A box office or ticket office is a place where the public for admission to an event. Patrons can perform the transaction at a countertop , through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket .
By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context of the film industry , as a synonym for the amount of a particular production, such as a film or theater show, receives. [1]
Box office business can be measured in terms of the amount of money raised by ticket sales ( revenue ). The projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the creative industries and a source of interest for fans. This is predominant in the Hollywood movie industry .
Etymology
The term is attested since 1786, [2] presumably from sales of boxes (private seating areas in theater). [3] [4] The sense of “total sales” is attested from 1904. [2]
A folk etymology is that this derives from Elizabethan theater (ie late 16th century), where theater admission was collected in a box attached to a long stick, passed around the audience; [3] [4] comparable to “bottle” in Punch and Judy , where money was collected in a bottle. However, first certification is about 200 years later, making this highly unlikely.
Film industry
Usage
Some complain that film industry focus on profit has diminished the attention given to film as an art form . However, analysis of the financial success of films is very influential for the production and funding of future works.
In December 2009, with its acquisition of Nielsen EDI for $ 15 million, Rentrak became the world’s largest provider of sales and service revenues. [5] [6]
There are many websites that monitor box-office receipts, such as Boxoffice , Box Office India , Mojo Box Office , Koimoi , ShowBIZ Data and The Numbers .
For a list of movies which are major box office hits, see List of highest-grossing movies . Movies that are considered to be very popular at the box office are box office bombs or box office flops. For a list of these films, see List of box office bombs .
To determine if a movie is a profit, it is not right to directly compare the box office with the production budget , because the movie theater is about half of the gross on average. The split varies from movie to movie, and the percentage for the reader is higher in early weeks. Usually the distributor gets a percentage of the income after first deducting a “house allowance” or “house nut”. It is also common that the distributor gets a percentage of the gross income, or a higher percentage of the income after deducting the nut, whichever is larger. [7] [8]
Related terminology
The following is film industry specific terminology as defined by Box Office Mojo . [9] For movies released in North America, box office figures are usually divided entre domestic , meaning the United States and Canada, and foreign qui includes all other countries. Weekly box office figures are taken to be more important. A large component of this is the weekend box office , defined by the box office receipts from Friday through Sunday. In particular, the weekend box office, the opening weekend , is often widely reported. (SeeList of biggest opening weekends .)
Theaters is the number of theaters in which the movie is showing. Since a single theater can show a movie on multiple screens, the total number of screens is used as another measure. The theaters measure is used to determine whether a movie is in wide release , meaning at least 600 theaters, or limited release qui est less than 600 theaters. Occasionally, a film may achieve wide release after an initial limited release; Little Miss Sunshine is an example of this.
See also
- Box office territory
- List of highest-grossing movies
- Lists of Box Office Number One Movies
- Second weekend in box office performance
- Will call
References
- Jump up^ box office,Merriam-Webster
- ^ Jump up to:a b box office in the Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper, 2001
- ^ Jump up to:a b William and Mary Morris, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins , HarperCollins, New York, 1977 1988
- ^ Jump up to:a b Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Facts on File, New York, 1997
- Jump up^ Gunderson, Laura (February 8, 2010). “Portland-based Rentrak posts Q3 loss” . The Oregonian . Retrieved February 9, 2010 .
- Jump up^ “Rentrak buys Nielsen EDI, consolidating box office reporting business” . The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved April 9, 2011 .
- Jump up^ Entertainment.howstuffworks.com
- Jump up^ Express.howstuffworks.com[1]
- Jump up^ “Office Tracking by Time” . Mojo Box Office . Retrieved 2010-01-12 .
