As you may have heard, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken in more than a billion dollars worldwide, so far. $1.09 billion, to be exact.
But the folks over on Return of Kings still think that their “boycott” of the film was a HUGE SUCCESS. How’s that, you ask?
Well, as RoK contributor David Garrett figures it, if Return of Kings hadn’t warned the men of the world that The Force Awakens is “SJW propaganda,” the film might have taken in roughly $4.2 million more than it did.
That’s right: it could have made $1,094,200,000 instead of the paltry $1,090,000,000 it’s taken in so far.
IN YOUR FACE, SJWs!
So how exactly does Garrett arrive at that $4.2 million figure? WITH SCIENCE.
Fifty-five percent of respondents to a Return of Kings Twitter poll have said that online reporting of the social justice nature of The Force Awakens influenced their decision whether to see the film. Extended across our readership, with over 900,000 users accessing ROK between November 21 and December 21, this amounts to a potential direct impact of $4,219,456.54 (55% x $8.38 x 915,482) on total revenues. $8.38 is based on the average cinema ticket price in the US, which is now an all-time high.
Well, you can’t argue with that!
And that $4,219,456.54 figure doesn’t even take into account the other right-wing media outlets that warned their readers about the evil SJW agenda behind The Force Awakens. Add that in, Garrett suggests, and the total cost of the right-wing “boycott” is in the “tens of millions of dollars.”
I have done a similar calculation to determine how much of a financial effect my writings about their “boycott” have had on the box office of The Force Awakens.
8.38 (ticket cost in dollars) x 7,390,966,099 (the number of people who might have been influenced by my posts, based on total world population) + 0.47 (amount of change in my pocket) – 7.67 (estimated cost of lunch today) / 2 (number of cats in my apartment)
So that comes to $61,936,295,906 per cat in my apartment. In other words, without my influence, The Force Awakens would have lost $60,846,295,906 at the box office (per cat in my apartment), making it the biggest financial disaster in Hollywood history. (I think. I’m not really that good at math.)
A loss of that magnitude would have had a disastrous effect on the world economy, including my cats. And I have prevented it.
You’re welcome!
Ot – just read a comment in Yahoo suggesting MRA’s take up arms against all women.
Is it Tuesday again?
Monday still – sigh
This is the best Life Day ever.
Hmmm, a quick search puts me on compete.com, which gives unique visitors to ROK in Nov 15 as 240,000. Which, ignoring all the other nonsense in that equation, would mean about 1 million in “losses”.
Some other things.
The poll doesn’t even specify if the coverage encouraged people to not see the film-influenced could mean made them decide to see it.
And, the total, whatever it is, will be a smaller and smaller percentage of the total as time goes on.
According to Wikipedia, it’s already the 15th highest grossing movie in history, after 10 days. That’s one heck of a boycott.
15th highest grossing movie in history in ten days and it hasn’t even released in China yet.
I do look forward to seeing this with my BF (a repeat viewer). Sadly, considering the pattern we’ve seen over the last year or so, I can’t help hoping in the back of my mind that my theater (any theater for that matter) won’t be targeted by yet another mangry mass murdering shitfuck because we can’t have a successful non cishet white male centered film without people getting murdered (the fact that it can expect to sustain large crowds has me a little worried if I’m to be honest). Here’s hoping for everyone’s safety and enjoyment of this awesome looking film.
I’m boycotting it until it gets to the dollar theater. They have beer at the dollar theater. It’s not that I like MRAs or Neo-Nazis. I just really like getting to drink beer in cheap, plush seats.
And of course, it comes from some wanker hiding behind an alias and a keyboard. Who probably can’t be bothered to step out of Grandma’s basement.
Anyhow, a lot of MRAs are already assaulting and killing women with weapons. Only it’s usually characterized as a “Domestic Dispute” by law enforcement. And it’s actually been going on since before MRAs were even a thing with a name.
David, I realize that I’m fairly new to this website, but I would like to ask you to debunk and spread awareness of this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eO96hEDkjjs
And in case you don’t trust the link, you can just search the words: “MGTOW magical thinking and male power”
This was my first time really just sitting down and watching a MGTOW video, and all I have to say is; I can’t even imagine listening to this garbage on a regular basis, like you do.
Because it just made me angry.
God these people will take pride in ANYTHING, or in this case, literally NOTHING.
How empty must ones life be to make hypothetical imaginary calculations of your miniscule unproveable influence on something that even in your fantasies you had NO EFFECT ON?
Ooh boy yeah, these RoK guys are responsible for something alright. Responsible for the shittiest and least scientific calculations I’ve witnessed in my life. Seriously, 4.2 Mil is the highest their little tantrum could do in damage to Disney, and more than likely all they did was 2000 dollars. Both of those sums are nowhere near a billion.
Plus, I’m practically vibrating intensely as Undertale’s special enemy Temmie while I wait for my chance to go see The Force Awakens finally!
@Wwaxwork:
Why, thank you! How sweet!
Oh btw for our readers in Canada and Australia — Americans kvetch bitterly about the price of movies.
@Scott Hamilton:
The Priceonomics data blog did a piece on Hollywood accountancy, as it happens.
