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

[Eric Duncan]

Although come to think of it, I remember I was at my grandparents' house back in March 2007, and I saw on like CNBC or something a box office report mentioning that Blades of Glory and Meet the Robinsons debuted at #1 and #2 respectively. I don't know why, but that's always something lodged in the back of my head.

[filmlover]

The Lost World was the first run I truly followed (before that it was just looking at the numbers in passing in the newspapers or the reports during the evening news). Watching Titanic's mind-bogglingly amazing run unfold in real time not long after was pretty surreal. Since then it's been fun watching the always changing trends in what's popular over time. The most fascinating era of box office is coming up in a few weeks since we're entering completely new territory unlike anything before and who knows how long it'll take (Weeks? Months? Years?) until everything returns to consistent levels of normal again.

[The Stingray]

The Phantom Menace beating The Lost World's opening day is my earliest box office memory.
 

[wildphantom]

For me it started in 1992 when I saw headlines of Batman Returns breaking the opening weekend record. I did a preview of the summer blockbusters in a piece for school - I was only 12 at the time. It included some stats on how it, and LW3 were doing. 
Spiralled from there. 
 

once I discovered the box office estimates segment on CNN’s Showbiz Today in late 1995, the bug really bit then. Laurin Sydney/ Jim Moret usually presented. 

I used to video it and watch it over and over on the Monday show which had the weekend estimates, pouring over the way their chief analyst Marty Grove would go over the numbers. Summer 1996 in particular I really remember fondly for their reporting on a Monday. I’ve still got tons of those shows taped somewhere. 

Then I got online late 1996 and the rest is history. Already knowing a decent amount I got to research it all I wanted. Gitesh’s Guru site was heaven sent until Mojo arrived. Mr Showbiz was cool too, as they posted daily numbers. 
 

Following the Titanic run was of course most people’s highlight if they can remember it. Let alone the shock opening of Lost World’s unheard of number, when interlocking became a thing in multiplexes, and they could show the same print in more than one screen. 

Edited August 15, 2020 by wildphantom

[Menor the Destroyer]

