BOX OFFICE STORIES: Blow Up The Status Quo And Try Something New Already

Some of you know how I feel about box office stories. Worse than Chilean film industry stories or hyped guest blog posts from unknown people. The state of today's box office reporting is this: lazy. The stories, as they are written now, don't differentiate sites and writers from other sites and writers. They're the same. Of course, as you know (and are sick of hearing), I don’t include Nikki in my assessment, because her posts usually go beyond rote reportage. People actually GO to her site for box office results. Nobody goes to the other sites for the numbers, except for cursory glances at the headline. But since it’s in the trades’ DNA to cover box office, how about the rest of you shake things up…finally. It’ll be painful at first, but the reward could be worth it.

I’m sick of hearing “it’s always been done this way” as an excuse. Re-evaluate, change. That’s the deal today. So if you tried any of the following things, I guarantee you would get more attention than you do for the usual box office stories that are written now:

Interactive charts

Forget the words altogether. Make a kick-ass chart that has everything in data form and is interactive -- something that readers could play with.

Games

Let people predict tallies, guess percentage drops, etc. Let people be part of the reporting.

Video

Find someone to walk folks through the weekly box office maze, and make that the top video end-of-week. With humor, professionalism and charm.

Guest reporting 

How about getting a reasonable person in the industry (producer/writer) every week to write a sidebar box office story based on what they think, what they know and what they are surprised by. I’d read Kevin Smith’s box office report.

You’re welcome. And if none of this works, well, at least I tried.

Happy long weekend. Except you’re in the news business, so there is no long weekend.