Wednesday Box Office - (Asgard2) R1 18.5, Sing 16

[FilmBuff]

Imo it goes something like this.

 

1. TFA

2. Avatar

3. Jurassic World

4. The Avengers

5. Shrek 2

6. The Dark Knight

7. Spider-Man 

8. DMC

[m3racer123]

2 minutes ago, Daxtreme said:

 

I actually have IronJimbo on ignore so it has to be someone else.

 

... But that doesn't surprise me in the slightest

 

 

 

Have you seen my edit? Baumer was saying exactly the sort of thing you were talking about. But he has owned up to being wrong now, it's all good fun  

[PPZVGOS]

I don't get all this obsession with "admissions" 

 

What matters under capitalism is not admissions, but value (represented by money and that money's worth at any given point in time) The real question for us box-office nerds is how to best adjust for that. Since no one of us has any reliable statistics, our only option is to trust the US government: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

[Orestes]

8 minutes ago, PPZVGOS said:

I don't get all this obsession with "admissions" 

 

 

It's mostly used by stans of one thing to rip or diminish another. Nolan fans started clinging to it pretty hard when TA surpassed TDK.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Orestes

[redfirebird2008]

10 minutes ago, PPZVGOS said:

I don't get all this obsession with "admissions" 

 

What matters under capitalism is not admissions, but value (represented by money and that money's worth at any given point in time) The real question for us box-office nerds is how to best adjust for that. Since no one of us has any reliable statistics, our only option is to trust the US government: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

 

The reason people are interested in admissions is because other countries keep track of it that way and the music industry also kept track of units sold as well. It's a true measure of popularity. The American studios use dollar inflation to hide the fact their attendance is going down over time even though population continues to increase.

Edited December 30, 2016 by redfirebird2008

[Dark 33Legend of the Sith]

All the talk about The Dark Knight got me thinking, it is the cream of the crop for box office runs. Some of the defining runs I've witnessed since 1997 for a number of different reasons:

 

Titanic

The Matrix

Episode I

Blair Witch

Sixth Sense

Sorcerers Stone

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 

Spider-Man

Return of the King (pretty much the entire trilogy)

Shrek 2

Episode III

Dead Mans Chest

The Dark Knight

The Hangover

The Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

New Moon

The Blind Side

Avatar

Toy Story 3

Deathly Hallows II

Hunger Games

Avengers

Dark Knight Rises

Frozen

American Sniper

Jurassic World

The Force Awakens

Finding Dory

Rogue One

 

 I know there are some I forgot as this was quickly off the top of my head.  I planned to put down 15 or so and the list kept growing. But TDK could be argued as a top 5 box office run of the modern era. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[YM!]

8 hours ago, WrathOfHan said:

The main reason I expect Sing to have a string of 40% drops after January 6: theater counts. A 12 screen theater won't have Sing by the end of January, and there's a decent chance many get rid of it on January 20. Because it's going to have low weekdays once school is back in session, theaters won't see the need to keep it around.

If anything wouldn't they get rid of older movies such as Moana, Passengers or Creed?

[redfirebird2008]

4 minutes ago, Orestes said:

 

It's mostly used by stans of one thing to rip or diminish another. Nolan fans started clinging to it pretty hard when TA surpassed TDK.

 

I guess you think Brandon Gray at BOM was a "stan" of something. He was real big on pointing out the admissions of films. Wanna know why? Because he chose not to be a publicity puppet for the studios. They like to use "record breaking" openings as a way to draw more hype and admissions through a film's run. Gray would never go for that and would try to focus on a film's impact beyond the dollar gross.

[Joel M]

16 minutes ago, FilmBuff said:

Imo it goes something like this.

 

1. TFA

2. Avatar

3. Jurassic World

4. The Avengers

5. Shrek 2

6. The Dark Knight

7. Spider-Man 

8. DMC

 

I think from 3 to 7 is a lot more hazy with JP and Avengers having 3D and Shrek 2 having a lot more kid tickets. All those movies are in the same range but who knows who's 3d, 4th etc.

 

[JonathanLB]

1 hour ago, Daxtreme said:

 

I don't know, some other folks. Forgot their names.

 

No one outright said the holds would be poor, but I remember people saying the holiday legs were overrated or something, and that they wouldn't apply to a big opener that wasn't TFA, when clearly it's not the case.

