Observations From the Box Office

Personal traits, tastes, and opinions influence our every day lives. From the places we shop to the classes we take, our personalities affect our choices. This is also true for the movies we choose to see. For

the past few weeks four movies, Superbad, Hot Rod, The Nanny Diaries, and the Bourne Ultimatum show how our personalities as people attend these movies. I had my assumptions about what movies they were going to see.

Sensation and passion are two of the strongest emotions that a movie can give a person. People might go to see a movie for different reasons. One might factor in laziness while another individual might go watch the same movie to disappear in thought and get sucked into the main characters life. There is so much you can learn about people by studying their behavior. For the past few months, I worked a premier movie theater. Krikorian Premier Theater is located in downtown San Clemente, California. Working there gave me an opportunity to snoop and pry into my customers’ minds. I was able to stand aside, hidden in a corner and watch, just observe.

Superbad, though being out in the theaters for a while now, still possesses the title of the most popular movie on Friday nights. Teenagers are the primary audience for this movie because of the premise, getting alcohol while being underage. Even though this movie is marketed towards the older teenage population, many older people go to see it as well. I asked one of them what compelled him to watch a movie. He looked at me, laughed, and told me the reason was that he wanted to feel like he was in high school again. He told me that his high school years were the best in his life and that he connected with the characters in the movie because he tried hard to get alcohol while he was underage with his friends. This movie is filled with comedy and crude humor. making any adolescent or child at heart laugh until they cry.
Hot Rod is another simple yet entertaining movie. This is a straightforward movie about a teenager named Rodney Kimble and his dreams to become a stuntman. He accomplishes his dream to jump fifteen buses to acquire money for his abusive father’s surgery. This movie I would consider to be one of “brainless” funny movies I have ever seen besides Super Troopers. There is not a moment in this movie where the audience is not laughing. Crammed with teenage comedy, witty remarks, and crude humor classifies this movie into the young teenage section. It is mind-blowing how many movies target the younger generation gap. Many of the adults that went to see this film informed me that this movie was imaginatively good, but it would not appear in their personal movie collection. In other words, they probably will not see it again. Teenagers for the most part, told me that it was hilarious and that they will probably see it at least once more in the theaters alone. Their humor is a bit excessive for my taste.

The next movie is The Nanny Diaries. I saw nobody coming to this move during the Friday night rush. For the most part, this movie was a date movie. Typically, packs of girls went to see this movie. Very few males made the honorable attempt to watch this movie, unless accompanied by a girl. If not, they were going to see this movie to pick up the girls in those giant groups. My deductions proved me correct; these men were brilliant. Girls, for the most part, want to have a sensitive guy, and these guys were total beach bums. There is no way that they were even remotely interested in this movie. This movie was the slowest for the night and only sold about thirty tickets for the seven-thirty rush.

The last movie on the list is Bourne Ultimatum. This movie was made for all ages. Bourne was jam-packed full of action and definitely the thriller of the summer. Jason Bourne learns about how he became a candidate for the Tredstone project. He begins to remember his training, mentors, and his initiation to the top-secret experimental project. I noticed that people of all ages going to see this movie. There were no specific age groups and no fads for this film. I was deeply impressed with the outcome of this one. This movie had a constant rush to it and I saw many teens and adults go to this one, which ranged from youngest being about seven and the oldest being around sixty-five. I am very proud of how this film marketed their movie. The producers brought everybody to the table.

The movie makes the person. Everybody loves to go and watch a film or read a book. It takes you into another world another life. You don’t have any worries you get sucked in as if the characters life is really yours. Everybody wants their life to be exciting but due to my studies of ticket sales and observations at the box office, people like comedy more. Most Americans enjoy going to watch stupid comedies. It’s the simple truth.