Aren't movie gross incomes misleading?

[JuanTabonia]

You always see stupid (IMO) figures in the news like "The Matrix Reloaded grossed $89.9 Million in the first weekend". Ticket prices are always increasing, so of course gross figures will be higher year after year.

I think a more fair, comparable number is # of ticket sales. Why does Hollywood quote $$ instead?

 

[Demon-Xanth]

My guess:
They're in it for the Benjamins.

 

[pulse8]

Why does Hollywood quote $$ instead?

Because it doesn't matter how many people saw it.

It only matters how much money they made. Don't be that naive.

 

[Toasthead]

because it all about the money.

there are more people in the world now too, so would ticket sales be misleading too?

 

[TallBill]

Yeah, they dont care how many people actually see or like their movies. They just want money.

 

[JuanTabonia]

I figured that greedy Hollywood just wants money.

I don't really care how much a movie made over the weekend. But I don't like it when the news articles say that a new movie grossed $xxx M, which beat out the last highest record from 1995 or something b/c you can't compare it.

Then again, since movies get more expensive to make, they might not be making as much money as older movies. Eh, who cares.

 

[Syringer]

a) More expensive tickets = less people
b) P2P programs make it easier to bootleg movies

 

[Noirish]

Haven't you learnt?
The only thing that really matters in this world is money, sad but true.

However, it's going to be a while before someone knocked off that ridiculous figure of Titanic, that movie makes me sick.

 

[dullard]

I've always been bothered by records like that. But that is just the way things go - you need to analyze the data before you put much stock in it.

Take simple economic data for example. Suppose the GDP grows 1% in a year. Did the economy improve? Well if population grew by 2% then no - per capita everyone is worse off. But if the population stayed the same then yes -per capita everyone is better off. You cannot just look at the original number and make a conclusion.

As nutrition gets better and athletes get taller/stronger world records will keep getting broken. So does that mean these new athletes are better than those 100 years ago? Interesting if you really think about it.

A sport changes its rules and that makes scoring easier. Then someone hits a record number of homeruns / touchdowns / goals in a year. Does that make that player the best ever?

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: JuanTabonia
You always see stupid (IMO) figures in the news like "The Matrix Reloaded grossed $89.9 Million in the first weekend". Ticket prices are always increasing, so of course gross figures will be higher year after year.

I think a more fair, comparable number is # of ticket sales. Why does Hollywood quote $$ instead?

Because it's all about money??

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

All time Highest Grossing Movies Adjusted For Inflation

 

[sciencetoy]

It's all about the publicity. Those movie gross figures have ABSOLUTELY NO connection to reality. It's all fantasy. I worked in a theater for many years that was the largest grossing (in real cash dollars) in the world-wide chain, and the honchos used to hang out there. They sat there making up crazy numbers to feed to the press.

Reported gross equals roughly: the largest number they can think of at the moment, minus an amount that varies depending on how large a cut of the gross the star has, plus or minus whether they need a big hit or a big loss for their accounting and legal expenses.

My theater had 580 seats. At 5 shows a day, 7 days a week, 8. a ticket (you do the math) that was a possible gross of $200,400. I often read that we took in over a million dollars in an opening holiday week. Oh, sure. All of those people bought 5 tickets each. Don't you?

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: sciencetoy
It's all about the publicity. Those movie gross figures have ABSOLUTELY NO connection to reality. It's all fantasy. I worked in a theater for many years that was the largest grossing (in real cash dollars) in the world-wide chain, and the honchos used to hang out there. They sat there making up crazy numbers to feed to the press.

Reported gross equals roughly: the largest number they can think of at the moment, minus an amount that varies depending on how large a cut of the gross the star has, plus or minus whether they need a big hit or a big loss for their accounting and legal expenses.

My theater had 580 seats. At 5 shows a day, 7 days a week, 8. a ticket (you do the math) that was a possible gross of $200,400. I often read that we took in over a million dollars in an opening holiday week. Oh, sure. All of those people bought 5 tickets each. Don't you?

Just because you don't know the exact mathematically process doesn't mean it has 'ABSOLUTELY NO connection to reality'. It's called probability statistics. And it's quite accurate.

 

[ElFenix]

and you can get matinee tickets and regular tickets and student tickets and senior tickets so really theres different prices for tickets in the same week!

 

[sciencetoy]

Just because you don't know the exact mathematically process doesn't mean it has 'ABSOLUTELY NO connection to reality'. It's called probability statistics. And it's quite accurate.

I stand corrected - thank you.

 

[MrBond]

I paid the same to see spiderman as I did the matrix reloaded (well, not really, caught a matinee of spiderman, but evening show was still $8.75)

I'm officially hijacking this thread

Anyone else's theator use strange pricing schedules? I went to see Die Another Day with my dad, on a wednesday night, it was $8.75. Saw 8 mile, the friday it came out, $9.00. Saw Identity two weeks after release, $9.25 on a saturday. Saw Matrix Reloaded Wednesday at 10:00 (bought tickets online), $8.75

 

[sohdahere]

they dont care,
they get money
and by showing off they hope to get even more money
by getting ppl to go watch it since 'everyone else is'.