> A more interesting question, to my mind, is why anyone (outside of Hollywood moviemakers) cares how much any given movie made anyway. Why is this a weekly report, even in hard-news media?

A lot of people, myself included, love numbers. I love statistics, love looking at them and figuring out what they imply.

> And even if you're going to do these reports, it would be more effective to list them in terms of average box-office per theater, so they would have some meaning, rather than by overall grosses, where a hefty-looking total can be considered a flop because of the huge number of theaters the movie appeared in.

The *good* box office reports do. Screen average is an important number to look at. www.roughcut.com and www.mrshowbiz.com both do pretty decent box office reporting. Mr. Showbiz gives more numbers, and Rough Cut's Hot Button column discusses their implications well besides giving weekday numbers in addition to weekend numbers.