After most of my blogs are about serious and meaningful topics, I thought I give everyone a break and write about a genuine and harmless interest of mine, film. Many film company executives will view straight box office success as how successful a film is, but is this really true? I personally do not think so, and I think it is something that the statistics can be misconceiving in.
The “most successful movie of all time” is currently James Cameron’s Avatar, which bought in a huge $2,782,275,172 worldwide from a $237,000,000 budget (Box Office Mojo, 2012). This would tell us that it has been the most successful film of all time. However, this statistic is highly misconceiving. Most people would agree although box office intake is a hugely important factor, the better way to judge a film would be how many people actually went to the cinema to see this film, and this statistic has not shown us the inflated prices people had to pay because of the 3D aspect of the film. It has also not adjusted to inflation, which means that it is actually the 14th highest grossing film of all time (Box Office Mojo, 2012).
Although it is impossible to deny the box office success of Avatar, I think for many reporters to label Avatar “officially the most successful film of all time” (Queenan, 2010) is wrong and ill-informed. Interestingly, Avatar was snubbed at the Academy Awards next to James Cameron’s previous wife Kathryn Bigelow’s modern war film The Hurt Locker, which is the lowest ever grossing film to win the Oscar for best film. Although the Hurt Locker made very little money, $49,230,772 from a $15,000,000 budget, it received almost universal acclaim with 97% positive reviews compared to 83% for Avatar (Rotten Tomatoes , 2012), and in my opinion was a much greater success than Avatar artistically. Although one of Avatar’s biggest selling points was that it revolutionised 3D films and changed cinema forever (I don’t rate 3D that much anyway), I personally think the real change made was Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first ever woman to win the Best Director Academy Award. My hope is that her triumph will help push the film industry to be more open towards female input and diverse with choices for directors and stars, which is something the film industry has needed for a long time, and she showed the whole industry that she could make the most real and powerful war movie possible better than any man has done before her, which I think was incredibly powerful, and box office figures or 3D technology can never beat that.
Box Office Mojo. (2012, Febuary 18). All Time Box Office. Retrieved Febuary 19, 2012, from Box Office Mojo: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr=2010&p=.htm
Queenan, J. (2010). All-time box office – for teens only. The Guardian – 14th Febuary, 56.
Rotten Tomatoes . (2012, Febuary 18). Movie Reviews. Retrieved Febuary 19, 2012, from Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Psychodynamic Alec 
I think this blog highlights the importance of understanding how variables contribute to your results. Without the consideration of confounding and extraneous variables we run the risk of saying there is an effect where an effect does not exist, otherwise known as type 1 error. With type 2 error being when an effect is not found when an effect does exist. Most importantly I think it shows you should not judge a book by its cover, what seems obvious at first inspection may not show the complete truth and critical analysis/ interpretation of the results is needed to uncover meaning. For instance your point about the price of tickets being higher for 3-D shows that you need to take a deeper look at data rather than just glancing at it, as the glance may miss important contributing variables that alter the stimulus’ effect. Without full consideration of data we are likely to jump to conclusions that may not necessarily be true and in doing this we are not providing valid evidence.
I like how you highlight the 3D aspect as a counfounding variable in attempting to work out box office success! Another aspect of the film industry I think is slightly flawed are the Oscars. According to IMDB and 700,000 of its voters, the highest rated movie of all time is The Shawshank Redemption, however this won no Oscars. Third place won more Oscars than the rest of the top 5 combined. I appriciate that the small panel that vote are supposedly experts in their field. However, the oscars are supposed to represent excellence in the film industry. Surely the larger sample size on IMDB is more valid than the oppinion of a few.
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