Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Bee movie vs American Gangster

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Posted by Ramin Hashemi (Member # 2694) on 11-06-2007, 07:17 PM:

Nationwide AG had done better, but in our small town, Bee movie did better. I am told this was the trend, ie small towns did better in Bee and big towns did better on AG. Does this seem to be true where you are? (lets say small is population less than 40k)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-06-2007, 11:23 PM:

That's usually the case - if a PG rated cartoon and any R-rated film are about the same popularity in general, the PG will usually do better in small towns.

This thread should be in Ground Level.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-06-2007, 11:49 PM:

Yes it should. This is in no way a movie review. [Roll Eyes]

Ok, I'll move it.

Bad Ramin, bad.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 11-10-2007, 02:00 PM:

This is why I have always hated is the movie industry's insistance on using dollars instead of attendance. This has been discussed here on FT before. I don't know if Bee Movie would actually be outperforming American Gangster, but obviously with all the kids and matinee discounts, it might be close.

Posted by Ross Oba (Member # 3433) on 11-12-2007, 08:22 PM:

American Gangster had a higher per theater average than Bee Movie.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-12-2007, 10:47 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
This is why I have always hated is the movie industry's insistance on using dollars instead of attendance. This has been discussed here on FT before. I don't know if Bee Movie would actually be outperforming American Gangster, but obviously with all the kids and matinee discounts, it might be close.

Because the industry is a business. They care about money.

Think about it like this:
Lets say there's some situation where movie A sells no tickets ever during matinee and sells out during evening while movie B sells out during matinee and 0 tickets for the evening. Movie A will make a significant chunk more than movie B in terms of money.

You'll say that neither is a better performer where the industry people will say they'd rather make more movies that'll tend to make more money. It's not like they're running a business or anything.

It's no different than if I replace roofs for a living. I don't care about the number of roofs I replace; I care about the amount of money I get from that. If I replace 1 roof at a large building, that'll pay as much as several smaller jobs. Hence, number of individual jobs doesn't tell me if I'm doing well.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-12-2007, 11:37 PM:

I think the public would be much MORE interested in the numbers if they used ticket sales #s instead of boxoffice $.

They could report the number of tickets sold and the average $ spent per ticket. EDI could spit those numbers out in a flash, because they track ticket prices.

Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 11-12-2007, 11:46 PM:

I don't think yo ucan compare these two as bee movie was in 900 more theatres both last week and this weekend

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-13-2007, 01:35 AM:

You could still compare "per theatre" gross (or ticket sales numbers).

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-25-2007, 01:58 PM:

Just another case where we've spawned a society of sheeple. When I was younger, there was no such thing as the "News" ranking films based on how many millions of dollars they made on a weekend. Now that is the criterion by which people judge a movie. As if everyone else is going to see the top grossing film, then gee....that must mean it's de facto a great film. I guess it IS all about the almighty, albeit now fast devaluing, dollar. And as Mike points out, that million dollar ranking is a lot less any real indication of popularity than would be a number count of admits, but by george, we are just mezmerized by the sound of millions of DOLLARS!

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 11-26-2007, 11:50 AM:

quote: Chris Slycord
Because the industry is a business. They care about money.

Then why does the music industry use album sales instead of dollars as a measuring tool? I guess they don't care about money.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-26-2007, 12:19 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
Then why does the music industry use album sales instead of dollars as a measuring tool? I guess they don't care about money.

False analogy:
Each CD sold goes for the same price. If I sell a CD at 10 pm it's the same revenue as if it went at 10 am.

Lets say I sell trinkets for $10 a piece. Does it matter whether I look at the number of trinkets or the money made? No, because either way of counting directly implies the other.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 11-26-2007, 01:58 PM:

quote: Chris Slycord
False analogy:
Each CD sold goes for the same price. If I sell a CD at 10 pm it's the same revenue as if it went at 10 am.

That is not correct - each CD does not go for the same price. Best Buy prices differ from Wal-Mart prices, which are both typically lower than "music store" chains such as Sam Goody. Best Buy, for example, often does an early bird sale where the CD is offered at a lower price for the first week or so and I'm pretty sure this past Friday morning they had some CDs discounted only in the morning, so really, you're wrong about them being the same price even during the same day. Add to that special editions that can more than double the price, but still counts toward the album sales. Besides, note how I said album sales, not CD sales. Cassette tapes, CDs and records all get added together for an ALBUM's sales, not just their money added together.

The movie industry is one of very, very few industries that goes by dollars and maybe the only entertainment based one. TV goes by ratings shares and sporting events and concerts by tickets sold. Like I said, this has been discussed on FT before and I have yet to see a good reason why you should use grosses. Like Mike said, you could easily take attendance times average ticket price if you wanted to know the dollars and cents that badly.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-26-2007, 02:11 PM:

The reason the movie industry uses money vs. ticket sales is because $100,000,000 in grosses is a more impressive number than 14,000,000 tickets sold. ($100 million divided by the current average ticket price of $6.87)

The music industry has such things as "gold" and "platinum" awards which are based on units sold, not dollars. People were saying an album "went gold" or "went platinum" or "went 4 times platinum" long before the movie industry's numbers became Monday-morning water-cooler talk. So dollars are not as important a yardstick to the music biz media.

As for concert sales -- dollars are reported all the time, as in "The Rolling Stones earned $140 million on their last tour.)

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-26-2007, 06:06 PM:

I can understand how within the industry, grosses are important especially for an exhibitor looking at a booking decision -- he should rightfully want to weigh the performance of a given product (these grosses are not a guarantee of future performance....as they say), but why this is relevant to an average moviegoer (unless they own stock in a production company) or why it has to be touted on every Monday night news cast is beyond me.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-26-2007, 07:29 PM:

I think it's the same as sports fans cheering for their favorite team...people want to know if "their" movie made #1. (Or in the case of a bad movie, they want to know how bad it flopped.)

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 11-30-2007, 09:40 PM:

In the December issue of Boxoffice magazine, they have listed the top Christmas actors since 1990. Home Alone (1990) is #1 with $281 mil. Grinch (2000) is #2 with $260 mil. Wouldn't you like to know what the real difference between those two are attendance wise, not what a decade's worth of ticket price increases did? Furthermore, Home Alone 2 is still in the top 6, but I'd be curious where Polar Express would be in relation to it if there were actual ticket sales.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-30-2007, 10:31 PM:

All-time Boxoffice Hits (Adjusted for Inflation) from boxofficemojo.com

On this list, "HOME ALONE" is still the highest rated Christmas themed movie. It comes in at #35 overall. (Gone With The Wind is #1, not surprisingly.)

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 12-13-2007, 10:54 AM:

It's interesting that on that list, Mike, only 3 movies in the top 20 were made after 1985 and you have to go clear to #29 to find something post 2000. 15 out of the bottom 20, however, were made since 1985, with 7 of those being post 2000.

Obviously more movies are made now so there is more for people to see and spread their money around, but is that the only reason people don't go to one movie in the quantities they used to, but at the same time go to more movies as a whole than ever before? Is it simply because movies are seemingly more "specialized" now so that like a restaurant menu, everyone doesn't just order the burger? Thoughts?