Sunday, May 03, 2009

HOW MUCH YOU CONTRIBUTED IN BOX OFFICE

One day, you feel like you want to watch a particular movie. So, you call and text your friends, seeking around who and whom are interested to accompany your desire. Then you drive to the nearest cinema, have some gathering, some great meal and then you queue up to purchase your movie tickets. You pay RM 11 each ticket because it is weekend and the movie is opening on that day.

With that amount, can you imagine how much a movie can rake if it is shown in a cinema?

THE MATHS IN BOX OFFICE

For instance, let's say, one big blockbuster movie is opening on Thursday (In Malaysia, movies are tend to open on Thursday). The movie is 2 hours long and the cinema decided to use 2 large halls to cater the demand. With the running time of 2 hours, a hall can show the same film 7 times a day and in total you have 14 show times. Each large cinema usually have (22 seats per row with 15 rows, roughly) 320 seats. If the movie received a huge demand and all the show times are fully seated (FULL HOUSE), you will get....

Each ticket = RM 11
Total seats = 320
Show times = 14
One day you will get = RM 11 x 320 x 14 = RM 49,280 each cinema per day
Then, the first weekend from Thursday to Sunday (4 days) = RM 49,290 x 4 = RM 197,120 in a weekend

Total cinemas in Malaysia are roughly around 50 but after considering the variety in size and capacity of show time, RM 197,120 times 30 = RM 5,913,600 grand total in theoretical calculation.

THE BOX OFFICE

A total of ticket sales for a movie showing in cinema is called BOX OFFICE. Box Office by standard is a measure of success of power purchase by a group of movie audience. Box Office is solely calculated by the amount of movie ticket sold, therefore it is based on the total amount of audience who are watching the movie. Over the years, box office particularly in Malaysia has grown so much and is still in fact expanding. Thanks to more cinemas been open and now some rural areas have cinemas in fact.

In general, audiences prefer movie as a form of entertainment compared to any form of entertainment. However, like others, the film industry suffers so much due to illegal copyright and piracy activity. Recently, drip DVD version of unfinished X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked and available online for download. Also, Malaysian audiences in general prefer import production than the local one. This is the reality and dilemma that the audience, movie producers and actors face here.

Nevertheless, although Cinema Online reported a summarized form of top ten movie over the weekend Box Office in Malaysia, I am sure not many know how much a movie gross and finally tabulates actually. Thanks to Box Office Guru, which is regarded as the best box office tracking for both American and International Box Office, we are able to determine how much a movie gross over a certain fixed period.

HOW BIG IS BIG?

According to my own investigation and nominal figure calculation, following are the records held on the local box office.

THE LARGEST FIRST WEEK OPENING (DEBUT)
Malaysia: Spider-Man 3 US$ 1,544,778 (RM 5,453,220)
US: The Dark Knight US$ 158,411,483

THE LARGEST ALL TIME TAKING (OVERALL)
Malaysia: Transformers US$ 5,326,029 (RM 18,144,183)
US: Titanic US$ 600,788,188

THE LARGEST ALL TIME TAKING FOR A LOCAL PRODUCTION (OVERALL)
Jangan Pandang Belakang
or maybe Geng: Pengembaraan Bermula

Well, that is how a box office is calculated.

4 comments:

Kuntong said...

every session also fullhouse 1 ah???

Gine said...

Hey, this post is really interesting =) should elaborate more on the economy it stirs up, too, like how casinos do to rejuvenate the economy of some rural places (but apparently cinemas did it in a good way) since you already mentioned about the sms and great meals before watching movies.

KH said...

That is truly a huge amount of money. I'm wondering how much cut does the cinemas get and how much goes to the film producers.

acura said...

Cinemas are really earning tons of $$$. I see that Hollywood blockbusters dominated the box office. Not surprising at all with the amount of money they poured into advertising. But their dominance are really hurting other movie industries like those from HK.

I really have a soft spot for HK made movies, unfortunately quality movies from HK are getting lesser as people are reluctant to pay to watch them. Sorry for being so long winded & deviate from the topic haha

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