Owners Of Movie Theaters Apparently Very Confused About How Money Works
The AP is reporting today that Will Smith was 2008's most successful box office draw. Fair enough. Will Smith is a very famous movie actor, and has been for some time. And most of his movies are major blockbusters that do very well for themselves. It seems mildly believable that Will Smith was the year's most successful box office draw of 2008. Although, wait a second, wasn't The Dark Knight practically the highest grossing film of all time? No offense to the I'm sure impressive ticket sales for Hancock, but seriously, wait, what? Was it Seven Pounds? Was it the Christmas week box office of Seven Pounds that put Smith over the edge to beat out THE HIGHEST GROSSING FILM OF ALL TIME, PRACTICALLY SPEAKING. So then you start to read this article, because for one you're kind of fascinated by just the simple thought of gigantic sums of money, but also something seems a little off to you about this whole Will Smith thing especially in 2008, and the opening paragraph is as follows:
No name on the marquee was more pleasing to theater owners in 2008 than Will Smith, according to a survey of movie exhibitors. Smith, star of "Hancock" and "Seven Pounds," was voted the star who generated the most box office revenue for theaters in an annual survey by Quigley Publishing Co.
Um, movie exhibitors voted on who generated the most box office revenue? VOTED? I'm not an economist, so this is probably going to sound so stupid to most of you (our readership is evenly split between 12-year-old girls and professional economists), but surely there's some better system for determining who generated the most box office revenue in a single year than a semi-formal vote. There must be some way. For example:
That's just a suggestion, obviously. I'm sure that an annual survey of movie exhibitors by Quiqley Publishing Co. is accurate to within six decimal places. Which is why the second place winner in their annual poll was the astonishingly successful 2008 box office draw of Dax Shepard. It goes Will Smith, Dax Shepard, Skeet Ulrich, Tracy Ullman. Science.
Posted by Gabe at 3:00 PM in Awards
Tags: C.R.E.A.M. | Will Smith
Technically, if we're just going by who's in movies this year, RDJ was the winner. Iron Man + Tropic Thunder + his cameo in The Incredible Hulk > The Dark Knight (financially speaking anyway).
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What about Seth Rogen? Wasn't he in every movie this year?
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Not like he would remember - zing!
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No one went to see the Dark Knight because of Christian Bale. 2/3 of those who saw it went to see the continuation of Nolan's 'Batman' series and the other 1/3 went to see it because Heath Ledger died, making his last role more interesting and more closely followed.
Everyone who went to see Hancock (horrible movie) did so because of Will Smith. That movie had no built-in audience like Batman/ Dark Knight. When Bale or RDJ can carry a shitty movie about nothing to 200m+ then they deserve that crown. Smith is justified in 'winning' this vote.
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Aye, I have to agree with that assessment. Just like how I am willing to give any movie RDJ is in a fair shot (even Charlie fucking Bartlett for chrissakes), Will Smith is one of the only actors out there now who will draw huge crowds simply because it's a Will Smith movie. It would be difficult to scientifically determine the monetary pull a single actor has though, so clearly they decided to be lazy about it and do a vote.
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There's still a better way for estimating an actor's "draw" (or at least a studio's prediction of it) than by running a poll, which is to just look at their paycheck.
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I saw DK for Bale.
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Maybe this figure/vote also includes sales for I Am Legend, which came out so late in '07 that a lot of people didn't see it until 2008. But still, over Dark Knight? Eh, what do I know? I'm 12. A 12-year-old economist.
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Well, if you look at it this way, I Am Legend did the tail-end of its business after New Year's, so that's probably 100m+ (256m if you count its whole run). Hancock was another 227m, and Seven Pounds is at 60 million and counting. Technically that adds up to DK's gross.
And like it was said before, people didn't see DK for Bale or Oldman (though a lot did for Ledger), while Woll Smeth movies generally do their business around Big Willie.
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you should have kept up the Mr. Show references---
"I mean I'm no economist"
"Jimmy!"
you're letting the golden gander gallop gripless
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I am certain that Will Smith is the reason I didn't see Hancock or Seven Pounds.
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Hhahhahaa, Thats hilarious.
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If Skeet Ulrich was still in movies (is he?) I would probably go every day. Or they should just play Jericho in theatres. I should probably delete this comment, it's pretty incriminating. Whoops.
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I agree with Chelsea. I'd watch Skeet Ulrich any and every day of the week, if I could.
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I think someone's PR team has spotted an opportunity to wrest Tom Cruise's title.
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They're counting "I am Legend" (Worst CGI I have seen in a movie after 2000) because it was still it theatres at the beginning of the year.
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