This Weekend at the Boxoffice: 2006.07.10

[Fast Learner]

But with a general increase in population, disposable income and theaters and seats, as well as changes in moviegoing culture, tickets would be an equally poor measure of anything other than financial success, which dollars already handle pretty well.

I disagree that it would be an equally poor measure. The increase in population, income, and seats distort the number in either case, but ticket price adds yet one more distorting factor, one that grows much more rapidly than the others.

 

[Mercule]

they needed more women...lots more...and less clothes...and tenacles or giant robots to improve this movie.

You really are the Hand of Evil, aren't you?

Was Idle Hands semi-biographical?

 

[Darthjaye]

Mind you that Superman Returns is a franchise-launching movie, not a sequel like X3. It'd be better to compare it to Batman Begins, Spiderman I, X-Men I and Pirates of the Caribbean I. When we get Superman Sticks Around, we can compare it to Batman Continues, X2 and PotC: DMC. And then, of course, there's Superman Is Still Here, Batman Continues Some More, X3 and PotC: Li-Mu-Bai Is A Shaolin Pirate.

Actually Superman and Batman are reboots, the rest are starting platforms though. We did get "Superman Sticks Around" and Superman Is Still Here" unfortunately. They were called Superman 3 and Superman 4:The Quest for Peace. We also got "Batman Continues Some More" and Batman Keeps On Cugging". They were called Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.

I thought PotC 3 was "How the hell did Barbosa come back!!!" or even "Those two guards make their return"

 

[ThirdWizard]

Might wanna spoiler that, Darthjaye, before someone burns your face off.

 

[Wayside]

Mind you that Superman Returns is a franchise-launching movie, not a sequel like X3. It'd be better to compare it to Batman Begins, Spiderman I, X-Men I and Pirates of the Caribbean I.

Superman Returns is about level with Batman Begins so far, and X1 did slightly better than either (Pirates: Black Pearl had a first weekend on par with Batman, but I think word of mouth gave it a lot more longevity; it ended up pulling in as much as X1 and Batman combined). Spider-man, of course, dominated them all (Spidey 2 did slightly less business than 1). I think the lesson is Marvel > DC .

I disagree that it would be an equally poor measure. The increase in population, income, and seats distort the number in either case, but ticket price adds yet one more distorting factor, one that grows much more rapidly than the others.

It's something you'd have to implement to know whether it was worthwhile. If there are cases of one movie selling more tickets than another, yet making less money, tickets sold would be a good measure; but otherwise they'd only be marginally interesting. In a perfect world, sure, it would be nice to have them, but my guess is that theaters count the cash either way, so getting that data is trivial, whereas they may not count the tickets. If that's true, us moviegoers are the ones who'd end up footing the cost to count them.