A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop , through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket . By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context of the film industry , as a metonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a film or theatre show, receives. The term is also used to refer to a ticket office at an arena or a stadium .
64-412: James Smith Dashner (born November 26, 1972) is an American writer known for speculative fiction . Many of his books are primarily aimed at children or young adults. He is best known for The Maze Runner series and the young adult fantasy series The 13th Reality . His 2008 novel The Journal of Curious Letters , first in the series, was one of the annual Borders Original Voices picks. In 2014,
128-536: A "no Martians " type of science fiction, "about things that really could happen." Speculative fiction is also used as a genre term that combines different ones into a single narrative or fictional world such as "science fiction, horror, fantasy...[and]...mystery". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database contains a broad list of different subtypes. According to publisher statistics, men outnumber women about two to one among English-language speculative fiction writers aiming for professional publication. However,
192-476: A category ranges from ancient works to paradigm-changing and neotraditional works of the 21st century. Characteristics of speculative fiction have been recognized in older works whose authors' intentions , or in the social contexts of the stories they portray, are now known. For example, the ancient Greek dramatist, Euripides , ( c. 480 – c. 406 BCE ) whose play Medea seems to have offended Athenian audiences when he speculated that
256-548: A centralized basis from theaters rather than each theater chain collating their own numbers from other theater chains. The company later became National Gross Service then Entertainment Data, Inc. (EDI). Except for disclosures by the studios on very successful films, total domestic (U.S. and Canada) box office gross information for films was not readily available until National Gross Service started to collate this data around 1981. The collation of grosses led to wider reporting of domestic box office grosses for films. Arthur D. Murphy,
320-446: A completely imaginary way or been followed by major new events that are completely imaginary (the genre of alternative history ). Or, it depicts impossible technology or technology that defies current scientific understandings or capabilities (the genre of science fiction ). Contrarily, realistic fiction involves a story whose basic setting (time and location in the world) is, in fact, real and whose events could believably happen in
384-408: A film adaptation of The Maze Runner was released, followed by another two films in 2015 and 2018. Collectively, the three films grossed an estimated $ 949 million. The three films' collective box-office earnings make it the fourth-highest-grossing film series based on young-adult books, after the film series of Harry Potter , The Twilight Saga , and The Hunger Games , respectively. In 2018, Dashner
448-496: A former U.S. Navy lieutenant at Variety was one of the first to organize and chart that information and report it in a meaningful form. During the 1980s, Daily Variety started to publish a weekly chart of the domestic box office grosses of films collated from the studios as compared to the Top 50 chart in Variety which was based on a sample of theatre grosses from key markets. Gradually
512-524: A former student of Brigham Young University, have four children and are now living in Utah. Dashner's books are written for young teens. His work is typically within the adventure, survival, and science-fiction genres. The Maze Runner , his most widely distributed book, reached 100 weeks' standing on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Series on September 21, 2014, two days after
576-499: A genre term has often been attributed to Robert A. Heinlein , who first used the term in an editorial in The Saturday Evening Post , 8 February 1947. In the article, Heinlein used "Speculative Fiction" as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy. However, though Heinlein may have come up with the term on his own, there are earlier citations:
640-420: A list of films that had achieved or gave promise of earning $ 4,000,000 or more in domestic (U.S. and Canada) theatrical rentals . This became a leading source of data for a film's performance. Variety would publish an updated all-time list annually for over 50 years, normally in their anniversary edition each January. The anniversary edition would also normally contain the list of the top performing films of
704-592: A piece in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1889 used the term in reference to Edward Bellamy 's Looking Backward : 2000–1887 and other works; and one in the May 1900 issue of The Bookman said that John Uri Lloyd 's Etidorhpa , The End of the Earth had "created a great deal of discussion among people interested in speculative fiction". A variation on this term is "speculative literature". The use of "speculative fiction" in
SECTION 10
#1732863117784768-463: A series of the same name. The popularity of The Maze Runner led 20th Century Fox to obtain the rights in late 2010 for a film adaptation, with Catherine Hardwicke set to direct. The Maze Runner appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first time in late 2012, in the Children's category alongside dystopian novels, The Hunger Games and Divergent . The Maze Runner remained on
832-543: A statement on Twitter , which said, in part: "I didn't honor or fully understand boundaries and power dynamics. I can sincerely say that I have never intentionally hurt another person. But to those affected, I am so deeply sorry. I am taking any and all criticisms and accusations very seriously, and I will seek counseling and guidance to address them." Dashner's publisher, Penguin Random House , stated that it will not publish any further books by him. The accusations were part of
