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Episode II Surpasses $116 Million at Box Office

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that-kinda-cash-buys-a-lot-of-wookies dept.

Domasi writes "The Force is with George Lucas again as the fifth installment of the Star Wars saga, 'Attack of the Clones,' took in $116.3 million in its first four days and to become the second-fastest film behind only "Spider-Man"." Spider-man is better. But I plan to see both of them again.

4 of 503 comments (clear)

  1. Screens by lemonk · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is worthwhile to mention that Spider-Man is being shown on over 1000 screens more than AOTC, etc.

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    1. Re:Screens by big.ears · · Score: 5, Informative

      All this box-office gamesmanship is kinda silly. If you want to assess the human value or impact of a film (or a movie), I can assure you that the just about the worst way to do it is to count how much money it reportedly took in in ticket sales. Ever wonder why nobody records the number of ticket sales (which are already adjusted for inflation), but rather calculates raw sales $$? It is mainly to build hype for a film, because even a moderate success this year is bound to beat the blockbuster from two years ago. "Box Office Records" are laughable, because they are guaranteed to fall.

      By making these arguments about total gross/per theater gross/screens/etc., we are just playing into the Hollywood money machine's hand. But, myself a victim to this game, I believe the 3615/3161 number indicates venues or physical locations where the film is played, whereas the number of actual "Prints" is something like 7500 vs. 6000, which is what the parent was apparently quoting. I don't know if anyone has actually recorded the number of screenings anywhere. Given that AOTC was a little longer than Spidey, this translates into fewer screenings per venue, as well as fewer per print: The difference between 2 hours and 2 hours 20 minutes is enough to reduce the number of screenings at some little theaters from 2 to 1 or from 3 to 2 per day; at multiplexes, it may reduce the number of showings from 15 to 12.

    2. Re:Screens by tsiar · · Score: 5, Informative

      What's really annoying, is that those numbers you quoted are THEATERS, not SCREENS.

      Clones opened up playing on approximately 6,100 screens at 3,161 theaters across North America

      Spider-man Swinging into 3,615 theaters ... with an estimated 7,500 prints


      The math still works out that spiderman made more per screen, but of course the Thursday opening isn't taken into account.

  2. Re:These statistics seem meaningless... by oopy_-_ · · Score: 5, Informative
    Someone in fact has done this math:

    Top 100 Ever Adjusted

    The list makes a lot more sense with this math, though Titanic still gets ranked too highly. Unfortunately, this is only adjusted with the Consumer Price Index. I think someone should adjust for population growth as well.