TServo2049

Yeah, apparently the $1.169b OS number was a mistake. (I am betting that whoever reported the number which was on BOM and the number that is still on The-Numbers meant to hit the 0 key but accidentally hit the 9 key.)

Does this mean the operators report the complete receipts for cross-studio double features to both studios? Or do those actually get split?

Which means every double-feature is fudged for both movies on the bill. So with that reasoning, why is any one movie getting singled out by us for being "fudged"?

I was just referring to the POTC4/Tangled Memorial Day weekend drive-in double features. I wasn't following BO at the time, but I've heard secondhand.

I've wondered this too. I know that there were allegations of fudging with Pirates 4/Tangled; I presume the suspicion was that Disney gave Tangled an over-50% split of the double-feature receipts to push it over $200 million? But I don't understand why it would be done with PP2. If anything, you'd think Universal would have fudged by giving JW more than half of the double-feature gross to boost its numbers.

The potential for fudging lies in the fact that the customers pay one ticket price for both movies, so the money has to be split between the two. I don't know how drive-in operators split the money if it's two different studios' movies, but if both features are the same studio, I presume that the entire receipt gets reported to the studio as one number, and the studio then decides how to split it. I guess it counts as fudging if it's not consistently split 50/50?

Mojo's number has gone back down to $1.511b...what gives? Did BOM make a mistake that decreased the number back down? Or was the increase the mistake? Confused...

Oh god, I forgot about that Thing "preboot." I heard it was atrocious.

How did I forget that? That was absolute genius. Though that wasn't product placement AFAIK, I'm pretty sure that was written into the script and *then* they went to Calvin Klein to get their permission. OTOH, stuff like Burger King seemed to be placement deals; while Zemeckis and Gale did always intend the older brother to be a fast-food worker in the original timeline, in the script the brother was actually described as wearing a McDonald's uniform. (Kind of like how M&M's were used in the script for E.T., not Reese's Pieces.) ...shit, how could I forget Reese's Pieces in E.T. for my examples of non-intrusive placement? Yes, it would have been even more non-intrusive had it actually been M&M's as it was in the script, but you would expect that if a kid wanted to bait an alien with bite-sized candy, he would have a major name-brand candy around.

So almost 20 minutes of basically continuous applause? My god, I can't even imagine that. It sounds amazing.

You mean the bizarre one with the upcoming Smurfs reboot in the showdown? (Said Smurfs movie now has a null title because of another BOM fuck-up. That also bugs the heck out of me.) And I should have put a sarcasm tag, of course it would have been worse if BOM was actually gone.

I don't even care about BOM's problems anymore, they are not even worth making fun of. I don't know whether this is worse than if they actually had gotten permanently taken down by IMDB last year like everyone feared. I mean, the Ray Subers-era BOM would have at least put the top 3 WW on the front page now that F7 has passed Avengers.

That is what happens when a film is released in one theater for one week solely to meet legal/contractual/union obligations. See also: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=trojanwar.htm These films don't even deserve to be called bombs. The studio/distributor went "fuck it, this isn't going to make any money in theaters anyway, we fold" and gave it only as much release as would satisfy whatever requirements had been laid down in writing.

Please make King Conan/Legend of Conan, before Arnie dies of old age.

IO made me tear up like nothing has since Toy Story 3. And I don't tear up at movies much either - for some reason it's been certain animated family films that have gotten to me. I got a little misty at one screening of How to Train Your Dragon 2, and at my first showing of Big Hero 6 - those who have seen them probably know which scenes. The only live action movie to make me cry man-tears was probably Return of the King.

I honestly have more apathy for them than hatred.

Good grief, I wish all that data were also sent to the box office sites. Then we could actually get accurate admissions to the ticket, complete format breakdowns, average prices for each movie, you name it. Someone should hack the Big 3 and release all the raw data.

They didn't even report the weekend number. That's the strange part. (Or are they going to be like Sony in 2013 and report the previous weekend's actuals for late-run films along with their weekly actuals at the end of the week?)

