Seems as long as I can remember I have always been fascinated with how a movie performed at the box office.  My first source for box office information was my dad.  We had 1000s and 1000s of conversations about different movies and I am sure almost every time I would ask….”How did it do at the box office?”  He never provided numbers….but he would say things like….”It was a smash hit”….”It did pretty well”…..”It was ok”…..and “It was not too impressive”.

Time Frame 1981: As I got older I started to discover other sources for box office information.  My first discovery was Variety.  I was at the Norfolk Public Library when the cover of a Variety caught me eye.  As I was flipping through that issue I found a box office chart that listed the Top 50 movies for a single week with their box office grosses.  It was like finding gold….but before I could enjoy it….it was taken away…as I had to leave.  Even worse was the fact that I was too young to drive and the Norfolk Library was not close too my house at all.  Knowing the box office information was out there was driving me crazy…and the fact that my parents would not take me to that library more seemed really unfair (Why BERN1960? Why did you deprive such a young child? Why? Why?..I was a good kid).

Time Frame 1985 – 1989:  When it was time to go to college I went to Old Dominion University….which surprise….was close to the Norfolk library with those Variety issues.   Between classes I would head to that library…and devour those Variety issues. The only bad part was that the issues were weeks and sometimes months old.

During my college days I discovered a newsstand called the Suburban News in Virginia Beach, Virginia. They sold current issues of Variety.  So my visits to Norfolk library diminished as my trips to Suburban News increased. Being a poor college student…I could not afford to buy Variety every week so I would end up spending hours at that newsstand.

Eventually I discovered that once a year, Variety, published an all-time box office champs list.  The issues listed the biggest rental hits of all-time.  Any movie that had earned $4 million in rentals made the list.   Every year I would I buy those anniversary editions and read them for months.  The only bad thing was the movies were not listed alphabetically.  So to solve that problem I listed every movie in ABC order in a red movie notebook.  I still have that notebook almost 30 years later and it is still in decent shape.

USA Today Joins The Party.   Also during my college years….USA Today started publishing weekend box office grosses in their paper.  At first the movie executives were very upset that the box office grosses were being published.  They quickly realized that having an article on how well a movie did at the box office was great FREE publicity.  Back then USA Today would list in one paragraph the estimated Top 5 movies of the weekend on Monday.  On Tuesday then would publish a Top 10 chart with actual box office grosses.

Needless to say….I found it a lot easier to drive to my local convenience store to pick up a USA Today than it was to drive miles and miles to either the library or that newsstand.  Eventually I figured out the time the USA Today got delivered…and if a movie opened that I was really interested in…I would set my alarm clock and be at the store when the USA Today would arrive.  Many fond memories of being up at 4:00 AM on Monday morning and reading the projected results of the weekend.

Ah….The Internet….The All Powerful Internet.  So for years I got my box office fix from the USA Today. Getting my weekly box office information on Monday seemed almost perfect….and then…..the Internet arrived….and Monday seemed like an eternity to wait.  The first website I found and read all the time was BoxOfficeGuru.com.

Back when I read Box Office Guru all the time they did a weekend forecast on Thursday, had an update on Saturday that showed estimated Friday grosses and a weekend review on Sunday afternoon that had the weekend estimated totals.  I was a Guru devotee for years…..until…..*da da dum*….

I discovered Box Office Mojo.  I wonder if Guru dislikes Mojo….and what Mojo thinks about Guru.  Box Office Mojo had three elements that slowly pulled me away from Box Office Guru.  (1) They listed daily box office totals every day of the week.  (2) They provided an estimated weekly box office total on Saturday (because now waiting until Sunday seemed like an eternity to wait) and (3) Their database of box office grosses from 1981 to today are the best on the internet.  I still go to Box Office Mojo all the time…but about 18 months ago…….*da da dum*.

I discovered Deadline.com.  Deadline has lots of movie links and articles….but where they really stand above everybody else….is that they release weekend projected grosses on Friday afternoon.  Amazingly, they are pretty accurate.  Plus, you know, having to wait for Saturday morning is an eternity to wait.  For a while I could not figure out how they got this information …but I eventually learned that they are part of the Variety empire.

The Future?  So how will box office grosses be reported in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? I can easily see that in the future there will be a website that will be attached to every movie theater in North America…you will be able to having a running total of tickets sold, money taken in, capacity percentages and a scoreboard that will track all of the movies in theaters that weekend.  The information will be available at the push of a button.  People will check the scoreboards all through the weekend until the final tickets are sold on Sunday evening.  I personally can’t wait for that website.