do the math, this means nobody was buying Blu-ray discs last year and almost nobody is buying them now — displayed beautifully in the picture above.

But still, Anchor Bay Entertainment said Blu-ray sales were “trending ahead of expectations,” probably effected by HD-DVD dropping out of the race earlier this year.

While stocks might currently be stabilizing, consumers are still feeling the economic decline. And if consumers are spending less, the film industry is definitely feeling it. Projects that were going into production the other day, are canned now. Film Department’s Mark Gill is “getting a lot more” producers calling for financial help.

Investors are keeping their money tight. And it’s getting difficult for producers to finance their films without foreign presales. The recent Berlin market was quite bad and producers are now hoping for a rebound in Cannes.

The question is if this really is an economic problem. Or is getting a movie into production just as difficult as it always was?