box office story - how did your box office interest started.

[charlie Jatinder]

So I guess, y'all tell your story. Here's mine;

 

Pre 2010 (infant): The first memory of box office I have is from a TV news report of Hindi film in 2007. I had interest in numbers and stats. Used to track cricket stats back then, so box office was nice addition. Most of the times I read/watched box office reports, most of them entirely inaccurate were from Bollywood news channels and some random news paper.

 

2010-12 (curious kid): Then in 2010 I discovered ETC, a Bollywood music channel which also did box office reporting. Renowned Bollywood trade analyst Komal Nahta (he also own a Trade Magazine FILM INFORMATION) used to handle the box office. That felt like a really big thing. I used to watch the channel whole day for random Box office infomercials they did on half hour basis and Komal's box office show like the one I share below. The show on Friday night used to give review of the new released film and opening report, On Monday the weekend business was reported and on the other weekdays random interviews and for big films daily updates.

 

 

In India fanwars between fans of stars are common and box office comparison was one major topic to argue, eventually become the only topic. I in school used to have fights with friends on similar, with me on SRK side and friends mostly on Salman and Aamir. That led to increase in interest in box office, and after hours and years of watching ETC and Komal Nahta, I started understanding box office. In a way Komal is my Box Office teacher.

 

The first Internet search I probably did was "Top Grossing Films" in 2010 perhaps, and didn't understand much.

 

2012-15 (confused but learning teenager): Then in mid 2012, I discovered that on internet we can get box office updates daily and not wait for Monday night for weekend numbers. That was huge for me. Internet wasn't big in India back then and I didn't had mobile. I used to go to Internet Cafe and surf box office website KOIMOI (also run by Komal) after school. I also learned about internet fanwars on the website and they were fun. Then found bunch of other websites. By 2013, I had my own phone (not smart but had internet) so I was getting box office update faster than ETC, so stopped watching the show and focus only on Internet sources.

 

SRK was bit of bad phase in comparison to Salman during 2010-2012, so that was depressing period but in 2013 Chennai Express become the Biggest Indian film. Those were the days, bullying other fans online. During one of those fights, I discovered a Bollywood forum, which felt like a very good place. I also learned that Koimoi and bunch of other website I followed weren't actually accurate report the studio numbers which are inflated. The genuine numbers were by Box Office India. During that time till 2015, debate of Producer vs BOI figure was big thing in Bollywood internet, especially after for Krrish 3 which inflated so big they announced it as Biggest Grosser of all time, despite about 15% lower.

 

SRK was big in overseas, just being a biased fan, I had interest in overseas numbers. This is how I discovered Mojo and Hollywood box office but all of that was pretty insignificant to me. 

 

Basically during this period I was discovering things and learning about box office, but still confused.

 

2016-17 (toward adulthood): remember I said interest in overseas. Dilwale released in end of 2015, it failed in India but overseas was big. I surfed through out Twitter for its number in non-traditional bollywood markets, and I discovered Rentrak. This was period I would ask people about number of films just like any other twitter user. In one of these conversations, I started a good relation with a guy with access. I also getting sources for domestic market, by 2017 I had good enough knowledge about stuff.

 

This was also the time I developed the taste for MCU and that led me to Hollywood box office. I was so pissed on Age of Ultron Flopping. Civil War beating BvS was fun. Also discovered Deadline, was nice to see numbers earlier than Mojo. 

 

2017-present: Before 2017, I had a guy with comScore access but was mostly interested in Indian films in USA. The interest in Hollywood was increasing, so I thought why not ask for Hollywood numbers as well. My India box office sources were now pretty decent, started Cinetrak with few other people. 

 

I was almost an expert on Indian overseas box office and was gaining good traction on Twitter. I also started tweeting USA numbers, mostly for Marvel, DC, Disney films. Sources started getting better too.

 

One day in random search on google of my username, I discovered this forum. Someone had shared my Tweet here for Infinity War numbers. In October 2018, I made account here. My comScore source got better in March 2019. Before that I used to ask numbers indirectly from a guy, but from March I got direct access, which you would have realised by more frequent updates. From this forum, knowledge about other markets mostly European and Latin America also started increasing. You guys are really nice and very kind. 

[lorddemaxus]

Mad Max Fury Road was the first time I properly started noticing the box office. I was all over that film at the time and I started following its box-office. I think I started getting more involved from Star Wars Ep. 7 onwards though.

[Jamiem]

Always interested from a young age, remember Spider-Man vs AoTC and LoTR box office (being from NZ obviously impacted this). 
 

