Fool's Gold

I was just trying to remember at what point a movie's success or failure was judged on box office take, with such specific focus on its opening weekend. I don't remember this ever mattering when I was growing up, when I still really cared about going to a theater and being one of the first in line to see something.

Could have been somewhere after the ridiculous amount of money made by Titanic that many started taking notice of opening weekends. Although Jaws (released in 1975!) is credited with being the first movie to hit blockbuster status--first to bust the $100 million cherry--when did it really start to matter what each and every movie makes? And I don't mean to the studios themselves. I'm sure it always mattered to them. I mean, for the rest of us that stand to collect no profits or shoulder no losses, why do we need to know? Box office status has its own idiot-point-heavy segment on every entertainment news reel. What does that have to do with quality of the product? The media reports these figures after every weekend like the dollar is the only unit of measurement for quality.

Seeing those extraordinary numbers, though... most individuals, and even some countries, will never see that much money in the whole of their history, and any one movie studio can make it in a single weekend. Most people can't even truly comprehend millions of anything, let alone dollars. But millions and millions are spent in the production and marketing of movies, betting careers and reputations and future opportunities on nailing the #1 spot every week. It's a bizarre ritual, and I imagine very stressful for those with their heads on the block.

But for those movies that do okay to poorly at the box office, there is the silver lining of DVD sales, which can bring a weaker performing movie back from the brink, and sometimes right into the black. It probably wouldn't be enough to get a sequel greenlit, no matter the quality of the work, but you can often obtain a notoriety that makes a little-seen theatrical release into a "cult classic" and potentially a "classic." Or at the very least a collector's edition DVD and a lot of con appearances.