I am not a film maker in any way. So then why do so many news sites tell me about how much money the film has taken in during its first weekend, week, etc…?
As a film fan / viewer, why should I care?
Any sort of historical explanation would be very appreciated.
Dick-measuring contest. They use those numbers as a metric of success but it’s not. For example “Shawshank Redemption” bombed box office, so did “The Thing” and number of other cult movies. They bombed box office but later became cult movies that are still earning money.
Fun exercise… Look at the opening weekend box office numbers and figure out what 90% of it is. That is what the distributor made from the movie for THAT WEEKEND. They will continue to make 90% for at least a week. After that it will drop some. Eventually the theater will actually get the lion’s share of the box office, something like 6-8 weeks after the movie comes out. Do your local theaters a favor, don’t go see movies opening weekend, call the box office each week to find out what movies will be leaving that week and go see it then. Or, if you absolutely feel the need to go see it opening weekend, budget for the largest popcorn and drink you can afford. They are the highest profit margin items on the menu. The tickets may cost 30-45 bucks for a date night, but the theater only sees $3-$4.5 of that at the top end, even less for more anticipated movies. That is why concessions are so expensive, it is literally the only way they can stay afloat and Disney has even tried demanding 50% of opening weekend concessions for some movies.
This is why so many cinemas are failing, both chains and locals. Spread the word, share this info, save our silver screens and send a message to the big media companies that they are being too greedy.
Because people think mo money = mo good… its core ideology of capitalism.
If these movies did not make money, they would not get made. Maybe other types of movies would get made, and maybe they’d be better, but the big budget movies that do get made are to make money.
Because the film industry is interested in it. It is the first and most public bit of information on what movies are popular and trending.
Yes, sure and I know other forms of entertainment do this too - books, music and so on. I guess I was just saying it annoys me.
If they instead said they sold x tickets (like someone else here suggested), or the movie has some positive reviews, that’s useful for me. But the $$$ is not information I can do anything with, beyond just, “OK, lots of other people checked it out”.
Great example: This movie - Season of the Witch (2011) - had good box office numbers but was largely panned.
If I were running a media site covering movies, I would only report the reviews not the sales numbers. That seems to me to be the only honest way to handle this, but I’m just one guy. If you all don’t mind this, then cool.
How is ticket sales any different than box office numbers? It will be a measure of profitability.
Also, the average rating is also going to be a pseudo measure of a different kind of popularity. Even then, a list of well reviewed movies may not have that much meaning overall for the readership above Rotten Tomatoes.
And outside of reviews, movie news is really geared towards people who are interested in the trade or people interested in how current trends will affect future output. A lot of future output is going to be affected by sales.
I want to add that the box office income is simply one of the only objective metrics to compare the success of films.