First film I remember religiously following online for updates though was Avatar, which of course was crazy and it overtaking Titanic as the no 1 was wild. 
 

2015 was also a huge year for me with Jurassic World, Age of Ultron, TFA, Inside Out, Minions etc. that’s probably when I started looking more closely at comps, OW multipliers and getting super nerdy about everything. 
 

edit: found the forum through something posted on Twitter can’t remember what though. 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Jamiem

[charlie Jatinder]

I guess add, how you found this forum to your take.

[Jake Gittes]

Don't really remember how it started, like with movies themselves it was just there from the first moment I became aware of the concept. I think it was somewhere around 2004 that I saw a little table with the U.S. and Russian weekend top 10s in the newspaper, and it immediately got my attention, I'd check it and compare numbers and drops from week to week. From early 2005 till late 2007, when my home internet was first non-existent and then only accessible for short periods of time via dial-up prepaid cards, I constantly traveled across town to my mother's workplace to brush up on movie news, and spent a lot of time studying then-recent (yearly and all-time charts as they looked then) and current (weekend) box office - the former initially on IMDb and the latter on ComingSoon.net, then everything on BOM which I discovered in late June 2006 on the Superman Returns weekend and obviously had my mind blown by what a goldmine it was - and by "studying" I mean that I'd actually print out pages upon pages of these charts and bring them home with me. Played the derby every week (highest finish was #3, when I got Shrek the Third's OW within 300k), made my own predictions of upcoming movies' runs for fun. I joined BOM forums in March 2010, been talking to some of the people who are still here ever since. Wrote my own box office column in Russian twice a week from January 2011 until September 2017, a nice little freelance gig.

 

Late 2000s and early 2010s was really the peak of my interest. It's been going down more recently, which is probably just as well given the double whammy of BOM dying and COVID hitting, although individual runs like Black Panther, Greatest Showman, John Wick 3, Knives Out or Parasite were still obviously impressive to track. But movies I'm interested in have less and less overlap with what gets mass-marketed theatrically in our ever-more flattened content-ified landscape, I think Jurassic World was the first record-breaker which I had absolutely no strong feelings towards on any level which I'd have previously thought unimaginable. As a teenager I'd just cheer everything on and only be disappointed when e.g. something like Zodiac bombed. These days what gets me to cheer is just seeing, like, Uncut Gems cross 50m domestic. And who knows if we'll ever even see something like that again. 

[charlie Jatinder]

18 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

and by "studying" I mean that I'd actually print out pages upon pages of these charts and bring them home with me

I have done that:p

 

In school, I got my hands on a computer, in around 2012, so first thing I did was print the Wikipedia page of top India grossers. Which felt like a goldmine, having data for stuff like biggest third week grossers and shit.

 

 

[Fancyarcher]

It's a bit vague for me how my interest in box office really started. I think it was the opening weekend of Toy Story 3 where my full interest in box office data really start to bloom, but I remember randomly reading about the opening weekend numbers in little sprinkles in the newspaper for years prior. I still recall following the massive opening weekend of Spider-Man 3, and then seeing it collapse after in slow-motion. Comparing and contrasting opening weekend numbers was always one of my favorite hobbies, and I used to be and still am sorta obsessed with how a particular film would rank in top 100 or 200, on the year end chart. Some of my best remembered box office stories include the opening of The Avengers, Avatar's historic run (of course), seeing Green Lantern open solid on Friday, and then subsequently bomb after, Harry Potter and The Dealthy Hallows Part 2's big opening weekend, and Inception's crazy wom, plus more recent incredible runs like Black Panther, Parasite, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and Knives Out are probably going to be stuck into my memory for years to come. 

 

I found Boxofficetheory by accident. I was just searching for some random numbers, and I stumbled upon this website. I was actually shocked there was a forum dedicated to box office discussion, which at the time, was one of my favorite things to follow. I immediately signed-up for an account, and subsequently began posting. When I learned it was a continuation of old forums started on the box office mojo site I was taken aback at first. I had no idea that Mojo once had a forum, and I just wasn't paying attention to it. I was initially disappointed that I didn't join the old forums first, when it was still around, but I grew to really appreciate this place, and all of its users, and all the fun discussion that came from weekend threads. It especially livened my weekends up when I was still in college. 

[pepsa]

I always loved numbers since I was a small kid. Played monopoly since is was 4 years old. When I was 7ish years old I came down from my bed cause I had a headache and lord of the rings fellowship was playing, stayed up till the movie was done and this was the first movie I was extremely intriuged with.