I think the first time I remember actually following any specific box office number was The Avengers breaking the opening weekend record when I was 12, before that all I knew about was Avatar being the highest grossing film.  I remember being kinda confused about why they initially said it had gotten 200.3 million (or something like that) and then it was revised to 207.4 million. And then the next week I saw in the news that it had made 103 million in its second weekend and I thought that this movie was doing quite well and it was very impressive to have a 100 million second weekend (because the number sounded big). But after that I didn't pay much attention to any other movie's box office for a while. I do remember Age of Ultron's failure to break the record, but I don't think I paid much attention to that beyond mild surprise. My next memory of the box office was Jurassic World breaking the Avengers record when I had gone to visit my relatives in India, I remember reading the headline while my cousin and I were waiting to see the film and being quite surprised that it had been so popular in the USA. Now, later that year I was of course excited for The Force Awakens being a big SW fan, and I think that was when I discovered a bit more about box office. That was the first time I knew that Thursday previews existed after TFA got it's massive number, and of course I was quite happy to see the massive OW that followed. This was probably the first time I ever followed a film after its OW, as periodically checked back in on its BO as it rolled through the Christmas season. I distinctly remember when it lost to Ride Along 2, and also remember following it's opening weekend in China -- the first time I was really aware of international BO. Then came 2016, which was the first year I started really following box office. First came BvS, which I didn't follow too closely but I remember being surprised by how huge it's OW was and then seeing it quickly crash down to earth. Then came the real turning point, Captain America: Civil War, which I was really rooting for to beat the OW record as I had become much more invested in the MCU during those months after I had soured a little on SW which left room for a new fandom. For that film, I was looking obsessively at early international numbers and was a little disappointed that it was lagging Age of Ultron, but I was hopeful that it would smash the record in the USA. Alas, it was not to be. I was a little disappointed at the OW despite it being huge, and then seeing the legs be pretty meh was also disappointing. After that I didn't follow much BO until Rogue One. Now I was very excited for this film and its box office after the great marketing campaign, and from lurking r/boxoffice (I think) I saw references to this strange site called Box Office Theory. At some point during the first week of the run (though after the OW, I think) I checked this place out and started lurking. I remember some Variety report that RO would have a $30 million Friday which was much bigger than expected, which is where I first saw references to Rth and then he ended up debunking the Variety report. But then after the run of RO I didn't check this place throughout much of 2017, and my box office following was mostly just browsing through r/boxoffice now and then. I still followed it much more than previous years, though, as I did pay attention to the runs of specific films and their competition more. 2018, however, was probably the most significant year in terms of me becoming interested in box office. Specifically, it was Black Panther's run that I started lurking on this site more often. After seeing huge presale reports, I looked through to see just how big this was looking to get. I remember rooting for it to smash records and obsessively following the OW hour-b-hour like I had never done before. After the massive Thursday, there was some disappointment at early Friday numbers before the final one ended up being quite good, and then the great Saturday and then I remember seeing the shock on here (shared by me) at that $60 million Sunday. I followed BP's run each weekend much more closely than ever before. Then of course came Infinity War. Unlike others I didn't think it had a chance to break the record, but I remember following each daily number and also international numbers, and being pleasantly shocked at that record-breaking Saturday which basically guaranteed the OW record. After that, the epic bomb of Solo, the massive success of Incredibles 2 and Fallen Kingdom, and the decent performance of Ant-Man and the Wasp all still managed to keep me invested throughout. So at this point I was pretty regularly lurking on the site. 2019, and specifically Captain Marvel's run, was what got me to start posting. I was incredibly hyped for both the movie and box office, believing it had a shot at $1 billion and just in general being caught up in pre-Endgame mania. I remember discovering Pulse for the first time and the updating numbers had me hooked. Seeing people posting about the Pulse numbers, I wanted to join in the discussion and so that prompted me to make an account. Though the OW went (slightly) below what I'd hoped, the very strong full run still prompted me to become more of an active poster. And then, of course, we had the behemoth of Endgame, probably the greatest presale run any of us will ever see and an incredibly exciting one, and that experience made sure that I would be following BO as long as there were theaters.

[Darth Lehnsherr]

Toy Story 3 was the first film I ever took notice of box office and what introduced me to Box Office Mojo. Followed Box Office Mojo as a site for many years and as I became a bigger fan of franchises like the MCU and the return of Star Wars I started paying way more attention to what money the films made on the website. 2016 I had finally created a Reddit account so follow r/boxoffice for a good year until May 2017 where I really wanted to know the results of GOTG Vol 2 early so found this forum. 

[excel1]

1 hour ago, Menor said:

stuff

 

The whole MCU has been nothing short of astounding to follow. I didn't think a series would ever top Star Wars as the pinnacle of cinematic royalty but it's pretty obvious END GAME was the most anticipated film of all time, numerous characters are all-time classic cinematic heroes, etc. Those who remember the box office before Marvel I suspect would agree.  The MCU achieved a level of sustained success that was essentially beyond comprehension. 

 

10 years, 20+ films...logic would say that by then, they would have

1) made a terrible, brand-ruining film/series

or

2) run into effect fo diminishing returns from over saturation

 

Neither happened as they walked the line between staying fresh while true the brand essence perfectly. It is a run that future film business fans - however that exists in the coming years - will look at in similar way that folks my age looked at the original Star Wars trilogy as an unreachable pinnacle of success.

Edited August 16, 2020 by excel1

[excel1]

6 hours ago, Eric Sparrow said:

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.

 

Avatar was a great lesson on the importance of innovation with the creative side. At the time, I thought quality, marketing, and positioning were all that mattered and  basically ignored the power of 3D. Avatar's domestic gross without 3D surcharges is slightly above THE DARK KNIGHT's $531m at the time. Then consider that many of those tickets are never purchased to begin with if 3D isn't a factor and it's likely the film is another $250-300m holiday blockbuster. 

 

But of course, it did have 3D and must-see, incredible 3D at that and it was an epic monster. The 3D trend is about it for it's pop culture footprint, though. 

[charlie Jatinder]

5 hours ago, Arendelle Legion said:

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).