896-474: Is characterized by a lesser degree of adherence to realistic or plausible individuals, events, or places, while the umbrella genres of realistic fiction or literary realism are characterized by a greater degree of adherence. For instance, speculative fiction may depict an entirely imaginary universe or one in which the laws of nature do not strictly apply (often, the sub-genre of fantasy ). Or, it depicts true historical moments, except that they have concluded in
960-437: Is not limited to, science fiction , fantasy , horror , slipstream , magical realism , superhero fiction , alternate history , utopia and dystopia , fairy tales , steampunk , cyberpunk , weird fiction , and some apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction . The term has been used for works of literature , film , television , drama , video games , radio , and their hybrids. The umbrella genre of speculative fiction
1024-408: Is now also used. In particular, the weekend box office for the initial week of release, or opening weekend, is often widely reported. (See List of highest-grossing openings for films .) Theaters is the number of theaters in which the movie is showing. Since a single theater may show a movie on multiple screens, the total number of screens or engagements is used as another measure. The theaters measure
1088-467: Is often incomplete due to the way box office reporting evolved, especially in the U.S., and the availability of information prior to the introduction of the internet. Variety started reporting box office results by theatre on March 3, 1922, to give exhibitors around the country information on a film's performance on Broadway, which was often where first run showings of a film were held. In addition to New York City, they also endeavoured to include all of
1152-399: Is sometimes abbreviated "spec-fic", "spec fic", "specfic", "S-F", "SF", or "sf". The last three abbreviations, however, are ambiguous as they have long been used to refer to science fiction (which lies within this general range of literature). It is sometimes also known as "the fantastic" or as fantastika , the latter term attributed to John Clute who coined it in 2007 after the term for
1216-413: Is used to classify whether a film is in wide release , meaning at least 600 theaters, or limited release which is less than 600 theaters. Occasionally, a film may achieve wide release after an initial limited release; Little Miss Sunshine is an example of this. Gross refers to gross earnings. On average, the movie's distributor receives a little more than half of the final gross (often referred to as
1280-532: The coronavirus pandemic . Only drive-in theaters , which are typically not included in box office reporting, remained open. The average ticket price (ATP) is the average cost to purchase a film ticket at the box office in any given year. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics , the ATP is "calculated as the total revenues generated from tickets sales divided by the number of feature film tickets sold during
1344-402: The movie theater keeps nearly half of the gross on average. The split varies from movie to movie, and the percentage for the distributor is generally higher in early weeks. Usually the distributor gets a percentage of the revenue after first deducting a "house allowance" or "house nut". It is also common that the distributor gets either a percentage of the gross revenue, or a higher percentage of
SECTION 20
#17328631177841408-430: The "gatherer" at the entrance to the theatres, who collected the admission money. There is disagreement, however, around whether the term originates from this time, as the objects could have been carried by the many snack-sellers attending the audiences; they too needed a convenient and secure way to collect their customers' cash. There is no record of the term being used until the eighteenth century. The term "box office"
1472-474: The 1930s, BoxOffice magazine published a Barometer issue in January, which reported the performance of movies for the year expressed as percentages. In 1946, Variety started to publish a weekly National Box Office survey on page 3 indicating the performance of the week's hits and flops based on the box office results of 25 key U.S. cities. Later in 1946, Variety published a list of All-Time Top Grossers with
1536-566: The Friday grosses sourced from Exhibitor Relations so that they were publicly available for free online on Saturdays and posted the Sunday estimates on Sundays. In July 2008, Box Office Mojo was purchased by Amazon.com through its subsidiary , IMDb . Rentrak started tracking box office data from point of sale in 2001 and started to rival EDI in providing the studios with data. In December 2009, Rentrak acquired Nielsen EDI for $ 15 million, and became
1600-610: The North American ticket sales by dividing the domestic box office gross by the average ticket price (ATP) of a given year, a method that Box Office India uses to estimate Indian footfalls (ticket sales). See List of films by box office admissions for the films with the highest known estimated ticket sales. For lists of films which are major box-office hits, see List of highest-grossing films , List of films by box office admissions and Lists of highest-grossing films . Films that are considered to have been very unsuccessful at
1664-473: The UK, moved into Germany in 1993 and Spain in 1995 reporting box office data for those markets. EDI were acquired by ACNielsen Corporation in 1997 for $ 26 million and became Nielsen EDI. By the 1990s, Daily Variety started to report studio's weekend estimates from Sundays on Monday mornings which led to other media reporting the data earlier. When Entertainment Weekly was launched in 1990 it started to publish
