Talk:Box office

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Is this a dab?

This doesn't look like dab to me, if there are no objections I'll remove the {{disamibg}} soon.--Commander Keane 15:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. Tedernst | talk 16:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

The term "box office" originates from William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. In the olden days, entry into the lower parts of the playhouse cost a single coin, and this fee was collected in small, locked boxes with entry slots in the top. Upon the boxes being filled up, a runner would take the coin-filled box to a back room where it was counted and stored. Hence, the room associated with the financial aspects of the theatre became known as a box office.

I reworded this and removed the reference to the Globe Theatre, which was unreferenced and seemed dubious to me. I doubt whether they had a completely unique system of collecting money giving rise to the term box-office.OneVeryBadMan 14:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sceptical about this whole Etymology. It sounds like an internet myth. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a box(-)office is "the office at which seats may be booked for a theatrical performance or other entertainment (orig. for the hiring of a box)." So it's named after the fact that you could hire a box (ie, partitioned-off seats at the theatre) and nothing to do with coin-boxes. (MRJ) 82.211.88.22 16:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Shakespearean origin is also mentioned in Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage. No reference or source is cited, but the book on the whole does try to clearly differentiate between facts supported by evidence and unsubstantiated speculation. 83.87.238.204 (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scepticism seems justified, but the items were found in archeology at the South Bank theatres. Reference to this effect added.--AntientNestor (talk) 07:56, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

I'll perform the merge myself if an involved editor doesn't do it in the next few days. Okiefromokla ^questions? 01:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expound on Box Office Site - Incomplete - Should Be Edited

The links to Box Office Sites is very much lacking and should be edited. There are more box office sites than are listed on this page. Such as The Box Office Junkie and Box Office Spy. I strongly feel these sites, would add/contribute to Wikipedia's goal of be and infinite source of information for people to explore. May an editor please respond or edit, it would be appreciated. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.117.187.241 (talk) 04:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Blanking Box office slump section

The Box office slump section has had the Unreferencedsection tag for over a year now. The definition given seems self explanatory and vague. Despite this, very precise statements about the durations of specific slumps are given. References are not given for the many numerical figures given; these can probably be sourced as raw data. But it seems unlikely that significance of the figures and the conclusions drawn from them can be. I am therefore removing the section based on WP:OR criteria.--RDBury (talk) 01:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear definition related to the movie industry jargon

As a non-USA citizen, I'm still not clear on what "box office" refers to. In simple terms - is it referring to cinemas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beverfar (talk • contribs) 14:02, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

the formula seems out of place

Why is the formula of (TWG/2) - Budget on this page at all? IT has nothing to do with the term box office. And it just just haphazardly thrown into the middle of a paragraph with no explanation of WHY it is there. Not to mention, it is a dubious formula to begin with. At best it is a simplified broad estimate — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:6000:D500:3D00:C993:BD1B:2942:6CC3 (talk) 09:27, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Box office (office) vs. Box office (sales)

The metonymic use of "box office" to mean "retail ticket sales" is a distinct concept from the physical or virtual agency that actually sells tickets or reserves seats. They deserve separate articles, per WP:NOTDICT. I'm not sure what the best names for them are: perhaps box office (the selling agency) vs. ticket sales? --Macrakis (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. "Box office" should stay for the physical, but I too can't think of a name for the metonym article.--AntientNestor (talk) 09:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the article, the metonym is beginning to overwhelm the original topic. I'll have a go at this real soon now.--AntientNestor (talk) 09:07, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of something like Ticket sales at commercial box office but help very welcome with this.--AntientNestor (talk) 15:34, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Changed my mind: see below.--AntientNestor (talk) 14:59, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AntientNestor, i would like to know what has been done about this in the mean-time. i edit classic and japanese cinema articles and often the sources only refer to rentals when referring to the box office. as a jargonistic term it requires a bluelink for our readers (which redirects here), i clicked on this page recently and found all the useful information that helps explain this has been deleted with nothing to replace it. i appreciate that there's a local consensus to keep this article's topic focused on the physical object of a ticket office, but was it necessary to remove helpful sourced info before rewriting it in a more suitable article?--Plifal (talk) 12:08, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The edit you're talking about is here. It included a link to the proper page, which is List of highest-grossing films. Here is what happened next. AntientNestor (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

AntientNestor, ahh i see, i do apologise, i missed the rentals note on the list of highest grossing films page. any issues if i boldly redirect theatrical rental to that page?--Plifal (talk) 13:32, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

None at all. Good luck. AntientNestor (talk) 14:23, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Outdated

Much of this information is outdated. In fact, the section about the rentals and the split between theaters and studios is from a book that was released in 1985, not 2005 as it says in the citation. This is basically useless 40 years later. leparsdon (talk) 03:42, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of highest-grossing films

A lot of material relating to List of highest-grossing films is cluttering this article. Above, I suggested splitting this off but, based on the principles set out in WP:TOPIC, I'm now thinking that a severe deletion is called for. If anything important is going to be lost it can be transferred (with the necessary CCSA attribution) to the main article. Thoughts?--AntientNestor (talk) 14:57, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No disagreement? Implementing.--AntientNestor (talk) 15:24, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with this wholesale deletion. There was a lot of history there about how box office reporting evolved which is not covered in the List of highest-grossing films article. The article as it is now pretty much just explains what a box office and doesn't add much more than a dictionary. Previously the article gave a lot of information about the industy about box office data and reporting for films which doesn't seem appropriate in that other article and I am not aware of other articles where it could be covered. All that seems to have been retained in that other article is a definition of theatrical rentals which doesn't seem to fit there although can understand that it might be helpful to duplicate it on that page. I agree that this page got bloated with details of some average ticket prices and rental percentages which didn't seem to fit in with a page on box office. I would like to reinstate the content on the industry but perhaps it should be created as a separate article rather than reinstating here. Maybe something like Box office reporting for films? Sudiani (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As the editor who made the change, may I request, citing the WP:TOPIC policy, that the stuff isn't reinstated? This article is about the physical part of an entertainment venue. It shouldn't contain anything about movie receipts, a totally different topic, just because of the metonym. BTW, it's not just a dictionary definition: it also has bits about its development and social history.

A separate article seems the way to go. AntientNestor (talk) 09:47, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Afterthought: I see that Sudiani already has quite a number of new articles about movie receipts to their credit.--AntientNestor (talk) 10:30, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]