harry potter
Top Posts for Week Ending July 26th
Occasions and Holidays Drive Movie Box Office Sales, Not Advertising
Taking the top box office results for each of 52 weekends from the past 10 complete years (1998 – 2008; Source: IMDB.com) we see consistently that occasions like Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving show increased movie going activity. People have more time during these holidays to go to the movies and Valentines is a date+movie occasion. Also, during the summer, many people go to the movie theatre to escape the heat so there is an overall hump every year during the summer months — from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
People go out during Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving. And they still spend what they planned to spend — 2 tickets for movie — they didn’t buy 2 more tickets and see a second movie on the same date or holiday weekend. If they had several good movies to choose from (often, they don’t), they would choose to spend the finite dollars on the one movie they really wanted to see. The overall movie spending “pie” did not increase much, if any, year over year.
1998 $4,055,194,733 n/a
1999 $4,253,601,768 5%
2000 $4,496,554,005 6%
2001 $5,003,433,737 11%
2002 $5,489,974,199 10%
2003 $5,581,797,720 2%
2004 $ 5,697,299,530 2%
2005 $ 5,524,566,579 -3%
2006 $ 5,660,826,625 +2%
2007 $ 5,968,027,963 +5%
2008 $ 5,887,193,490 -1%
The chart below shows a red line which is the average of all 10 years. The 10 thin blue lines are the annual lines from1998 – 2008, inclusive and these are plotted as actual dollars. They come out right on top of each other.
Movie advertising, which runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year, has failed to noticeably increase the overall spending year-round or even during specific times. The chart below shows the differentials (difference between an annual line and the 10-yr average line). These all hover closely in the +$50M and -$50M band. The amplitude of the 10-yr average (red line) is larger than $50M in the summer hump — implying that the average change in movie ticket sales due to normal seasonality is larger than the change in amplitude caused by ALL movie advertising combined.
And the summer “hump” is due to actual demand (people going out to movie theatres, some to escape the heat) not due to advertising. The only effect of advertising is to share-shift from one movie to another — the total spending remains consistent and even seasonal variations are consistent — a “zero-sum game.”
All-Time USA Box office
Source: IMDB.com
Rank | Title | USA Box Office |
1. | Titanic (1997) | $600,779,824 |
2. | The Dark Knight (2008) | $533,316,061 |
3. | Star Wars (1977) | $460,935,665 |
4. | Shrek 2 (2004) | $436,471,036 |
5. | E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) | $434,949,459 |
6. | Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace(1999) | $431,065,444 |
7. | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) | $423,032,628 |
8. | Spider-Man (2002) | $403,706,375 |
9. | Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) | $380,262,555 |
10. | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003) | $377,019,252 |
11. | Spider-Man 2 (2004) | $373,377,893 |
12. | The Passion of the Christ (2004) | $370,270,943 |
13. | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) | $367,614,540 |
14. | Jurassic Park (1993) | $356,784,000 |
15. | The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) | $340,478,898 |
16. | Finding Nemo (2003) | $339,714,367 |
17. | Spider-Man 3 (2007) | $336,530,303 |
18. | Forrest Gump (1994) | $329,691,196 |
19. | The Lion King (1994) | $328,423,001 |
20. | Shrek the Third (2007) | $320,706,665 |
21. | Transformers (2007) | $318,759,914 |
22. | Iron Man (2008) | $318,298,180 |
23. | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) | $317,557,891 |
24. | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(2008) | $317,011,114 |
25. | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001) | $313,837,577 |
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and other Harry Potter Movies
interest in Harry Potter movies (indicated by search volume) match exactly to the launch of the movies themselves. What is interesting is that the current movie (Half Blood Prince) and the upcoming 7th Harry Potter Movie (Deathly Hallows) had enormous search volume over 2 years ahead of each movie, 2005 and 2007, respectively. See second chart below.
Daniel Radcliffe…Harry Potter
Michael Gambon…Professor Albus Dumbledore
Dave Legeno…Fenrir Greyback
Elarica Gallagher…Waitress
Jim Broadbent…Professor Horace Slughorn
Geraldine Somerville…Lily Potter
Bonnie Wright…Ginny Weasley
Julie Walters…Molly Weasley
Rupert Grint…Ron Weasley
Emma Watson…Hermione Granger
Helena Bonham Carter…Bellatrix Lestrange
Helen McCrory…Narcissa Malfoy
Timothy Spall…Wormtail
Alan Rickman…Professor Severus Snape
Oliver Phelps…George Weasley
Fading Stars, Hit Driven Stars, Flatliners, Rising Stars
search volume of various movie and television celebrities is driven by movie or television show; some are hit drive, others have sustaining power
Increasing and sustaining search volume – Megan Fox
Hit Driven – Emma Watson search volume goes with Harry Potter movie search volume, exactly
Spider Man Movie, Kirsten Dunst and Toby Maguire stars – search volume match exactly
Fading Stars – Jessica Alba has some search volume spikes around the time when movies come out, but there is an overall decline in baseline search volume over time.
Fading TV Show – in January of 2006 and 07 there was still significant search volume around the star of Fox’s 24. In 2008 and 09 there was not. Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert)
Flatliners – Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt search volume
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