The next year all LOTR movies would be rebroadcasted around christmas. I convinced my parents that me and my brother could stay up for the last one (felt right in the christmas holidays, so no school). Watched return of the king and now I was comepletly in lover with the franshise.

 

Over the next years my jonger brother was also hooked on LOTR, when looking through the world records book I was happy to see ROTK being the 2nd biggest movie ever (ofc I was disapointed that titanic was first) but having 2 spots in the top 5 was pretty good. Still obsessed by numbers everything came together in 2012 when the hobbit opened. I followed that run on boxoffice mojo, my knowlege was extremely bad cause it had 7 days or so it made around 10m daily and tought this was normal so my projection was extremely off. I saw Avengers that year, liked the movie but once I saw the first iron man I realy got in to the marvel movies (mainly for phase 1), found out avengers boxoffice run, was super different comaired to the hobbit. I learned more about the boxoffice and came on this forum to see that many people enjoyed this weird qwirk as well. By 2013 my projections were much more realistic and it was fun to follow and project runs and not be off by 50% + after the movie opened.

 

Over the last few years I had some moments I lose a bit of interest in the boxoffice, I am still sad that I missed black panthers run cause it happened in one of my down times. That said every year for atleast 3-6 month I have been actively posting and following boxoffice runs, last year was a great year for me in that aspect. This year everything started strong with bad boys for life directed by Belgium directors, very glad that it did so well and it was a fun run to follow. I was really looking forward to black widows boxoffice run cause it was a bit more of a dark horse in the mcu (sure it would do 750m +, but would it be able to join CM and FFH?). Just before the real fun started (mulan, james bond, BW )covid came and to be honest I have sincirely missed following and projecting the boxoffice run. The only good thing to come from this is that my second semester this year was very good (my grades) cause I didn't spend 6 hours a day tracking end games run whilst I should have been studying.

Edited August 15, 2020 by pepsa

[charlie Jatinder]

Luckily I picked it very fast.

 

The first Hollywood box office I remember seeing is Spiderman 3 in Guiness World Record 2008 edition, which was in our school library. Since it was in $ and english number system, couldn't really imagine how big it was.

 

Was weird to see Potter movies so big, until I watched Potter films in 2013. 

[Joel M]

I guess the first time I grasped with the concept of boxoffice was Titanic. Since it was such a prolonged run Titanic breaking records both in Greece and worldwide was in the news every other week for months.

The years after 1998-1999 (around 12-13 years old) is when I started getting into learning actors and directors names, which were the older classics you have to see, behind the scenes and industry stuff. Didn't have internet then so almost all of my information was coming from greek magazines that also had monthly boxoffice charts for USA and Greece.

2001 is when I started having a home computer with internet connection and found about Mojo around HP1-Lotr1 period and been following the boxoffice weekly ever since. My biggest obsession though was finding about Greek boxoffice because the reporting was haphazard to non existent back then. I also briefly contributed to a greek movie site some reviews and articles mid to late 00s when I was in University (embarassing stuff, they 're still up on the internet) but I didn't discover the BOM forums until around '07-'08. I was mostly a lurker with maybe 100 posts and followed the exodus after the forums shut down all the way here.

I was never that much into the nitty gritty of boxoffice daily drops, predicting etc but my fascination was always with what movies connected or not and following their runs. And yeah it has become less exciting over the last decade with tracking and pre-determined hits based on brands but it's still interesting and valuable. I kinda dread the future whether it's immediately after the pandemic or in 10 years when your only metric for a movie's success will be whatever bullshit number with a thousand caveats and asterisks each company wants to communicate. Basically what Netflix is doing right now.

 

[Krissykins]

@baumer we’re going to seem old here lol. I’ve just turned 33. 
 

But.... 2002. First film I remember following box office online for properly was Halloween Resurrection lol. So since I was about 14, just over 18 years 😱
 

Was on the original BOM message boards for years until it closed, then WOKJ, then here. 

[excel1]

I had a natural interest in finance & business from early years and loved going to the theater as kid and teenager. Even at ages 8-10, I remember reading about the big business films like Jurassic Park, ID4, and Episode 1 were doing and found it a very interesting portal into the financial side of pop culture.

 

I discovered BOX OFFOCE MOJO in early summer 2001 - which coincidentally was the summer of mega-openings. From there I was hooked. Mummy 2, Shrek, Pearl Harbor, AI, Jurassic Park 3, Planet of the Apes and Rush Hour 2 were all huge. 9/11 hit and the world stopped for a bit but everything kicked into overdrive with Harry Potter 1 in November followed by LOTR in December. This was really just monitoring the openings of new films every weekend and following the grosses.