1728-458: The United States and Canada, and foreign which includes all other countries. Weekly box office figures are now normally taken to be from Friday through Thursday to allow for the fact that most films are officially released in the United States on a Friday. With Variety being published for many years every Wednesday, most weekly box office figures they reported from the 1920s to the 1990s were for
1792-503: The age of 10, he would type on his parents' typewriter. He graduated from Duluth High School in 1991. He moved from Atlanta , Georgia to Provo, Utah to study at Brigham Young University , where he received a master's degree in accounting. Dashner released his first novel in 2003, titled A Door in the Woods . Like many of his books, A Door in the Woods is a fantasy aimed at teenagers. The story follows Jimmy Fincher, who notices person in
1856-416: The box office are called box-office bombs or box office flops. For a list of these films, see List of biggest box-office bombs . Inflation Adjustment There are two main methods of box office inflation. First, used by boxofficemojo and comscore, To adjust it for inflation (or see what it might have made in the past), the estimated number of tickets sold is multiplied by the average ticket price of
1920-452: The context of the real world. One realistic fiction sub-genre is historical fiction , centered around true major events and time periods in the past. The attempt to make stories feel faithful to reality or to more objectively describe details, and the 19th-century artistic movement that began to vigorously promote this approach, is called "literary realism", which incorporates some works of both fiction and non-fiction. "Speculative fiction"
1984-761: The creative design and generation of lore and mythology for works of fiction. The term's definition comes from its use by J. R. R. Tolkien , whose novel, The Lord of the Rings , demonstrates a clear application of this process. Themes common in mythopoeia, such as the supernatural , alternate history and sexuality , continue to be explored in works produced within the modern speculative fiction genre. The creation of speculative fiction in its general sense of hypothetical history, explanation, or ahistorical storytelling , has also been attributed to authors in ostensibly non-fiction modes since as early as Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fl. 5th century BCE), for his Histories , and
James Dashner - Misplaced Pages Continue
2048-523: The focus of a film's performance became its box office gross rather than the rentals that Variety continued to report annually. Prior to the tracking of these grosses, domestic or worldwide box office grosses is not available for many earlier films so the only domestic or worldwide data available is still often the rental figures. Murphy started to publish Art Murphy's Box Office Register annually from 1984 detailing U.S. box office grosses. In 1984, EDI started to report Canadian grosses as well and by 1985
2112-420: The forest acting suspiciously. What he witnesses then sets off a chain of events changing Jimmy's life. A Door in the Woods became part of a series of books, known as The Jimmy Fincher Saga. In 2004, a second and third book were released as part of The Jimmy Fincher Saga. The second instalment was A Gift of Ice, which again follows Jimmy in his journey to save the world from The Stompers. The third instalment of
2176-451: The genre in some Slavic languages . The term has been used by some critics and writers dissatisfied with what they consider to be a limitation of science fiction: the need for the story to hold to scientific principles. They argue that "speculative fiction" better defines an expanded, open, imaginative type of fiction than does "genre fiction", and the categories of "fantasy", "mystery", "horror" and "science fiction". Harlan Ellison used
2240-479: The key cities in the U.S. in future and initially also reported results for 10 other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles. In 1929, the first issue of The Motion Picture Almanac was released and included a list of the top 104 grossing films for the past year. In 1932, Variety published the studios' top-grossing films of the year and has maintained this tradition annually since. In 1937, BoxOffice magazine]began publishing box office reports. Beginning in
2304-479: The larger Me Too movement . In October 2021, Dashner released the adult horror novel, The House of Tongues with Riverdale Avenue Books . The storyline follows single father David Player, who is trying to raise four children while dealing and processing a childhood trauma. It follows David's recollection of events both past and present in first person. The book received mainly positive press and reviews following its release. Dashner and his wife, Lynette Anderson,
2368-485: The life of Michael, a hacker employed by VirtNet. The book went onto become the first instalment of The Mortality Doctrine book series. In September 2014, The Maze Runner film adaptation was released and had a worldwide box office total of $ 348.3 million. Fox announced that the sequel to the first film would be released nearly a year to the date in September 2015. A third film, The Maze Runner: The Death Cure ,
2432-425: The list for years, making it one of the best-selling children's books of all time. In 2013, it was announced that The Maze Runner film has been pushed back to a September 2014 release. During the same period, it was announced that the second instalment, The Scorch Trials , had been picked up by Fox as a potential sequel to the currently unreleased first film. Dashner then released The Eye of Minds , which follows