You are pretty new to this thing but our Hollywood timeline is pretty much same.

[charlie Jatinder]

my story was basically of my tracking and mostly Indian.

 

Speaking of just Hollywood, the first memory I have is Guiness Book of Records 2008, which had Spider-Man 3 opening weekend. Passion of Christ as biggest R-rated film. There was a piece of Tom Cruise biggest star and in relationship with some actress, which is weird to be in World Record book.

 

I didn't understand much of it what it was what it was.

 

Then I remember Avatar being big and record breaking reports on TV news. 2012 was big event in India but Avatar had WoM doing trick.

 

Fast forward to 2012, I had feeling Avengers will do big but I didn't knew any numbers for it still.

 

It wasn't till 2014, I discovered Mojo and I almost studied the All Time page. It was nice to see Avengers at number 3. Also loved the fact that Harry Potter 8 had the opening day record of $91mn but there was no interesting film in 2014 so I didn't really paid much attention to whatever was there other than All Time section.

 

In 2015, Furious 7 being record breaker in India was very surprising. Its China opening day being bigger than US was a good attention, then again I had no interest in film, so didn't follow after that.

 

It was Age of Ultron which I first time looked up for opening weekend. I thought this film will break $100mn opening day barrier but... Then opening weekend was lower than The Avengers, which was surprising because in India, sequels don't decrease.

 

I followed the run a bit, but it was summer 2015, I got my new phone, and started visiting Mojo more often. Jurassic World was the first film I tracked day wise numbers. I also started watching Hollywood films, before that I hadn't seen more than 50.

 

Followed TFA opening weekend but had SRK film to track in India so didn't paid much attention after that. Was pissed on it beating Harry Potter's Previews and Opening day record as SW ain't no thing in India.

 

Next thing I remember is BvS. I discovered Deadline, so seeing numbers before Mojo was fun. This was the time I started looking at trends and understanding the numbers. Before that I was just looker, now I was trying to participate. After opening weekend, I remember thinking it will do $300-325mn in full run, which come close.

 

As a naive tracker I remember this being one of my first boxoffice take.

http://forums.itsboxoffice.com/498840/batman-superman-gross-15-3mn-friday-55mn-weekend-expected

 

It was good seeing Civil War beating the film and just before Civil War, I completed my MCU watch of films prior to that. Then again simple lurking stuff not much till Spider-Man: Homecoming. This was the first Hollywood film I actually tracked with whatever limited skills I had. The US opening was bit disappointing and box office Outside Asia was also ehh but it was a start. I then followed/tracked almost all of 2017. I was getting cS numbers for big films and tweeting them so I was getting some audience too. 

 

It was Infinity War thread which got posted here, which one day led me here by just random google searching my name.

 

I remember posting numbers first time in Fantastic Beasts numbers, and getting weird like why are they saying me Asgardian.

[JJ-8]

My first interest in the box office occurred around the lord of the rings fellowship of the ring. I lurked at first but eventually joined BOM. when that was shutdown I joined the migration to here. I did look at a few other but BOT is where I stayed. 
 

been some epic box office runs in my time but the one that sticks the most is tracking avatar both in the US but especially in Australia where it not only shattered titanic’s top spot but Came very close to passing it in adjusted numbers.  No film has come close since to avatar. Only Star Wars 7 got close (still 15m short). 

[Eric Duncan]

8 hours ago, Arendelle Legion said:

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).

I don't trust people who use Reddit. It's part of my religion, Chalanism.

[DAJK]

Damn this really is just going to be my life story isn't it?

 

When I was a kid I always had some sort of "obsession" that I learned everything about. When I was aged 4-5 it was tornadoes (after I first watched Twister) and I could tell you everything there was to know about them. Starting around age 5 it was dinosaurs, but not in the way that most kids are after watching Jurassic Park. No. I could give you the Latin name and pronunciation of anything in any of my books, tell you how long ago they lived,  list to you all the geologic periods etc. etc. When I was 5 my parents took me to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta and had to drag me into the exhibit because I wouldn't leave the info desk and I'd be asking the grad students questions and when they answer me I correct them in a snarky way any 5 year old would.

