Behind America's box-office obsession

Both the media and the public love a winner, especially as summer blockbusters compete for first place.

from the June 1, 2007 edition

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"You can nitpick these numbers forever," says Dergarabedian. But you have to let it go at some point. "Behind every stat there's always a caveat," he adds.

Even if a movie isn't No. 1 overall, studios can still spin the digits to their advantage. "They use statistics like 'No. 1 grossing comedy' to pull us into feeling like insiders," says Russ Leatherman, CEO and the original, er, fone voice of Moviefone. Studios have begun to rely more on the numbers because they're so much easier to deal with than say, unpredictable critics. Mr. Leatherman points out that just a few years ago studios wouldn't have dreamed of opening a big film without screening it for critics first. While not yet routine, this trend is becoming more common for big summer flicks, which often get bad reviews and wilt quickly after word of mouth spreads.

When it comes to box-office news – and these days it's very good news – Dergarabedian is one of a handful of insiders helping to feed the increasingly ravenous appetite for reports on who's on top and who's not. He creates vast spreadsheets of numbers and provides trend analysis, tracking everything from domestic and worldwide grosses to how many theaters screened films. The numbers come from the studios, who get them from the theaters via two independent tracking firms.

But he doesn't just focus on the biggies. The box-office expert also tracks smaller films such as "Waitress," which he wants to see. "I'm a complete movie fan," he adds, waving at the white walls of his bare office, noting that he has a "zillion" posters he could put up if he had time.

Box-office take hasn't always mattered as much. The summer money-machine mentality dates back to "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones," two franchises that created the modern summer blockbuster, says Dergarabedian. Now, the businessmen who run studios rely on the 18 weeks of summer to make 40 percent of their annual revenues.

While Dergarabedian laughingly blames George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for sparking the numbers game, others suggest deeper reasons for the Monday morning playbacks of how films fared over the preceding three days.

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