Ando918

I think it will probably do better than that multiplier because Divergent is tracking better with males. There will be a lot of males in the seats on Saturday and Sunday to help Divergent out - whereas I think the Twilight movies ticket sales were 70% female.

It is going to fall really, really hard after its opening weekend and disappear, especially with Divergent controlling the box office over the next 2 weekends. It has a terrible 24% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and only a 67% approval rating from audiences.

Yeah, it is probably just hardcore fans of the cast names. And something like "Good Night and Good Luck" is way too educational and intelligent for most moviegoers looking for escapism.

I believe that people who go see movies on opening weekend don't pay any attention to what the critics say/Rotten Tomatoes score. They are just fanboys/fangirls or people who like members of the cast (Clooney, Damon, Goodman, Blanchett). The critics' and general public's word of mouth only matters for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th weekends. Transformers 4 will probably have a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it will still have a 100 million dollar opening weekend.

I completey disagree with you that Hollywood makes a ton of movies based on true stories. They don't get much of an opportunity to find an audience. I would love to see a movie like "Lincoln" get a release date in August where it is not competing against other Oscar contenders in December. I think it would do extremely well in August. The studios should release more of them throughout the year. Give them 2,000 screens. 12 Years a Slave now has 1,200 screens, but for the first month of its release it was only getting 600-800 screens. WTF? If you give a movie only 700 screens, you can't expect it to ever make much money.

So I'm a film snob because I believe Hollywood makes way too many dumb movies aimed at Michael Bay and Adam Sandler fans....but not enough movies with substance like Lincoln, Captain Phillips, or 12 Years a Slave? Okay then. I guess that makes me a film snob.

Of course most moviegoers want escapism and don't want to see true stories. The problem is that the artsy-leaning movies or true stories make up about 10% of the commercial movies. 80-90% of the movies produced are silly escapism. Let's not be shocked when we see studies showing that American students' ACT and SAT scores continue to drop....

Yep. Take a look at the box office numbers for a very intelligent blockbuster summer movie like The Dark Knight. Take a look at the box office numbers for a very intelligent summer movie like Spider-Man 2. Take a look at the box office numbers for a very intelligent summer movie like The Bourne Ultimatum. Take a look at the box office numbers for Catching Fire. Over and over and over again, intelligent big budget movies with an artsy feel are very, very successful. Transformers movies are also really financially successful, too. But, if you ask audiences who saw those movies which were better, audience members will tell you that the first 4 were much better. Audiences want more of those. They want more movies like Lincoln. They want more movies Captain Phillips. They want more movies like 12 Years a Slave. The studios just tend to dumb the industry down and focus on 15 year old White males who love to play video games.

I agree with you that movies that attempt to be daring or bold should get bonus points. I just disagree that Man of Steel was daring. I thought the script was a rehash of Superman 1 and 2, just going through the motions in a very lazy manner Visual effects were ugly and a blur to watch, and there were too many of them. It is semi original that they attempted to make Superman more realistic, but then they went ahead and mixed that with Russell Crowe flying around on a giant cicada.

Here's the main problem: When the movie industry chooses to make Transformers part 7 or Grown Ups part 5, they are essentially telling us (the audience) that those are the kinds of movies we as the audience want to see. It is kind of like how when a parent feeds a young child, they can choose to feed the kid McDonald's everyday or they can choose to feed the kid fruits and vegetables. Either way, the child is going to eat. And either way, people are going to go to the movies and buy tickets for what is showing. If the movie industry stopped making 75% of its commercial films be escapism aimed at kids/teenagers, people would still come out to the movies to see intelligent movies or those that are based on true stories. I do not believe that a movie like 12 Years a Slave or Captain Phillips has a "limited audience" because of its subject matter. I believe that the industry does not give those movies a chance to succeed, thus they rarely succeed. (Captain Phillips was a hit, and it was given a lot more screens than 12 Years a Slave). The industry underestimates the intelligence of the typical moviegoer, and feeds them McDonald's most of the time.

You seem like a bright person, so I am just curious....why did you put Man of Steel in your top 5 of 2013? Did you only see 5 movies?

Yep, in the battle between commerce and art, commerce is going to win everytime. The game is already rigged.

Yeah - I wasn't a business major and am not an expert on the details of the business side of the industry. I just think it's not really fair that after about 9 weeks of release, and 350 million domestic, that Frozen still has 2,700 screens. You've already made an astounding profit and kids/families will buy the DVD/merchandise, so it is time to lower its screen count to 2,000. In contrast, it would have been nice for 12 Years a Slave and Nebraska to have their screen counts raised from 1,000 to 1,700 screens for a month just to give them more of a chance. It's just my own wishful thinking.

Yea I know that it is mostly supply and demand, but it seems like lots of the good indie movies don't get a fair shot at expansion, even if their per screen average is pretty decent.

Frozen has made a killing at the box office. It has also been helped by theaters basically keeping its screen count relatively the same since December. One would figure that after Frozen hit 300 million domestic, it would lose screens and thus give more opportunities to show lower budget indie movies like 12 Years a Slave, Nebraska, or Her. These movies have only been showing on about 1,000 screens - limiting their box office potential. A lot of people live in areas where they can't or don't want to drive the extra 10 miles to see these kinds of movies. Is it perfectly acceptable for Frozen to hog all of the screens throughout the month of January, even though it has already made a killing? Or is this just greed? Does the movie industry even care about exposing moviegoers to indie films by showing them on more screens?