 

So you could say I've had a sort of history of being obsessed with things to the point where I learn EVERYTHING there is to know about it. As the years passed the obsessions changed, and while I might move on from a topic taking centre stage in my life, I never fully lost interest in it (take for example Star Wars or Harry Potter etc.). I was homeschooled in grades 2-5 so I didn't have quite as much social interaction on a daily basis as other kids might, so it in a sense fostered my obsessiveness over hobbies that you could have individually rather than needing a group of friends.

 

Then in grade 6 I started public school in French Immersion. Being the homeschooled kid that nobody really knew outside of "oh I think I was on a soccer team with him a couple years ago", I was pretty awkward and had a hard time making friends that year. I started getting into a habit of seeing ads for movies on TV and getting really excited for my dad to take me to see them, such as X Men First Class or Kung Fu Panda 2, Pirates 4, Dark of the Moon, etc. In grade 7 I started to learn social interaction a lot better ("better" is a relative term when you're in middle school) and I started to make some friends. In March 2012 I went with some friends to see The Hunger Games, and I remember my friend's mum driving us home and she mentioned to her husband sitting in the front with her that "this movie apparently broke some sort of record for a movie that isn't a sequel." It was just a passing comment, but it stuck in my head for a few weeks.

 

Then the Avengers came out. I wasn't exactly an MCU fan before that (Iron Man was "okay I guess" for little Dylan, I didn't like Thor and never saw Captain America). But my dad took me to see that one one night and I absolutely loved it. Then I saw something on its Wikipedia page about how it broke the all time opening record, and, remembering the comment my friend's mum made about the Hunger Games, I was hooked. Every few days I would check The Avengers' Wikipedia page to track the little number they have reported for its box office, and I'd keep watching it go up and up. At that point, I started checking the Wikipedia pages for other big movies that I had gone to watch in theatres that summer like Madagascar 3, Amazing Spider Man, and Dark Knight Rises. 

 

And then I went into Grade 8. My summer interest in movies and box office waned slightly (Sept/Oct don't have a ton of movies for 13 year olds to get excited about). In November, I think during the same week, two things happened. I got my first "girlfriend", the girl I'd had a crush on since I was the socially awkward dweeb in Grade 6, and I saw a link to Box Office Mojo's article about Wreck It Ralph's weekend box office: "Ralph Wrecks It, Flight Cruises." That was how I discovered Mojo, and I spent some afternoons that week getting to know the site, looking at how there was a DOM/INTL split for grosses, and looking at what the numbers I had tracked earlier that summer actually meant in the context of box office. Remember, I have a history of getting very obsessed with things really fast, and in a few short days, I had started to learn the basics of box office reporting and tracking.

 

That week was also Skyfall's domestic opening, and I had seen BOM articles about how its numbers were apparently "impressive" OS, and that it was looking to be very big in North America too. I saw it as my first date, and so in a way that movie was really special to me, and so I started REALLY tracking its box office daily, looking at domestic grosses and international numbers. I compared it to BOM's winter forecast, and through that started looking at other movies Ray Subers had predicted for the winter, so as the weeks passed I started to track movies like Life of Pi and The Hobbit to see how they performed against BOM's predictions. 

 

2013 was when I really started to get into the groove of box office. Rather than just tracking numbers, I started to predict how I thought movies would do, and I would start to "cheer" for certain movies that Grade 8 me was excited for (Hansel and Gretel, Jack the Giant Slayer, Oz the Great and Powerful). Around March 2013 I found Box Office Forums, although never created an account, and I stalked these forums for roughly a year or so. At the same time, I was a HUGE fan of the Maze Runner books, and I was tracking every piece of news about the development of that movie along with some friends who were also pretty excited for it.

 

In summer 2014 as marketing for Maze Runner started to pick up, I finally decided to create an account on here so that I could discuss Maze Runner with some people in that movie's thread. At the same time, I thought it was really exciting to be able to share a hobby/knowledge that I had been building for a year and a half with other people with similar interests. As I started high school, I posted on these forums constantly, and when I turned 16 in early 2015 I started to realize I had spent all my savings from my old paper route going to the movies. So I tried to see if I could get a job at the movie theatre, which would take care of my $ problem, and would let me see movies for free. I got hired for the opening night of Age Of Ultron (which was sort of fitting, in that an Avengers movie sort of bookended the two stages of my movie life).

