Does The Hollywood Reporter Only Employ Idiots?

Who says cost cutting and synergy don't effect the quality of journalistic output. Take a look at what this mook from the Hollywood Reporter did.

I came across this completely useless piece of box office analysis on Yahoo! that originates from The Hollywood Reporter.

Journalist Carl DiOrio tries to put the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in perspective by arguing that its projected opening of more than $150 million may topple the record held by Spiderman 3 of $151.1 million.

There is of course one big problem with this analysis, which DiOrio is at least smart enough to pick up on:

That would put "Skull" on course to surpass the "Spider-Man 3" opening of $151.1 million in May 2007 -- with a big asterisk, given that Spidey reached that level in three days.

Yes, Spiderman 3 did reach that level in 3 days but this isn’t the 1961 Baseball season. It is pretty standard boxoffice practice to compare 5 day grosses with 5 day grosses and opening weekend grosses with opening weekend grosses – not some crazy case of apples, oranges and asterisks.

If DiOrio was some random commentator this could be forgiven but to be a professional journalist and not even take the time to do some of that research stuff – inexcusable.

Oh but wait there is more, it’s not like this is some guy working for the KwaZulu Natal Mercury, which has other topics to focus on – this guy is working for The Hollywood Reporter, which specializes in the film trade.

And the extra research he needed to do to make his article relevant? All he had to do was go to boxofficemojo.com, click all time under the boxoffice tab and then select 5 day openings. Is that all too hard for a professional journalist?

Anyway, here are the real stats that Crystal Skull has to compete with to get into the record books:

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith	$172,802,507
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$169,506,744
Spider-Man 3	$169,444,466
Spider-Man 2	$152,411,751
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	$147,591,127

 

So Indy needs to get more than $172.8 million to become the new 5 day champ, a fete Steve Mason thinks it can accomplish.