Friday Movie Blogging: 09-19-08
Ever wonder whether you’re the only one who hasn’t a seen a new movie? There’s always those few films every year that everyone is talking about, and often ruin for you under the impression that “I thought you had seen it already.” You’d be a long way off from being alone on that.
For the sake of consistency, I’ll be going off the US Box Office draws for this, since they’re the most media friendly, and nobody gives a crap about how many people in Canada watch movies.
The average cost of a movie ticket in the US costs approx. $10-12, averaging out to approx. $11 a person. So if everyone in the US (pop. over 305 million) saw a movie, the box office gross would be closer to $ 3,355,000,000, which is substantially higher than the gross of “Titanic.” Then you need to take theater costs into account. In the first week, the studio may keep up to 80-100% of the income, forcing the theater to raise concession prices if they plan to make any money. It later goes down to a 80/20 split after several weeks, when almost no one’s watching the movie anymore. They like to say it’s an even 50/50 split between the theaters and studios, when it’s probably closer to studios keeping about 75% of the profits. And if that’s the case and everyone in the US saw a movie, it would still bring in about $2,516,250,00 – which is still substantially higher than “Titanic.”
In 2008 dollars, “Titanic” would’ve brought in about $900M, which is 33% of the US population. And taking in mind that a lot of that came from multiple repeat viewings thanks to hormone-crazed teenage girls, I’d say only about a quarter of the population went to see “Titanic.” Then there’s “Dark Knight” which is sitting on $518M, which would imply only 20% of the US population saw the movie, unless you take into account that maybe 5% of that came from multiple viewings from DC fanboys. The biggest box office draws ever have been “Gone with the Wind” and “Star Wars,” bringing in $1.4B and $1.2B respectively in 2008 dollars. Not taking multiple viewings in account, this would still imply that only half the people in the US ever watched these movies when they first came out. Taking box office trends into consideration, it’s probably a safe bet that there’s a good half of the population that never watches movies at all, or just waits for them to come on TV.
In any case, never feel left out when you haven’t seen a popular movie yet. You’re almost always in the majority.
P.S. The most Canada would have to contribute to worldwide box office if we all saw the same movie once would be about $363M.
P.S.2. Fun fact: “The Dark Knight” actually bombed in Japan. It was apparently too dark and pessimistic a movie for them. It continues to get beaten out by a movie about a goldfish.
P.S.3. I’m aware that I’m pulling out all these estimates out my ass, and that the economic studio-theater ratio differs with every movie.
New Movies out this Week:
-Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais comedy about seeing ghosts)
-Lakeview Terrace (Sam Jackson as a cop who harasses people)
-Igor (John Cusack as a hunchback wanting to be a mad scientist.)
-My Best Friend’s Girl (…bleh?)
Nothing that grabs my attention in a “rush out and see it in the theater” kind of way. Browsing through the Cinema Clock website, I think the only movies around here that I still want to see are Death Race, Tropic Thunder, and Pineapple Express.
No exciting trailers or parodies out this week, other than the usual batch of Batman videos. So what the hell – here’s “Better Living” with the B&J Supersquad.
September 19 2008 03:25 pm | Movies
Murray on 25 Sep 2008 at 9:21 am #
Ponyo is a pretty awesome movie though.
Chris on 25 Sep 2008 at 10:35 am #
I wouldn’t doubt it. Mr. Miyazaki is the man. But it’s still an amusing thought and I like to keep bringing it up around hardcore Batman fans.