2022 Box Office At 60% Of All-Time High [moviegique]

By my estimations, the lockdowns--for which Hollywood offered a full-throated endorsement--have cost about $30B at the domestic box office, to date. I don't frequent (or practically ever visit) movie/entertainment sites, but this Variety report tracks with my calculations roughly.

By taking the numbers at the (recently emasculated) BoxOfficeMojo for domestic BO year-over-year, $7.3B this year to the $11.8B all-time-nominal-high of five years ago, I get 62%--and that's before adjusting for inflation, which paints an even more dismal picture indeed.

At the same time, as this "The Verge" article notes, the gold rush is over for streaming. Awash in money and with the heightened terror of being boxed out of the market, streaming services panned for gold by throwing content at the while like it was spaghetti, to see what stuck.

The system was pretty well grooved in before, and at least some of the loss is in the sheer chaos of movies being shuffled around and poorly "programmed"--that is, too many of THIS kind of movie not enough of THAT kind of movie--but I think the quality of the films has had an impact. (And as for streaming, the sheer challenge of finding something appealing in the sea of content is a definite factor: People constantly find shows long after they've been canceled.)

One potentially positive upside is that the proportion of indie films released went up as lower budget production companies gambled on releasing films when the Big Six would not. (There was a chart at The Numbers that showed this but I've lost the link.)

Whatever you think about...stuff...in my odd ramblings and research I came across this startling historical box office facts about everyone's favorite Christmas movie, Die Hard:

Paul Hogan has some shocking news below the fold.

Die Hard finished 7th at the box office.

Well, 1988, was a strong year. BoxOfficeMojo has the #1 film as Who Framed Roger Rabbit which was sui generis. An instant classic some would say. The-Numbers, on the other hand has the rabbit at #2, and Rain Man at #1.

Mojo breaks the movies grosses up by year, so Rain Man is #33 for 1988, and #4 for 1989. And while The-Numbers puts Three Men And A Baby in 1987, Mojo splits out its 1987 receipts after which it still beat Die Hard, coming in at #6 for 1988.

As did the Tom Hanks breakout role, Big, per The-Numbers.

As did THE DANNY DEVITO/ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER comedy Twins.

One thing both The-Numbers and Mojo agree upon?

CROCODILE DUNDEE II beat DIE-HARD at the BOX OFFICE!

I almost dragged out the flaming skull for that. You may think we live in mad times, but we don't live in a lackluster-Paul-Hogan-sequel-beating-one-of-the-best-action-movies-of-all-time times.

posted by Open Blogger at 04:08 PM

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