They quoted the Edward Jay Epstein statistics that 80% of movies are unprofitable even when Hollywood accountancy is compensated for and only 20% of studio profits are made via the box office, the rest coming from screening rights, merchandising, DVD sales or during the film’s long backlist life. If this is the case, then for Fury Road to already be profitable at all is an achievement.
Enough of an achievement, in fact, that the s-word is being tossed around a great deal.
Orion
That’s partially because our wages are so much lower.
I will be waiting to see SW: TFA when it’s in a format that I can control the volume of. You know, from the sofa with my feet on a non-sticky floor, nobody kicking the back of the seat or having to worry that someone really tall (or with an extra long torso, maybe a really giant head) will mosey in and pick the spot right in front of me despite all the other open seats in that row thus blocking my view. Nobody getting up to go to the bathroom a bunch of times who chose to sit in the middle of the row instead of as close to the ends as possible, not to mention getting the super-mega-giganto sized drink…
And a remote, so the volume can be adjusted to “Not going to be deafened as though I’d spent a couple hours next to jet engines while using a jackhammer sans earplugs.”
I’ll just be going to wave my cane in the air and yell at the neighborhood kids to get off my damn lawn now. 😉
On the maths of the ROK claim:
The major factor that Garrett misses in that analysis is that not all the money from ticket sales goes to the studio. The precise fraction that does will vary from film to film and from distributor to distributor, and is apparently kept obfuscated to weaken theatres’ bargaining position; the internet quotes numbers anywhere from 20% to 80%, which is unhelpful.
Let us take the figure that Quora quotes, of “about 50%”, as being midway in that range.
Garrett claims that 900,000 people viewed ROK that month. This sounds reasonable to me – ROK’s “advertise with us” page claims over a million unique views per month. However, they also mention that a given post will probably only get 5,000 to 15,000 unique views.
Let us be generous to Garrett and suppose that 15,000 people visited his thread, that the poll was indeed representative of all those people, and that everyone who said they would boycott it actually kept their word. 55% of 15,000 people is 8,250 people.
Now let’s talk about theatre tickets. Many of the commenters here have ridiculed Garrett’s claim that $8.38 is the average theatre ticket price. This is, of course, an underestimate… by 23 cents. The $8.38 figure was the average in 2013 but as of the latter half of 2015 an average theatre ticket will set you back $8.61. Bizarrely, this seems to be the most reasonable part of Garrett’s analysis.
8,250 boycotters withholding their $8.61 comes to $71,032.50. Of that, the studio’s cut is somewhere between $14,206.50 and $56,826 – or taking the intermediate estimate that Quora suggests, $35,516.25.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Disney probably aren’t crying salt tears over the lost of thirty five thousand dollars. I mean, sure, it’s real money to the likes of you and me, but Disney get that much from a single person joining Club 33.
But what if Garrett was right and that poll represented every single one of those 900,000 unique viewers?
The total lost theatre ticket sales would indeed be around $4.3 million. Of that, the studio’s cut is $2,130,975. Again, this is a fortune to most people, but to Disney that’s the amount that CEO Bob Iger lowered his own pay in 2015 as a stunt to show sympathy with shareholders. (Don’t be alarmed for Iger’s sake: he’s still getting $10m more than he was in 2013.)
Such boycott. How impact! Wow.
Malice :
Well, yes! I will eventually see it, as I am married to a star wars guy. He’s white, but somehow, he is not enraged at a woman and black man being leads. He didn’t think anything about it until it was pointed out.
About the price of movies: not only are our wages so much lower, but everyone that I know has some kind of medical debt. And it’s always huge, insurance or not. I had insurance, got really sick, and my out of pocket was around 18k, and it bankrupted me after I had paid on it for almost 5 years. I’m lucky that my house wasn’t taken – if it had been worth more, it probably would have been.
My point being that even when I was employed full time and made decent money, I still couldn’t afford a movie night out. For profit medical ate everything.
I didn’t know ROK had been calling for the boycott SWTFA; why didn’t you tell us earlier, David? But oh, who am I kidding, of course ROK had been calling for the boycott of SWTFA.
List of things MRAs will not declare stunning victories for their cause:
1.
“that the poll was indeed representative”
That’s probably the biggest catch. All the guys who are stupid enough to boycott something for reasons like these (and let’s be honest, I guess that the majority only CLAIMS to boycott but doesn’t actually do it – pretending to do something on the internet is easier than actually doing it) are exactly the guys who will vote on something like this. All the other people who don’t care will also not vote, so the 55% of yes-voters are probably the majority of all people who care.
Althought it’s been said many times, many ways… what is wrong with social justice? How do they take those two words and turn them into a perjorative term?
Please explain what could not be good about social justice you utter pillocks at ROK.
-Dreamer
And what set off the murder boner of such a valiant human rights champion this time? Women with opinions? Women with power? A criminal misogynist getting his due?
Maybe he got written up by HR for sexual harassment and is pissed at the whistleblower. Hell, he could have just been ignored on the street after yelling “Nice titties!” at a woman. Fuck knows with these people, they’re so goddamn sensitive.