2496-508: The number of tickets sold at the box office. In countries such as France, box office reporting was historically reported in terms of admissions, with rules regulated by the government and fines issued if exhibitors failed to report the data. Other countries which historically reported box office figures in terms of admissions include European countries such as Germany, Italy, and Spain, the Soviet Union , and South Korea. Box Office Mojo estimates
2560-465: The number of tickets sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales ( revenue ). The projection and analysis of these earnings is greatly important for the creative industries and often a source of interest for fans. This is predominant in the Hollywood movie industry . To determine if a movie made a profit, it is not correct to directly compare the box office gross with the production budget , because
2624-424: The percentages vary considerably by genre, with women outnumbering men in the fields of urban fantasy , paranormal romance and young adult fiction . Academic journals which publish essays on speculative fiction include Extrapolation and Foundation . Speculative fiction may include elements from one or more of the following genres: Box office Box office business can be measured in terms of
James Dashner - Misplaced Pages Continue
2688-712: The release of Maze Runner: The Death Cure , comments were posted anonymously on the School Library Journal website, alleging that Dashner had engaged in sexual harassment. Four comments claimed harassment by Dashner, and two more said that they had reported him in a Medium survey about harassment. A commenter later claimed to have been one of the accusers, and said that they "made it up". One of those commenters claimed to have been subject to "months of manipulation, grooming and gaslighting". Following this, Dashner's agent, Michael Bourret, stated that he "couldn't in good conscience continue working with [him]". Dashner published
2752-461: The release of the motion picture adaptation of the book . The Maze Runner prequel books The Maze Cutter series (sequel trilogy) Speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from realism , or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural , futuristic , or other imaginative realms. This catch-all genre includes, but
2816-412: The rentals) with the remainder going to the exhibitor (i.e., movie theater). Multiple is the ratio of a film's total gross to that of the opening weekend. A film that earns $ 20 million on its opening weekend and finishes with $ 80 million has a multiple of 4. From 2004 to 2014, films viewers graded as A+ on CinemaScore had a 4.8 multiple, while films graded as F had a 2.2 multiple. Admissions refers to
2880-466: The revenue after deducting the nut, whichever is larger. The distributor's share of the box office gross is often referred to as the "distributor rentals", especially for box office reporting of older films. Ceramic money boxes were used at the sixteenth-century Globe Theatre and Rose Theatre in London, where many examples have been found during archaeological investigations. They were possibly used by
2944-634: The selected year. Second, Using CPI of respective country. Both methods have some flaws. I first, content of movies change over time, then number of ticket sold may increase or decreas. In second, ATP of movies increased exponentially in 1990s but CPI increased slower than ATP. A third method is also available, In which we can use APT of movies as CPI and adjust box office. There are numerous websites that monitor box-office receipts, such as BoxOffice , Box Office Mojo , The Numbers , Box Office India , and ShowBIZ Data . These sites provide box office information for hundreds of movies. Data for older movies
3008-603: The sense of expressing dissatisfaction with traditional or establishment science fiction was popularized in the 1960s and early 1970s by Judith Merril , as well as other writers and editors in connection with the New Wave movement. However, this use of the term fell into disuse around the mid-1970s. In the 2000s, the term came into wider use as a convenient collective term for a set of genres. However, some writers, such as Margaret Atwood , who wrote The Handmaid's Tale , continue to distinguish "speculative fiction" specifically as
3072-498: The series was released later in 2004, titled The Tower of Air . A fourth and final book concluded the series, War of the Black Curtain , which was published in 2005. Following the conclusion of his Jimmy Fincher Saga series, Dashner began working on two new series. The first became known as The 13th Reality book series and the second was The Maze Runner series . Dashner published The Journal of Curious Letters in 2008, which
3136-535: The sole provider of worldwide box office ticket sales revenue and attendance information which is used by many of the websites noted above. On October 23, 2019, Box Office Mojo unveiled a dramatic redesign resembling IMDb, and was rebranded as "Box Office Mojo by IMDbPro" with some of the content move to the subscription based IMDbPro. US box office reporting largely paused for the first time in 26 years in March 2020, as nearly all theaters nationwide were closed because of
3200-500: The term to avoid being pigeonholed as a science fiction writer. Ellison, a fervent proponent of writers embracing more literary and modernist directions, broke out of genre conventions to push the boundaries of speculative fiction. The term suppositional fiction is sometimes used as a sub-category designating fiction in which characters and stories are constrained by an internally consistent world, but not necessarily one defined by any particular genre. Speculative fiction as
3264-591: The titular shamaness Medea killed her own children, as opposed to their being killed by other Corinthians after her departure. Additionally, Euripides' play, Hippolytus , narratively introduced by Aphrodite , Goddess of Love in person, is suspected to have displeased his contemporary audiences, as his portrayal of Phaedra was seen as too lusty . In historiography , what is now called "speculative fiction" has previously been termed "historical invention", "historical fiction", and other similar names. These terms have been extensively noted in literary criticism of
