Klein's Law states:
At any given moment, PowerLine has no idea what they're talking about.
John Hinderaker has responded to my post on how Hinderaker claimed that ticket sales for Al Gore's movie had gone down when they'd actually gone up. (See also MarkCC at Good Math, Bad Math.)
Update: Some web site criticized this post on the ground that, while revenue per theater has indeed dropped precipitously, An Inconvenient Truth has been put into vastly more theaters, so that there has been a sight increase in total revenue (as opposed to per-theater revenue) between, say, last weekend and the first weekend in June. But the UPI story that described receipts as "plummeting" was obviously referring to the per-theater numbers. It notes that the film had the "highest average per play ever for a film documentary" during the weekend it opened, but "the film dropped from $70,333 per play to $12,334...." People in the movie business often measure a film's popularity based on the "per screen" or "per theater" numbers. By that measure, the film's perfomance has become pathetic, with per-theater revenue during the week running around $500. And, among all movies now in release, An Inconvenient Truth is languishing at number 67 in total revenue.
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Hinderaker uses the "Some web site" dodge so his readers cannot see the criticism he is responding to.
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He compares the change in total revenue between the second weekend and the fifth, but compares average per play between the first weekend and the third. The total revenue increased more than five times from the first weekend to the the third.
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People in the movie business do sometimes look at "per theatre" revenue, and on that measure, An Inconvenient Truth is performing very well. $500 per theatre ranks as number 4 amongst movies currently playing. It's more than twice what X-Men (released the same week) is getting. Or compare it with Toy Story 2. Toy Story 2's revenue per theatre plummeted from $300,163 in its opening weekend to $8,573 in its 3rd weekend and per-theatre revenue during the week fell to around $400. So on this measure Toy Story 2 did worse than An Inconvenient Truth -- revenue per theatre fell by more and to lower values. Most people would think that Toy Story 2 was a big hit, but Hinderaker would say that ticket sales plummeted after a promising start to pathetic levels.
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No, it's not number 67 in total revenues among all movies now in release. It's number 25, but how about comparing it with other documentaries? It's number 7 on the all time list and will be number 5 in a day or so.
"An Inconvenient Truth has been put into vastly more theaters, so that there has been a sight increase in total revenue (as opposed to per-theater revenue)"
Apparently all those extra theaters wanted to show the movie because they saw it was doing so poorly and they wanted to get a piece of the "poor action".
Anyone who has ever been under a high tension powerline knows that it produces incessant buzzing (from corona discharge).
As Macbeth said, it is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Those who know Shakespeare will also be familiar with the part of the statement that was left off in this case).
JB, It's well known that theaters commonly book pictures they think will do poorly so they can clean out the popcorn and soda machines during the resulting lull. Well, apparently...
JB, and your point is? Err, I forgot, you don't really have one do you...
David
Using per theater revenue "during the week" is one measure, but per theater revenue "on the weekend" is a better indication, since most people go to movies on the weekend.
If you look at rankings given by Box Office Mojo, you will see that the revenue per theater (ie, average) for Inconvenient Truth for the weekend June 23-25 was $3,922.
And Inconvenient Truth stood at number 14 in the overall ranking for that weekend.
That's my point. Any other questions?
jeez, well it's doing better than 120 movies on that list. And every movie above it has quite a few more theaters too. It sure seems a lot better than the right-wing bloggers & spinners would have you believe!
Oops JB. Better take a gander at that chart again. It's now #13. It's moving UP which rarely happens. Here's another indication you forgot to mention: % of change from the previous week. It's at -20.8%. Another term you might have forgotten: legs.
It's got 'em. Sorry.
I think JB forgot to set the < snark > flag
I think some have misconstrued my latter posts. I too believe that Inconveneint Truth is doing well -- especially considering the fact that it is a documentary.
Any who doubt that need simply read the first two posts above. My latter post was a response to David, who apparanetly did not like the comment I made about powerlines being the source of incessant buzzing.
Hmm. Al Gore's movie has already moved into 5th place among the all-time highest grossing documentaries and An Inconvenient Truth is less than $3 million short of overtaking Madonna's Truth or Dare flick. I can see it all now when An Inconvenient Truth moves into 4th place:
Al Gore more popular than Madonna!
"Apparently all those extra theaters wanted to show the movie because they saw it was doing so poorly and they wanted to get a piece of the "poor action"."
Young man, perhaps you need to be reminded of the well known liberal slant of the movie theater industry hmph pmph natter natter..... (it's run by Jews, you know).
Well, you know how the mass audience traditionally hungers for a powerpoint presentation on climatology, and when narrated by a well-known showman with the reputation for entertainment of Al Gore, well of course the attendance figures will be high, but that doesn't mean anyone is specifically interested in AGW, they're just coming for the show.
(People who understand the "conservative" mindset, could you remind me again, how exactly would the hypothetical dropping attendance at the movie disprove AGW? Thanks).
Z asks: "how exactly would the hypothetical dropping attendance at the movie disprove AGW?"
Since reality has a well known Hollywood slant, if you want to determine what's real and what's not, forget the scientific method and years of careful experimentation, just go to the movies -- and then look at the box office receipts.
By that measure, of course, giant insects in "Edgar suits" ("Men in Black") must be real.
Oh, and if popular movies are reality, a half-man/half-robot (all-nitwit) from the future (Terminator) must also be real.
Here's an interesting tidbit involving Powerline:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/3/164642/3346
Also, the distributors of An Inconvenient Truth are using a reverse expansion strategy. Conventional Hollywood now has a huge rollout, to maximise media hype, measures gross on the first weekend, and pulls a film that doesn't do well.
This is ruthless but sensible, since the budgets are often so high that they know the rest of the business is not going to break them even, so they are better off going to video and DVD.
This means that word of mouth films - including most Australian movies - dont have a chance.
So it is interesting that Inconvenient Truth is being allowed to build like this. It means that the distributor calculates that Al Gore + bad Bush ratings + the shape of distrib for Michael Moore et al = very nice per cinema grosses for a considerable time.
UPI must have known this logic from the beginning, surely. The story is part of their wider coverage of movie sales.
When I read the above-the-fold post I thought, "I have to give Hinderaker credit for reading and responding to his critics." But not linking to them, that's pretty low.
Tim, surely this proves that "average" box office take is a no more meaningful concept than "average" atmospheric temperature? Is there any particular box office that has taken the "average" takings for this film? etc etc.
Then we have this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/08/TRUTH.TMP
Which might put things in to better perspective...