'Undefeated' Deflated (the reality of Box Office statistics)

[brooklynite]

from Box Office Mojo:

...Normally, a movie with such poor box office would not receive story coverage on Box Office Mojo, but the furor over The Undefeated calls for an injection of truth.

Even before The Undefeated bottomed out in its second weekend, the movie was a bust in its first weekend, but its boosters latched onto two stats: per-theater average and ranking among political documentaries. The classic tactics of movie spin include bragging about per-theater average and declaring a high ranking in a niche category. The funny thing is that Undefeated's opening didn't rate highly on either front, making the spin extra-egregious.

Within the minor political documentary sub-genre, The Undefeated's $6,532 opening weekend per-theater average ranked 33rd out of the 91 limited openings tracked over the past 30 years, normalized for ticket price inflation. Among all documentaries, it was in the middle of the pack. Hardly worthy of hyperbole. Even if it had little to no advertising, Undefeated had far more media coverage than most other political documentaries and independent releases could ever dream of. The awareness was there.

Undefeated boosters ran with the notion that the movie's opening had the "second highest per-theater average of the weekend, behind only Harry Potter," but the movie was actually sixth in that metric. They also latched onto a press release about how The Undefeated averaged "above $11,000 in top markets." But averages are naturally higher in top markets (that's why they're "top markets") and, without context (how it compared to other movies' grosses in those markets), that was a meaningless statistic.

[Broderick]

1. CAn't understand who would go see this

at a movie theater of all places. Shrug.

[KansDem]

2. I have a theory

I think folks who see the title "The Undefeated" think of the Clint Eastwood movie, "The Unforgiven" and decide they've either seen it already or have heard about the dark subject of Eastwood's movie, so they don't want to see it.

[Jim__]

3. You can't fool all of the people, all of the time. Bye, bye Sarah - n/t