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posts about #thedarkbillionaire more → 
Dark Knight Now The Fourth Most Successful Movie Ever. Kind Of.
San Francisco, 6:12 PM
Tue Nov 10
27 posts in the last 24 hours
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Dark Knight Now The Fourth Most Successful Movie Ever. Kind Of. |
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02/21/09
02/22/09
What's next, count the people who buy bootleg DVDs during the first week of release as well? They don't care how many people watch it, just how much they paid to do so. More viewers just means your film appeals to cheapskates. Well, it could work out better for the theaters (200 viewers paying $5 per show might buy more popcorn than 100 viewers payint $10 per show, while their take from the box office stays the same), but they aren't the ones who make the movies.
02/21/09
02/21/09
Because it's easier to track dollars. The IRS only cares about dollars. State and local tax agencies only care about dollars. Theater owners only care about dollars. And unless you can get every theater to track ticket sales, and report them, you can't tell if $1000 in ticket sales was 100 people paying $10 apiece, or 200 people going the budget route and hitting a theater that only charges $5. But you know that you pulled in $1000 either way, and that's something that you're already going to need to be reporting elsewhere.
02/21/09
It's just something that's seemingly not worth their time.
If you want to figure out a rough estimate of tickets sold, just look up the total gross and find the average ticket price for that year (see: Box Office Mojo) and divide.
02/22/09
But it's _really_ all about the money, not the tickets. Tickets don't pay the bills. You don't hope for a huge bonus of tickets each year. When they tell you that love makes the world go 'round, what they're not telling you is that it's love of money.
02/21/09
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02/21/09
DVD is only rushed out when it needs to make up for box office. Otherwise you put out the normal edition after an extended run, then release the deluxe 2-disc set right before Christmas.
02/21/09
02/21/09
Studio take varies from one movie to the next, and according to how long the movie has been out. I believe the studio take from the Star Wars prequels was something to the tune of 90% or higher for the first few weeks, and theaters jumped at the chance to hand over that much of a cut because they knew they could keep those screenings packed to the gills with hungry fans, and that they could run showings at odd hours of the day and still make a killing on them. As the weeks went on, that studio cut came down, so that basically the studio would take most of the hit when audience levels dropped.
@Quilt:
I think it was closer to nine months, but the big thing with Titanic was that there was _NO_ competition when it first came out, and tweenie girls kept it in a steady stream of box office receipts through the end. As long as the audience keeps coming, they'll leave it in the theaters. Sure, DVD sales might be much higher than the box office take at that point, but DVD sales are a one-time thing. Loyal fans will keep coming back for repeat viewings, and paying up each time.
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