Newspapers breathlessly report weekly box-office numbers for Hollywood films, but the box office is not where Hollywood makes its money:
In 2007, the major studios had combined revenues of $42.3 billion, of which about one-tenth came from American theaters; the rest came from the so-called backend, which includes DVD sales, multi-picture output deals with foreign distributors, pay-TV, and network-television licensing.
The only useful thing that the newspaper box office story really provides is bragging rights: Each week, the studio with the top movie can promote it as “Number 1 at the box office.” Newspapers themselves are not uninterested parties in this hype: in 2008, studios spent an average of $3.7 million per title placing ads in newspapers.