 

Yes, and those people were just as wrong before Rogue One came along as they are after. It's unfortunate some people think they are expressing "an opinion," when they're actually just wrong and everyone is laughing at them, then another movie comes along and confirms how wrong they already were, and guess what? We'll do it again next year. I don't know why, especially on a box office forum, there are people who can't grasp the difference between a holiday movie and a summer movie. I'll be happily lurking and not arguing with those people, though, because it's pointless. May as well go talk to a rock and convince it that it needs to move to a different location. You won't get anywhere, and neither will the rock. 

 

"This is going to be the first movie ever to display non-holiday legs during the holiday season."

 

Yes, and that rock will be the first rock that ever moves on its own accord after a human talks to it. See, there's a difference between opinion, like "Rogue One is a good movie," and being wrong, like "Rogue One won't perform like any other holiday movie because I said so." It's not even a subtle difference, it's pretty obvious.

[Ozymandias]

33 minutes ago, PPZVGOS said:

I don't get all this obsession with "admissions" 

 

What matters under capitalism is not admissions, but value (represented by money and that money's worth at any given point in time) The real question for us box-office nerds is how to best adjust for that. Since no one of us has any reliable statistics, our only option is to trust the US government: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

 

I'm coming around to the mind that admissions are becoming overrated, but they do show a films true popularity at the time of release.  I think tickets sold are only really worth talking about if a film is beating box-office records left and right.

 

Titanic - 128m

The Force Awakens - 90-95m

The Phantom Menace - 85m

Avatar - 75m

The Dark Knight - 72m

Shrek 2 - 71m

Spiderman - 69m

Return of the King - 61m

I think The Avengers and Jurassic World are both around 60m as well, haven't checked.

 

As you can see The Dark Knight sold almost as much tickets as Avatar but since 81% of Avatar's tickets were either in 3D/IMAX, it grossed over 200m more than The Dark Knight did.  The Phantom Menace's gross is about half of The Force Awaken's gross but not that far behind in tickets.

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Ozymandias

[druv10]

Ozymandias, TA1 is around 72M not 60M.

[Ozymandias]

Just now, druv10 said:

Ozymandias, TA1 is around 72M not 60M.

 

oh my bad

 

I did say I didn't check that one though 

[redfirebird2008]

6 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

 

I'm coming around to the mind that admissions are becoming overrated, but they do show a films true popularity at the time of release.  I think tickets sold are only really worth talking about if a film is beating box-office records left and right.

 

Titanic - 128m

The Force Awakens - 90-95m

The Phantom Menace - 85m

Avatar - 75m

The Dark Knight - 72m

Shrek 2 - 71m

Spiderman - 69m

Return of the King - 61m

I think The Avengers and Jurassic World are both around 60m as well, haven't checked.

 

As you can see The Dark Knight sold almost as much tickets as Avatar but since 81% of Avatar's tickets were either in 3D/IMAX, it grossed over 200m more than The Dark Knight did.  The Phantom Menace's gross is about half of The Force Awaken's gross but not that far behind in tickets.

 

 

 

 

The growth with inflation and 3D/IMAX/PLF over the last decade has been pretty incredible, especially the last 5 years as both IMAX and theater brand PLF have exploded. Theater brand PLF didn't even exist and now is over 400 screens in a very short period of time. A movie like Spidey 1 opening to $115m and finishing at $400m in 2002 ticket prices with no 3D, no IMAX, no PLF is extremely impressive...far moreso than what the $400m movies of today are doing.

[JonathanLB]

I don't like going into the same arguments again and again, but you can gripe about the "admissions" counts quite a lot. That's why I'm hesitant to take them too seriously. If you want to put a range, and compare ranges, I'm all for that. I'm all for someone saying, "Look, Titanic clearly sold more tickets than The Force Awakens," which is clear. It's a fact that you can prove through any number of data sets.

 

It is not a fact that The Force Awakens sold more tickets than The Phantom Menace. It's a possibility. It may have, it may not have.

 

I've seen people give 84.9 million tickets as some exact number that TPM sold. The reality is, for anyone actually following the box office at the time, which I was on many forums, TPM sold 90 million tickets.. until it didn't. We had the average ticket price already, it was already given, then somehow at the start of 2000 we hear, "Average ticket price for the full year was blah blah whatever," and suddenly, "TPM sold 85 million tickets." Huh? TPM came out in MAY, we were correctly applying the average ticket price going into the year to TPM and it was 90 million tickets not 85, pretty big difference! Even if you want to split the difference, fine, but you can't retroactively say that tickets cost whatever they cost at the end of 1999 when that wasn't what they cost in May.

