I am not a film maker in any way. So then why do so many news sites tell me about how much money the film has taken in during its first weekend, week, etc…?
As a film fan / viewer, why should I care?
Any sort of historical explanation would be very appreciated.
Because the film industry is interested in it. It is the first and most public bit of information on what movies are popular and trending.
Yes, sure and I know other forms of entertainment do this too - books, music and so on. I guess I was just saying it annoys me.
If they instead said they sold x tickets (like someone else here suggested), or the movie has some positive reviews, that’s useful for me. But the $$$ is not information I can do anything with, beyond just, “OK, lots of other people checked it out”.
Great example: This movie - Season of the Witch (2011) - had good box office numbers but was largely panned.
If I were running a media site covering movies, I would only report the reviews not the sales numbers. That seems to me to be the only honest way to handle this, but I’m just one guy. If you all don’t mind this, then cool.
How is ticket sales any different than box office numbers? It will be a measure of profitability.
Also, the average rating is also going to be a pseudo measure of a different kind of popularity. Even then, a list of well reviewed movies may not have that much meaning overall for the readership above Rotten Tomatoes.
And outside of reviews, movie news is really geared towards people who are interested in the trade or people interested in how current trends will affect future output. A lot of future output is going to be affected by sales.