The Numbers Turns 20: New at The Numbers: People Records and Weekly Breakdowns
October 19, 2017
The Numbers celebrates is 20th anniversary this week and we have previously looked at the history of the site and its present size and scope. We wrap things up with a look at the future. The future will involve a lot more new features and this week we introduce two of the most recent two: Box Office Records for people and Weekly Breakdowns in the Annual Summaries.
Like we have a record page for movies, we now have a record page for people. These records are split into domestic, international, and worldwide records, as well as acting and technical roles. So you could look at the list of biggest leading actors at the domestic box office compared to the top international leading actor. It’s not particularly surprising that Tom Hanks leads the former, as his career covers more than 30 years. On the other hand, Emma Watson leads the former in less than half that time. The composer with the highest combined international box office is Hans Zimmer, who is equal parts prolific and iconic. The actor with the biggest worldwide box numbers for cameos is, well, let’s just say that result really shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s plenty of records to explore.
There is also a new feature on our Annual Summaries page. If you pick a year, let’s say 2008 and you scroll down, you get to the Weekend Breakdown Chart. Here we see each weekend of the year with the number one film for that weekend, what that film earned, the total box office, the proportion of the total box office the number one film earned, etc. You can quickly see the biggest results in bold, while the smallest are underlined. As you explore more and more years, you start to notice patterns. For example, there are not many weeks where the biggest opening movie will appear. The first weekend in May is the single most common week, but you will also see spikes in the middle of July, the weekend before Thanksgiving and the weekend before Christmas also have a realistic shot at hosting the biggest opening film of the year. The first weekend of May is also the weekend that usually has the biggest hit, as percentage of the total box office. This makes sense, as April is usually rather weak, so the competition is soft, while the first weekend of May is also the start of the summer blockbuster season. So you have a combination of one of the biggest hits of the year going up against really weak competition. On the low end, the weekend after Labor Day and the weekend after Thanksgiving tend to be low points of the year.
We hope you enjoy these new features and we look forward to creating more and growing our site to serve you better.
Filed under: Analysis, Tom Hanks, Stan Lee, Emma Watson, Hans Zimmer