I know readers of Noise like nothing more than some freshly crunched data, so let's get to it. Via Sieglinde I found this Variety article about the Metropolitan Opera's boffo box-office grosses. The March 24 Barber of Seville simulcast brought in $853,836, placing it #18 in movies in theaters that weekend. Granted, a ticket price of $18 raised the grosses, but, still, it's impressive to see that Gioachino Rossini's zany comedy, in its 191st year of release, garnered a per-screen average of $3,104. As this Box Office Mojo chart shows, only two movies, The Namesake and Journey From the Fall, made more per screen on that particular Saturday. 300, The Shooter, The Hills Have Eyes 2, and all the rest did worse on average — and almost all had multiple showings while Barber played once. Remember that massive promotional campaigns backed these films. How would they have done if they had the same budget as the Met marketing department? — Alex