 

In early 2002, I discovered IMDB, ComingSoon.net, AintItCoolNews, and Dark Horizons and began to actively following the development and film making side. Spider-man was an insane, all-time massive hit upon release and beyond conquered the vastly inferior ATTACK OF THE CLONES and I was now in full blockbuster mode. 2003 was the when I really began dabbling in predicting with Xmen 2, MATRIX 2, Hulk and Terminator 3 all out that summer - and Pirates 1 was a shockingly awesome surprise that an insane box office run. 2004 was the first summer that films I had followed from day 1 came out. I remember when Brad Pitt was cast as Achilles in Tory, etc.  Production on BATMAN BEGINS and KING KONG kickstarted 2005, 2 projects I was personally very interested in.

 

My peak for following and predicting was no doubt 2006-2010ish. I can remember basically every film related those summers in order by release date, and from from 2007-2009 I called many shocking hits and misses. 

 

From 2010 onward, real life took over and while film and box office are still one of my biggest personal interests, my attention on it isn't quite what it once was. 

 

Most surprising gross positive would be a tie between SPIDER-MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT's opening days/weekends; negative surprise would go to KING KONG's pathetic opening day/weekend given the mountain of hype and marketing behind it. 

 

Favorite memories....Bale cast as Batman on 9/11/2003; RDJ as Iron Man when he was a nobody but everyone knew he was talented; learning DiCaprio and Nolan were teaming up for his TDK follow up, Spiderman 1, The Dark Knight and Avengers 1 insane popularity knowing the films were so deserving. Not one single memory but a general thing is it has been/was beyond awesome to follow the build of the MCU from day 1 - I remember like it was yesterday when RDJ was cast as Iron Man, then seeing him pop up in the credit scene for 2008 HULK, than the captain America shield and Thor hammer in Iron Man 2 with the knowledge that those 2 films were coming out next summer and the realization that they were about to something crazy and beyond fresh/exciting. 

 

Worst memory easily THE DARK KNIGHT RISES opening weekend, the disappointment I felt with SPIDER-MAN 3 after the first 2 were so awesome...

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by excel1

[jb007]

My box office interest started in 1977 from following the exploits of Star Wars in Indian weekly magazine "Screen". 

 

1981 reports of box office performances of Superman 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark made me a box office fanatic. 

 

 

[Eric Atreides]

I remember getting mildly intrigued with it in 2009 because BoxOfficeGuru had their posts reposted on Rotten Tomatoes around that time. But about late 2009 when Avatar hit the scene was when I really started to get invested in the whole thing.

[charlie Jatinder]

26 minutes ago, jb007 said:

My box office interest started in 1977 from following the exploits of Star Wars in Indian weekly magazine "Screen". 

Any chance you still have those 😛

Edited August 15, 2020 by charlie Jatinder

[DAR]

Two things I used to do every Monday.   Read the box score from the Packers game.   And read the Life Section of the USA Today for its story on the weekend  box office.  I kind of miss that surprise of waiting until Monday to see how a film did

[jb007]

6 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Any chance you still have those 😛

No, Charlie. In 1977, as a 12 year old, I used to read them at Mysore Central Library. 😎😎

[cannastop]

I was about 10 when I became really interested in The Lion King. I looked up everything I could about it. I looked in kid's almanacs and boxofficemojo about how much money it made and I payed attention to whenever a movie passed its total. This was in the mid 00s.

[Legion Again]

Hmm, let’s see. I think the first BO numbers I ever heard about was when The Avengers broke 200M and then ultimately 1.5B when I was 16. I remember paying attention to Winter Soldier and GOtG1 openings a bit, then 2015 biggies a bit and BvS vs CW, but I was still pretty touch and go. Only occasionally looking up how certain movies were doing, no real idea of all-time or yearly records or how things were going on a monthly/weekend basis.    
 

Started to pay more attention in summer 2017 with Wonder Woman and spider-man legs, then TLJ, Jumanji, TGS for an exciting winter.    
 

But BP OW is what really kicked my interest into overdrive, that’s when I made an account here for the juicy juicy Rth numbers (and because the discussions and expertise seemed to be, and have proved to be, higher quality than Reddit).

Edited August 15, 2020 by Arendelle Legion

[Saul Goodman]

My first box office memory was seeing a news report on TV that Spider-Man(2002) was smashing records. I used to check Box Office Mojo every once in a while to see how movies were doing in the late 2000s. But it wasn't until The Avengers(2012), when I started following the box office closely.