 

That aside, why are people using the average ticket price to figure out how many admissions TPM had anyway? You gotta use your brain a bit if you're going to crunch numbers. It's like doing accounting without understanding the underlying data. So the average ticket sold to TPM was exactly the same as the average ticket sold to any movie in 1999? Really? That's fascinating. I didn't know a PG rated kid-friendly movie with a MASSIVE number of matinee and children's tickets had ANYWHERE NEAR the same average ticket price as R-rated adult dramas driven by evening showings. Huh. Guess that shows what I know huh? 

 

No, it shows how stupid it is to calculate admissions when you're going to award R rated movies extra tickets and penalize kid-friendly PG movies. TPM's average ticket price was probably WELL under the average, at the low end of all films released in 1999. 

 

I guarantee that no fewer than 90 million tickets were sold to TPM. Guaranteed. I think it could be as high as 95 million. Hell the movie played in dollar theaters for a few months, I saw it 10 times at dollar theaters and paid $16 total (2 of my admissions were comped by the manager). One ticket to a movie now days is $16 in many markets lol.

 

By the same token, I would love to say TFA had 100 million admissions, but I know that's not likely. It was probably the 90-95 you gave there, but that's exactly why I think TPM and TFA sold about the same number of tickets when it comes down to it. 

Edited December 30, 2016 by JonathanLB

[redfirebird2008]

2 minutes ago, JonathanLB said:

 

I guarantee that no fewer than 90 million people saw TPM. Guaranteed.

 

Actually I guarantee that a lot less than 90 million people saw it. Know how I can guarantee that? Because people like you have admitted to seeing it 30 times in the theater. You are a single person who accounted for 30 tickets by yourself.

[DeeCee]

4 minutes ago, redfirebird2008 said:

 

Actually I guarantee that a lot less than 90 million people saw it. Know how I can guarantee that? Because people like you have admitted to seeing it 30 times in the theater. You are a single person who accounted for 30 tickets by yourself.

So that's 89,999,970 then. 

[PPZVGOS]

46 minutes ago, redfirebird2008 said:

 

The reason people are interested in admissions is because other countries keep track of it that way and the music industry also kept track of units sold as well. It's a true measure of popularity. The American studios use dollar inflation to hide the fact their attendance is going down over time even though population continues to increase.

 

If I were a studio, the last thing I would care about, would be admissions. The only thing that would interest me is profit. It's a bit cynical, but that's how capitalism works. If I could raise ticket prices beyond the general-economy-wide rate of inflation, then that would be ideal, which is exactly what Hollywood studios and theater chains have done. Sacrificing admissions for the sake of more value is infinitely preferable than sacrificing value for the sake of admissions. 

 

The peak for Hollywood came around 2002, when the domestic gross was over $12B (adjusted for real inflation) It hit over $12B the next year as well but hasn't done so since then. There's in fact a very simple explanation for that: internet downloads. Thankfully for Hollywood, the international market has been growing by leaps and bounds in this same period. 

 

The reality of online piracy, means that many people will only get into the trouble and expense of going to the movies if the product is a high-budget, high-concept one, otherwise, why not wait for a couple of months and then download it for free from your laptop? It's this reality that has been partially behind the creation of a two-tier system in Hollywood. On one hand you have the big event franchise/cinematic universe movies (Star Wars, MCU, Transformers, Furious, DCEU, Potter, big-budget animation) and on the other relatively small and relatively unpopular "serious" movies that even if great cannot really make money at the BO (There Will Be Blood, Hell or High Water, Sicario, The Hurt Locker) 

 

Simply put, the movie industry cannot operate in any other way with today's technological realities. 

Edited December 30, 2016 by PPZVGOS

[That One Girl]

The first step for piracy sites to end is for the government to shut them down and make that shit fucking illegal (it already is, but they need to enforce it).  Like jfc, if you want to cheat creators out of their money that they deserved otherwise, you can't legitimately claim yourself as a movie buff.

[Poseidon]

11 minutes ago, PPZVGOS said:

 

If I were a studio, the last thing I would care about, would be admissions.

 

100 people paying 1000$ are worth less than 200 people paying $1000.

And that's what Studios lack to understand and what will haunt them sooner or later.

 

Keeping people in the theater with cheaper tickets is easy, as longs as they still are used to going to the movies.
Winning them back when having lost them to other media will be a hell lot of work to get them back. Even with half the ticket price then.