Record week at the box office, and not in a good way

Apparently that’s from 17 or 18 theatres. “Phoenix, Oregon” played at 17 houses grossing $5,155 (avg $303 per house), and Lost in America played at 1 house grossing $24.

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Such bad timing. I actually saw it opening day in a theater, then bought it on Prime. Adorable, with lots of heart and fun. Pixar at its best.

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My friend worked on this movie, and now that it’s not bringing in any income it will affect his salary for the rest of the year, since part of how they pay employees is also dependent on merchandise (thanks Disney). Pixar does this weird thing where nearly everyone is an hourly employee so they get overtime when they’re working on a movie and in that way make a good salary. Now that my friend is working at home and not working on a movie, he’s facing a big drop in his income.

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That… really doesn’t make any sense; I’m very confused now. So 17 or 18 theaters were open, with one showing a documentary and 17 only showed a movie I’ve never heard of, while all the big Hollywood movies of the moment weren’t being shown anywhere. So… huh.

Except, wait:

Actually, some data shenanigans seems to explain things: looking at the release date for the move that supposedly made all this money, it is, according to Google, April 13th. It was supposed to release in theaters the week of March 22, but didn’t. Instead it released online, with the website offering a “dropdown menu of theaters that were scheduled to screen the movie who will get the proceeds from the sale.”

So this is the source of the “box office” revenue - a movie showing online, throwing some money to the theaters that would have shown it, and that’s what got recorded. The documentary that supposedly showed in one theater for $24, that must be a data issue, because it came out in 2017, so I can’t imagine it was still showing anywhere, even if it only sold three tickets.

So, in actuality, the box office had zero ticket sales.

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