The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1195 Preview Box Office
Twenty-seven theaters, screenings across the U.S., art films——

It's not even an awards season movie, but a completely independent film that has nothing to do with the current Hollywood industrial system.

From any perspective, this movie is not a market darling. Even if it has the halo of the Palme d'Or, it is useless. Aren't there enough art films that are too high-brow for the masses?

However, the interesting thing is that the bustling professional attention is still revolving around the "elephant".

Because of Anson's existence, because of the box office explosion of "The Butterfly Effect", and because of the grand occasion that the box office of the preview theaters on Friday was sold out, and amid the collision of various factors, the Angelica Film Center is suspected to have a new round of publicity and promotion activities, and the hearts of professionals are instantly excited.

Uncontrollably.

So, what are the box office data for the preview of "Elephant"?

During the preview period, because there are too few theaters, or there may even be only one theater, the data that measures the box office performance at this time is called single-theater box office.

That is the average box office data of each cinema.

In the historical list of this data, that is, the single-theater box office list in North American film history, Disney has an absolute advantage and is showing a strong screen-sweeping posture. The top ten are all Disney works, because they have a special venue——

The El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

The Chief Theatre is directly opposite the Kodak Theatre and less than 100 meters away from the Chinese Theatre. The previous premiere of "The Princess Diaries" was held here.

Since 1989, the Chief Theatre and Disney have signed a long-term cooperation agreement, and most Disney movies are premiered here.

In fact, the El Capitan Theatre is not big and can only accommodate 1,100 spectators, which is almost the same size as the Chinese Theater. But why is Disney's single-theater box office at the El Capitan Theatre so outstanding?
The answer lies in ticket prices.

Just refer to "The Princess Diaries" and you will know that when Disney works premiere at the Chief Theatre, corresponding theme activities and experiences are often held, which is almost equivalent to moving the Disneyland experience to Hollywood Boulevard, with performances, displays, interactions, etc., and the premiere has evolved into a small theme park.

Moreover, in line with the hunger marketing, the movie was only released in one theater, the Chief Theatre, and was played in a loop 24 hours a day. Only this one theater could watch it, so audiences naturally flocked to it. This also allowed Disney to further raise the ticket price and finally set a single-theater box office record.

In the 1990s, the average price of a movie ticket was between four and seven dollars; however, the preview tickets for these Disney movies were as high as fifty or even one hundred dollars, and they were still in short supply.

As a result, it is conceivable that Disney is far ahead in the list of single-theater box office in North American film history, with basically no rivals.

As of 2003, Disney had taken all of the top ten spots on the list.

"The Lion King" is far ahead with a single-theater box office of US$790,000. This figure is unprecedented and no one can surpass it.

Currently, the second place on this list is "Pocahontas", but its single-theater box office was only 440,000 US dollars, and the gap is obvious.

After that, movies such as "Toy Story 2", "A Bug's Life", "Hercules", "Atlantis", "Bear Tale", "Anastasia", "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast" and so on occupied the remaining positions in the top ten of the list.

All of them are produced by Disney; and all of them are cartoons.

So, who holds the record for the highest single-theater box office during the preview stage of a live-action movie?

The answer is a little unexpected, but reasonable.

"Evita", starring Madonna and produced and distributed by Disney, grossed $97,000 per theater, also at the Chief Theatre.

It can be seen at this point that Disney has achieved a series of excellent results in the past decade by relying on its own special distribution strategy, and finally presented a series of classic works to the audience.

In this data, no one can break Disney's blockade. Among the films not produced and released by Disney, the highest single-theater box office record is currently held by "Moulin Rouge" produced and released by 2001th Century Fox in , which was screened in two theaters and took in $ per theater, ranking th in the overall list of film history, looking up to a series of Disney films in front of it.

This is why, when people talk about single-theater box office data, they often divide Disney and other movies into two categories and discuss them separately.

until now--

The elephant appears.

Of course, professionals do not think that "Elephant" can break the blockade of Disney. No one thinks so. No matter how great and awesome Anson is, this is a market bottleneck, a convention, and a general consensus. People still consider "Elephant" in the category of "other movies".

However, thanks to the brilliant performance of "The Elephant" which sold out all the screenings on Friday, especially the feat of all 27 theaters being sold out, it is indeed impressive, which makes people start to wonder whether "The Elephant" can get close to the record of "Moulin Rouge"?

It should be noted here that it is not that professionals look down on Anson's appeal, but it is an objective math problem:

"Evita", preview screening in one cinema.

"Moulin Rouge" will be screened in two theaters.

"Elephant" will be screened in 27 theaters.

The basic data is there. For those movies that have a single-theater box office of more than $50,000, the number of theaters showing them is less than five.

with no exceptions.

None. All, all, all, all, less than five.

Because only in this way can the audience gather together and detonate the box office of a single theater; once the number of preview venues exceeds five, the crowds of moviegoers will disperse, and without the stimulation of hunger marketing, the box office data of a single theater will not be so explosive.

Moreover, these preview venues are generally in Los Angeles and New York. Only these two big cities have so many fanatical movie fans willing to support an art film and willing to pay for a movie worth one hundred dollars. The consumption capacity and cultural heritage of other cities are still far from enough.

The reason why professionals are professional is because they are clear about these rules. So, there is no intention to discriminate against the "elephants", this is just an objective analysis.

However, it is under such objective conditions that professionals are still expecting the single-theater box office of "Elephant" to exceed US$50,000, and may even approach the data of "Moulin Rouge". In other words, people are already looking forward to the Anson effect and the potential historical moments that follow, and their emotions are surging.

Compared to the old cliché that "The Lord of the Rings 3" continues its box office success, the preview craze for "Elephant" is obviously much more interesting.

It was amid such anticipation and heated discussion that the North American weekend box office results for the last week of 2003 were released. People skipped over the high-ranking films and looked down quickly. After searching around, they did not see any "elephants" in the weekend box office range of one million to two million US dollars.

what happened?

Is it...less than a million dollars?

I looked all the way down, but still couldn't find it. Finally, I could only look upwards, one after another, finally!

14. “Elephant,” $ million, venues.

Wait, so what does this mean for the box office revenue per theater?

(End of this chapter)