 

And, for anyone who's known me on these forums for a significant period of time, the rest is history. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by DAJK

[charlie Jatinder]

4 hours ago, Menor said:

My next memory of the box office was Jurassic World breaking the Avengers record when I had gone to visit my relatives in India,

cool. local Indian relatives or folks from US settled here.

[grey ghost]

The late 90's.

 

I would love checking the top 10 box office numbers in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

 

I would check it religiously.

 

And later I would discover Box Office Mojo in the 2000's.

 

Back then I thought it would be around forever. *cries in pillow*

[charlie Jatinder]

1 minute ago, DAJK said:

Damn this really is just going to be my life story isn't it?

That's the plan.

 

1 minute ago, DAJK said:

When I was a kid I always had some sort of "obsession" that I learned everything about.

That's very relatable.

4 minutes ago, DAJK said:

At that point, I started checking the Wikipedia pages for other big movies that I had gone to watch in theatres that summer like Madagascar 3, Amazing Spider Man, and Dark Knight Rises. 

Actually yeah, before Mojo, I did same for a small time.

 

Nice writeup @DAJK

[charlie Jatinder]

In hindisght, new Mojo isn't all terrible. The international section is great. Domestic one is okay.

 

Paywall is shitty thing but I guess it was too good to be free. Besides, looking at archives, Mojo in its initial days had paywall for bunch of stuff they made free later, so fingers crossed.

[Borobudur]

22 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

In hindisght, new Mojo isn't all terrible. The international section is great. Domestic one is okay.

 

Paywall is shitty thing but I guess it was too good to be free. Besides, looking at archives, Mojo in its initial days had paywall for bunch of stuff they made free later, so fingers crossed.

It is terrible! The double counting of the rerelease are everywhere, check harry potter deathly hallow part 2, Bohemian Rhapsody or Interstellar, their rerelease number was added on top of their original run, causing unreasonable rerelease number and BoM added that number in the overall number eventually.

 

Also, the new international section, we can't trace back the international sum as of each week. Last year I can't still check the total sum of Joker's international gross as of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd week. Now they just tell the sum without telling you the as of date. 

[Borobudur]

I started my box office love because of my love to theatrical experience, I like watching movie in cinema, enjoying the pleasure of collective crowd experience

 

I started to pay attention, but not religiously when Frozen become mega-cultural phenomenon. Since then, I will check on box office on the on-off basis.

 

I started to pay closer attention to box office during Bohemian Rhapsody time, and that was a long run!

 

 

[Webslinger]

I want to say that the first time I became aware of box office numbers was... 1998? Maybe 1999? I feel like it was '98 because I remember at least knowing what the #1 movie of the previous weekend was throughout that summer, when I was 7. I used to look at the movie ads and listings in the entertainment section of the Friday Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and I started noticing that they would list the previous weekend's top 10 alongside the Seattle metro area's top 10. Even before that, my hometown cinemas used to list their movies in the order of the auditoriums they were going to play in that weekend, so the fact that I knew which ones were the biggest also meant that I had some idea of which movies were big in late '96 and '97. That's actually what clued me in on Titanic being as huge as it was - well, that and the fact that it was huge enough that even some of my first grade classmates had seen it and were obsessed with it.

 

I mostly followed box office that way for a few years, though I would hear about some of the bigger openings earlier if they made enough money to get significant press coverage (think record openings, like the first Harry Potter or Spider-Man, whose opening was so big that it was even alluded to on Sports Center, of all places). In 2003, a few months after getting broadband, I started looking at weekend estimate write-ups on MSN Movies on Sunday afternoons (and checked back for the actual updates the next afternoon). I then discovered Box Office Mojo and started following daily numbers in the summer of 2004.

 

I've definitely used my ability to name the #1 movie over any given weekend since 1997 as a party trick a few times.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Webslinger