A curious occurrence took place in the wake of the Aurora, CO, mass killing on the opening night screening of the latest Batman release, The Dark Knight Rises. Revenue from opening weekend ticket sales was $211.8 million, slightly less than the $222.2 million for The Dark Knight. This was the highest box office gross for a conventional 2D movie for 2012. While the large turnout for the movie can be linked to a response to the shootings as much as the appeal of the movie, the numbers hide a darker truth. The movie business is shrinking. Ticket sales and DVD […]
by David Rosen on Jul 30, 2012I don’t do much Monday-morning box-offiice opinion on this blog because too many others do it far better and far more obsessively than I’d ever be able to. That said, I’m pretty surprised that in its second week Hustle and Flow, which is our cover story this month in Filmmaker, fell out of the top ten with an estimated 50% drop to $4 million from its only okay opening of $8 million last weekend. Honestly, I had Hustle pegged as a crossover mainstream hit, and when I hung out a couple weeks ago with a studio exec friend, we made […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 1, 2005