It seems like even before the first weekend is over, all the box office analysts have already declared the success or failure of the movie. I know personally, I don’t see a movie until the end of the run, so I don’t have to deal with huge crowds and lines and bad seats, it’s safe to say that nearly everyone I know follows suit. Doesn’t the entire run – including theater receipts, pay per view, home media sales, etc. – have to be considered for that hit or flop call is made? If not, why?
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It’s mostly a comparison of expectations to what is actually happening. Especially for these tentpole releases, they have a very clear idea of what demographics they think will see the movie and when. They also have a sense of when those types of people tend to see movies in their run. Those things together can provide a model of how many people will watch each week, even taking into account people like you who prefer to see it later in the run.
When far fewer people come the first week than the model predicts, it’s likely that far fewer people will come, period. Of course, it’s possible that the model only misspecified *when* people would come and not how many (after all, it had to have done *something* wrong if its predictions don’t match reality), but this is rarely the case. If a movie is bad, that reduces its performance with all demographics. If anything, this applies even more to people who like to wait, as it suffers especially from bad word of mouth or leaving theaters early.
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