Re: looking for historical box office figures (2+ responses)

From: Max Alvarez <[email protected]>

Dear Paloma:

Have you tried locating microfilm or bound editions of *Variety* at any of
the Paris libraries? As an international newspaper, I am positive such
copies were made available to those venues. The libraries are still the
best route for film research pre-dating the 2000s. Let me know if you
continue to have difficulties and I will try to think of other options for
you.

Kindest personal regards,
Max (Alvarez)

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From: Max Alvarez <[email protected]>

An addendum to my previous email, Paloma: if you get access to back issues
of *Variety*, the best place to begin are with the Anniversary issues,
which are usually the first or second issues of January. These contain a
listing of "Big Rental Films" for the previous year. The only problem here
is that a film had to have returned at least US$1,000,000 to its
distributor in order for it to be included on those lists. Aside from
Warner Bros' *Woodstock* ('70), very few concert films have achieved that,
but you may come across a few exceptions.

I have copies of most of these charts through 1985 and may be able to
locate some information for you if you are looking for specific titles.
Otherwise, you may have to go through the rather tedious process of
studying individual issues in order to locate major U.S. cities where these
concert films played and the income they generated in those cities.

Very best,
Max

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From: Mike Chopra-Gant <[email protected]>

Dear Paloma

Apologies if this seems rather blunt but I think the answer to your problem
is actually in the question itself, specifically the  expectation that this
sort of information will be available *ONLINE.* It may be true that Variety
archives are not available online, but they are available at numerous
libraries, it is just a case of going along to one and sifting through
hundreds of pages on microfilm. I obviously cannot say for certain but I am
very confident that you are just not going to find what you want online.
I've traveled thousands of miles and spent weeks trawling through raw data
in archives across the USA in pursuit of 'box office data'. I don't think
you'll find it with  a click of the mouse.

Best wishes,

Mike

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