-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.forbes.com/2001/11/19/1119topnews.html
}}}>Begin
Top Of The News
Harry Potter Is A Fraud
Dan Ackman,
Forbes.com,
11.19.01,
9:20 AM ET
No one should deny that J.K. Rowling's stories are full of magic or
that Harry Potter is, in fact, a wizard. But Potter, or his
spokesmen, are putting one over on us muggles (the novel's slang
for non-wizards) with all this talk of Potter's movie setting box-office
records this weekend.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone did set a record in the most
literal
A scene from the box-office smash.
sense. In three days, theaters showing it sold $93.5 million in
tickets, according to studio estimates. This total narrowly
surpassed the old three-day record of $72.1 million set in 1997 by
The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
In 1961, when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season home-
run record, Major League Baseball's record-keepers put an asterisk
by Maris' name because he hit his 61 home runs in a 162-game
season. The Babe hit his 60 in 154 games. By the same token,
there should be an asterisk or two next to Harry Potter.
This is not to blame Potter or Rowling, his creator, but the constant
setting of box-office records is a function of changes in the movie
business and is not owed to merit or even the popularity of the
record-setters.
The movie opened in 3,672 theaters and on 8,200 screens--about
one out of every four screens in America; most Potter theaters
played the movie on more than one screen. By contrast, 1999's
Star Wars: Episode 1--The Phantom Menace played on about
5,000 screens in its opening weekend, when it took in $65 million.
Prices have been rising steadily, too. In 1997, when the old three-
day record was set, the average movie theater ticket price was
$4.59, according to the National Association of Theater Owners.
By 2000, the price had risen 17% to $5.39. (If you're thinking it's
been a long time since you bought a movie ticket for under $6,
you're not alone. N.A.T.O. admits that the ordinary ticket price in
every large city is at least $8.50, but it says the average price is
driven down by matinees and by child and senior discounts).
With more theaters showing movies and at higher prices it's no
wonder that new weekend box-office records are set so often. In
fact, the top 11 opening weekends of all time all occurred in the
last two years, according to Boxofficeguru.com. Most of these
record-setters faded fast, and many were hardly blockbusters by
the time their final credits rolled. After The Lost World, the names
on the list are Pearl Harbor, Mission Impossible II, Planet of the
Apes, and The Mummy Returns. They were able to outrun bad
word-of-mouth, at least for a week or two.
This is how massive conglomerates like AOL Time Warner (nyse: AOL - news - people),
Vivendi Universal (nyse: V - news - people), Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people) and News
Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people) release movies.
Tons of screens at the opening, set a "record," advertise their success--the "number
one movie in America!"--and hope that everyone interested sees it before word-of-mouth
spreads. Most of the record-setters and certain
ly seven of the top ten were forgotten within weeks of their initial release.
As crazy as it sounds, this front-loading has some economic rationale. In the first
week of a movie's release, the studios take 70% of box-office receipts. The studio's
percentage is generally reduced to about 30% in su
cceeding weeks. So a box-office dollar today is worth far more
than a box office dollar three weeks from now to the film's
financiers.
The theater owners meanwhile have to make most of their money
selling candy and popcorn. For this reason, and because the
owners have built so many new screens over the past decade,
most of the nation's theater chains are bankrupt or close to it. This
weekend, Potter took in 50% more than the next ten movies
combined.
The ironic part is that Harry Potter doesn't need the help. The
young wizard himself is the greatest British hero since James
Bond. Rowling is a worthy successor to Ian Fleming, who,
incidentally was a pretty fair children's book writer, too, having
penned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The books are so popular that
the movie would have been wildly anticipated, no matter how it was
released.
Harry Potter is such a skilled wizard, he might be allowed to work
his own magic. He could hit his home runs even without a juiced
ball or a corked bat.
End<{{{
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