Fandango shows that F7 is still playing at quite a few locations. Are they just going to leave this money on the table, or will they still get it from the theaters? How much of the receipts will they get? Is 10 weeks the fastest time for a studio to stop tracking a major blockbuster? Reminds me of how Algren insisted that LGF left a couple million out of The Expendables' gross because they stopped tracking before it was played out in theaters.

Too late

As I said, it was Alvin 2 on Xmas '09 wknd, behind Avatar and Sherlock. (That is one of the few times I can recall a studio opening a movie against the second weekend of another of their movies, and it not being a dump. Only at Christmas, folks. And I think Brandon's BOM article at the time said that the Alvin 2 Christmas date was Fox's "insurance policy" for if Avatar flopped? Worked out well regardless...)

Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. $48.9m.

I have no problem with product placement when it makes logical sense for those products to show up where they show up in the movie, and when it doesn't call attention to itself (like that Subway clip does). I had no problem with the product placement in Jurassic World because Disney and Universal have Downtown/CityWalk type things full of "name" stores and restaurants, and of course you'd expect them there (especially with the "this has all become mundane" angle). Other movies where I find product placement to be non-intrusive, or at least it fits into the film's reality: Home Alone (they live in the Chicago area, O'Hare is a huge American Airlines hub IRL, and American had/still has nonstop service to Paris from O'Hare, it makes absolute perfect sense that they are flying to Paris on AA) Back to the Future (Marty drinks Pepsi, he wears Nikes, his brother works at Burger King and is at the dinner table in his uniform on the way to work, Hill Valley has a Texaco gas station and a Toyota dealership, Biff complains that George only has [Miller] Lite beer in the fridge, etc. You would expect those to appear in the real world. And they use the product placement for the purposes of cute gags on differences between 1955 and 1985 - Marty is confused to see the Texaco attendants servicing the car, he doesn't know how to open a Pepsi bottle, the car dealership sells Studebakers instead of Toyotas, etc.) IMO, BTTF is a case study on how to do product placement right - non-intrusive, fits into the film's reality, they're real-world products and brand names exactly where you'd expect to see them, and characters do not make gratuitous, unnecessary references to the products (two examples: Marty does not name drop Toyota when he sees the 4x4; and at no point during the dinner scene does anyone actually mention that the older brother works at Burger King - we just see the small logos on his uniform). If all films handled product placement as well as BTTF did, I don't know if anybody would even be complaining about it.

To expand on my previous top 10 "completely original" OWs, here is the top 10 non-adjusted and adjusted totals for "completely original" films. Same criteria: No sequels, no adaptations of existing works or IP, nothing specifically based on or about historical figures or events. (I will make an exception for original screenplays loosely inspired by real people/events without being explicitly about or "based on" them. I will note those as they come in the list.) Unadjusted: 1.) Avatar - $760.5m 2.) Star Wars - $461m 3.) E.T. - $435.1m 4.) The Lion King - $422.8m 5.) Finding Nemo - $380.8m 6.) Independence Day - $360.2m 7.) The Sixth Sense - $293.5m 8.) Up - $293m 9.) Inception - $292.6m 10.) Monsters, Inc. - $289.9m Adjusted: 1.) Star Wars - $1.45b 2.) E.T. - $1.15b 3.) Avatar - $789.7m 4.) The Lion King - $723.9m 5.) The Sting - $723.8m (Wikipedia says it was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by specific people and documented in a specific book, but the studio did not buy the rights to the work and had to settle with the publisher after the fact. It was not an official adaptation, and it was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, so I am letting it slide.) 6.) Raiders of the Lost Ark - $718.8m 7.) Ghostbusters - $577.8m 8.) Independence Day - $562.5m 9.) Home Alone - $550m 10.) Beverly Hills Cop - $545.3m If The Sting is disqualified for even being unofficially based on something, then 10th place would be taken by American Graffiti ($533.6m).

At JW opening night, I got TWO trailers for movies with Ben Kingsley. (The other was The Walk.) I wonder of there will ever be a movie with Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Paul Giamatti all in the cast. Because it seems like one of them is a supporting character in half of the live-action trailers I see...