SECTION 50
#17328631177843328-553: The top 10 box office weekend lists from Exhibitor Relations and the company was also supplying box office data to companies such as the Los Angeles Times , CNN and the Associated Press . In 1994, Variety published their first annual global box office chart showing the top 100 grossing films internationally for the prior year. On August 7, 1998, Box Office Mojo was launched by Brandon Gray and in 1999 he started posting
3392-402: The week from Thursday to Wednesday. A large component of the weekly gross is the weekend box office. Historically, this was reported as the box office receipts around Friday through Sunday plus any public holidays close to the weekend, such as a 4-day Memorial Day weekend, however, with the increased regularity of reporting of box office figures, a comparable 3-day figure for the Friday to Sunday
3456-481: The works of William Shakespeare , such as when he co-locates Athenian Duke Theseus , Amazonian Queen Hippolyta , English fairy Puck , and Roman god Cupid across time and space in the Fairyland of the fictional Merovingian Germanic sovereign Oberon , in A Midsummer Night's Dream . In mythography the concept of speculative fiction has been termed "mythopoesis", or mythopoeia . This practice involves
3520-409: The world, and responds to it by creating imaginative , inventive , and artistic expressions. Such expressions can contribute to practical societal progress through interpersonal influences, social and cultural movements , scientific research and advances, and the philosophy of science . In its English-language usage in arts and literature since the mid 20th century, "speculative fiction" as
3584-417: The year of reference." Box-office figures are reported in the form of either gross receipts or distributor rentals, the latter being especially true of older films. Commonly mistaken for home video revenue, the rentals are the distributor's share of the film's theatrical revenue i.e. the box office gross less the exhibitor's cut. Historically, the rental price averaged at 30–40% when the distributors owned
3648-430: The year. In the late 1960s, Variety used an IBM 360 computer to collate the grosses from their weekly reports of 22 to 24 U.S. cities from January 1, 1968. The data came from up to 800 theatres which represented around 5% of the U.S. cinema population at the time but around one-third of the total U.S. box office grosses. In 1969, Variety started to publish a list of the top 50 grossing films each week. The Love Bug
3712-445: Was already both practiced and edited out by early encyclopedic writers like Sima Qian ( c. 145 or 135 BCE–86 BCE), author of Shiji . These examples highlight the caveat that many works, now regarded as intentional or unintentional speculative fiction, long predated the coining of the genre term; its concept, in its broadest sense, captures both a conscious and unconscious aspect of human psychology in making sense of
3776-701: Was being used from at least 1741, deriving from the office from which tickets for theatre boxes were sold (although the use of "box" for a private section from which to watch the play was in use in 1609); this is the derivation favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary . Total ticket sales were being termed box office from at least 1904. The following is film industry specific terminology used by box office reporters such as Variety and Box Office Mojo . For films released in North America, box office figures are usually divided between domestic, meaning
3840-477: Was dropped by his agent and publisher following accusations of sexual harassment; Dashner replied in a statement, "I am taking any and all criticisms and accusations very seriously, and I will seek counseling and guidance to address them." James Dashner was born on November 26, 1972, in Austell, Georgia , as one of six children in the family. He was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . At
3904-434: Was reporting data for 15,000 screens. In 1987, EDI set up a database of box office information which included data on certain films back to 1970. By 1991, all U.S. studios had agreed to share their complete data reports with EDI. By then box office results were publicized, with Entertainment Tonight segments on the weekend's top films, increasing public discussion of poorly performing films. In 1990, EDI opened an office in
SECTION 60
#17328631177843968-414: Was set to be released in 2017. Actor Dylan O'Brien was injured on the set of the film in 2015, resulting in lengthy delays to filming while he recovered. The film was released in January 2018, and like the two previous films in the trilogy, broke $ 250 million in box office revenue. In July 2018, Dashner stated that he was writing a new book from scratch, the first time he had done it in 15 years. Following
4032-456: Was the first book in the 13th Reality Series. The book became a highly acclaimed children's book, receiving a Whitney Award the same year it was published. In 2009, the novel was recognized again as a Borders Original Voices pick . During 2009, Dashner released two more books. The Hunt for Dark Infinity was his second instalment in The 13th Reality series and The Maze Runner was the first book in
4096-454: Was the number one on the first chart published for the week ending April 16, 1969. The chart was discontinued in 1990. In 1974, Nat Fellman founded Exhibitor Relations Co., the first company set up to track box office grosses, which it collected from the studios. Two years later, Marcy Polier, an employee of the Mann theater chain, set up Centralized Grosses to collate U.S. daily box office data on
#783216