Conference bookie::movies

Soon to lose its #3 spot on the all-time top grossers list.

    
    	What's going to take its place?  The sequel?  Or "Jurassic
    	Park"?
    
    
    							GTI
    

    The fact that Home Alone is one of the top grossing movies of all time, is a
    true testament to the poor taste of the American public.  :-)
    
    IMnotsohumbleO,
    
    Lorna
    

    I forget who said it, but it has been said that one will never go poor
    by overestimating the poor taste of the public.
    
    Steve

    > The fact that Home Alone is one of the top grossing movies of all time, is a
    > true testament to the poor taste of the American public.  :-)
    
Or to the ever-increasing box office ticket prices...

What I'd really like to see is what % of the population at the time
saw a particular movie.   I think then we would see the true popularity
of a movie, not a skewed number because the ticket prices went up...

    re .5, well, even at $7.50 it's still a relatively inexpensive night
    out, when compared to concerts, plays, meals at most restaurants, or
    whatever.
    
    Lorna
    

    > even at $7.50 it's still a relatively inexpensive night out
    
    I don't think .5 was complaining about the price. It's just that as
    prices rise, it takes less paid admissions to be a top grossing movie.
    Therefore, the title "top grossing picture" is pretty much a
    meaningless stat. With inflation (and population increase ?) more
    people will have the opportunity to pay more money for a single
    viewing.  .5's suggestion of counting tickets sold and then using 
    some kind of population index is a method of obtaining a truer stat
    as far as the popularity of a movie. On the other hand, if you are just
    trying to brag that your movie brought in the most money , then the
    meaningless top grossing picture stat is in order. 
    
     Bob

    
    	Some newspapers and statisticians will do the calculations,
    	based on ticket sales and inflation rate[s], and give you a
    	true picture of the "best".
    
    							GTI

...since moviegoing (and release) patterns have changed markedly since,
say, Star Wars was released.  To name a few things: the release
schedule is much more front-end loaded now (a movie has to hit big in
the first week or two to stay around); wide releases (1000+ screens)
are much more common; release to video happens much sooner; rereleases
are almost unheard of now; foreign releases are much closer to the US
ones; repeat business is much less common.

Peter Reiher pointed out on USENET recently that, based on anecdotal
evidence, Birth of a Nation may be the all-time winner if you compared
admissions per capita, but that records from that era are scarce.

  Regardless of the true price, I'm wondering why people disliked this movie so
much. True, it was kind of silly for adults, but when you consider that it is a
fantasy film aimed at kids, I thought it was pretty good. 

  As Disney has shown over and over again, kids like movies where either a kid,
an animal, or both, are heroes that go far and above what they could do to save
the day. In fact, this is nothing more than an extension of regular movies
where adults identify with heroes that do things the adults could never do to
save the day. 

  Considering the target audience, I didn't see where it was all that bad. It
had a story that was simple but presented well, the acting was good, the stunts
were good, and it was full of cartoon like falls which kids really enjoy. 

  Not that bad as a kids film,
  George

 >> Not that bad as a kids film,

	Of course, there's a huge difference between "not that bad"
	and "great", which it was touted as being.  Pretty poor,
	I thought.