Box Office Forecast Challenge - Prediction Wisdom

The box office can be a tricky subject. Few have mastered it while many fail faster than a Pauly Shore comedy. The box office is not something that can be learned over night, and is generally something you can't just pick random numbers for and expect some sort of similar reaction. There are many factors you need to take into consideration and that's what this segment is all about. For instance, Fri. - Sun. daily ticket sales for a teen comedy and an adult comedy are likely to be different. Teens and young adults usually prefer rushing out to a movie on opening night, as Friday night sales can be let's say $4.5 million while the film could have another $4.5 million tally, slightly more or even slightly less amount for Saturday, and in the high $2 (million) area for Sunday.

If a comedy aimed at the over 21 crowd opened, its daily performance could turn out to be $4.5 million for Friday, almost $6.0 million for Saturday and roughly $3.5 million on Sunday. Adding up all three figures would give you $14.0 million at the box office. The only thing remotely different between the two examples are the percentage gains and losses between Friday's, Saturday's and Sunday's business. Adults tend to be more open in their schedule Saturday evenings/nights than Friday nights, while teens usually prefer invading their local theaters opening night ahead of the pack.

North American Box Office

Despite rising ticket prices and a slumping economy, yearly box office revenue exceeded a record $8.1 billion in 2001 and $9 billion in 2003. Despite the stellar numbers, movies made more in the 1920's - before there was TV (and Cable, DVDs, Internet...)

Kids movies are quite risky. Some prosper and go to Heaven while some others go South instead of North. Industry observers have stressed it for quite some time - kids movies are the worst to get tracking info from. You never really know how big a family movie will go until its opening day, really. You of course have gut instincts but you never really know whether or not they will perform to what you think. Some family oriented films will have a decent to good Friday opening and have a huge 100% increase or even more on the Saturday. The reasoning behind that is that kids have school on Friday and their parents may not find time when the kids are home in the afternoon/evening, so they take 'em on Saturday to a matinee or afternoon show. Though there are some who will have a decent Friday debut and not receive as much as a 100% boost on Saturday.

If you're interested in predicting, these are all the things that at some point should come into mental thought - Study the box office, the genres of films that do well and don't do very well, the acting talent involved, how heavy promotion is (sometimes heavy promotion isn't a good thing, or doesn't do that much of a difference in attracting an audience), the MPAA ratings (R, PG-13, PG, G) of films that do and don't do well, the given season versus the history behind that season. Even browsing to see the box office history results from the actors involved in a film - if an actor couldn't open a movie three months ago the actor still may have no luck. The list just continues. Some may look at the above list and say, "damn, that's hard...", but it usually comes to a point where all these factors come into your head fairly quickly where it doesn't take very long to think it all out - it just flows. But that's when you've tracked the box office for a while and sort of know the deal.

Dismal Outlooks

Even with an increasing number of big time blockbusters, many theater chains struggle to keep afloat. Sony, GCC (now AMC), and Carmike have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Ticket Costs

Theaters only pocket a small percentage of the ticket price (for new releases, sometime less than 25%) - the real profits are in the popcorn.

So why I am going through all the trouble of going through hints and basic Cliff Notes for the box office? As the host (along with Jason Kaplan) of BOFC, we want to make sure all of you, or most of you know what you're doing when entering the contest. However, we do encourage people who aren't intensely interested in the box office. You've got nothing to lose. There's no registration involved - you can just visit BOFC once or twice a week for screen counts, the Rotten Tomatoes score and anything else you desire, and then predict! Then of course part way through the week you should tune back in for the results to that game and check your placement (everyone's ranking is displayed). Can't predict very well? You've got nothing to lose, just go for it!

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