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?
In: 1396
Before the movie is even released, the marketing teams at the studios have pretty good idea of how much the movie is going to make. They do research, marketing, and more. They’ve been doing this a long time and are quite good at it.
Upon the release, even the first weekend, they get much more accurate info, and they know how much they need to make in the box office (roughly 2x – 2.5x the production budget) to start move the movie into more profitable territory. So they can see where the trend is going. If its not trending towards those values, they know they are behind the curve, if its trending at or above it, they know they are good to go.
For example, lets say I need to make $300M in the box office, and the first weekend is $200M. Well hell yeah, we’re on the path to success. But if that same movie made $30M, ouch. Because your first weekend is overwhelmingly usually your best, it only goes down from there.
The overall entire run includes everything (PPV, streaming, sales, etc.), but box office performance is the most profitable and largest source, and generally works as a proxy estimate of what the movie will make the rest of its life
The post-theatrical performance of a movie is actually more important and more valuable now than in the past, but all this does is just adjust our estimates a bit here and there, still box office tells us what direction the movie is going in
Latest Answers