Box office

The term box office can refer to either:

• A place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue

• The amount of business a particular production, such as a movie or theatre show, does. This can be measured in terms of the number of people who see it or the amount of money raised by ticket sales. The projection and analysis of these earnings has become a popular pursuit with filmgoers. Some complain that this focus of money hurts the attention paid to films as a art form. Others counter that paying attention to the economic element of film is no different than tracking popular success in popular music and since film industry is heavily influenced by financial success, seeing what films are successful is important to predict what future films will be made. There are numerous that websites that pursuit this interest such as Box Office Guru and Box Office Prophets.

For a list of films which are major box-office hits, see List of highest-grossing films.