Chapter 17. Count the Box Office

Previous chapters have taken us through the full extent of the Hollywood production system, from initial development all the way to test screenings of the hoped-for final cut of the movie. Now we move to a last step, one that’s actually out of the control of the system but is nevertheless a reflection of the performance of the system: counting the box office. After a studio accepts a movie in finished form, it creates release prints from the negative. These prints are then shipped to theaters for domestic showing. The studios count on advertising and word of mouth to bolster the popularity of the film so that it maintains a long theater life—the more weeks, the better. The more popular it is domestically, the more ...

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