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Box Office Mojo
Box Offce Mojo Logo
Box Office Mojo screenshot
Box Office Mojo homepage
Type of site
Film, box office revenue
Available inEnglish
OwnerIMDb (Amazon)
Created byBrandon Gray
URLboxofficemojo.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationNot compulsory

Founded in 1999, Box Office Mojo tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way, and publishes the data on its website. In 2008 IMDb, owned by Amazon, purchased Box Office Mojo. The website is widely used within the film industry as a source of data. From 2002–11, Box Office Mojo maintained popular forums on its website.

History[]

Brandon Gray began the site in 1999. In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and grew the site to nearly two million readers.[2] In July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through its subsidiary, the Internet Movie Database.[3][4]

From 2002–11, Box Office Mojo had forums, which were a popular place for box office "fanatics", and the site at one time was home to several popular movie games and quizzes, tests (e.g., Fantasy Box Office (created in 2006) and Create a Year of Movies), until these were summarily canceled for undisclosed reasons.[citation needed] Box Office Mojo had forums with more than 16,500 registered users. On November 2, 2011 the forums were officially closed along with any user accounts, and users were invited to join IMDb's message boards, even though not all the same features were available there.[5] Tracking is still done very closely to the day by day, actual tabulation of distributors, making it possible to see the general trend of a film's "earnings trajectory".[6]

Box Office Mojo International[]

The international section covers the weekly box office of 50 countries and includes historical box office information from three more, as well as provides information for box office results for individual films from up to 107. The site also creates an overall weekend chart, combining all box office returns from around the world, excluding the United States and Canada. The overall weekend chart currently tracks the Top 40 films as well as approximately fifty additional films with no ranking.

Box Office Mojo International also reports the release schedule of upcoming films for Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Norway, Russia and the CIS, South Korea, China, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and India. The site additionally has yearly and all time features for its various territories.

Redirection to IMDb, October 2014[]

On October 10, 2014, all traffic to Box Office Mojo was redirected to IMDb's box office page,[7][8] before returning the following day.[9]

Queries about the closure to IMDb and Amazon representatives were met with no response. Neither Brandon Gray, who founded the website but left several years ago after its sale to Amazon, nor Ray Subers, the operator at that time, would respond either.[10] On Ray Subers' Twitter[11][page needed] account, he revealed the website's return, but also stated he would not answer any questions pertaining to closure.[12] Subers subsequently left the website seven months later.[13]

References[]

  1. "Boxofficemojo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Amazon.com. Archived from the original on 2017-03-29. Retrieved 2016-10-21. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  2. "About Box Office Mojo" Archived 2010-11-19 at the Wayback Machine. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  3. Eric Engleman (December 17, 2008). "Amazon's IMDb movie trivia site acquires rival Box Office Mojo". TechFlash. American City Business Journals. Archived from the original on 2018-07-01. Retrieved June 17, 2018. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  4. Ben Fritz (December 15, 2008). "IMDB links up with Box Office Mojo". Variety. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008. Retrieved December 17, 2008.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  5. "Forums" Archived 2011-03-02 at the Wayback Machine. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  6. "Moviesboxoffice.in". Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 2016-07-03. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  7. Jeff Sneider (October 10, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Redirecting to IMDb.com". The Wrap. Archived from the original on 2018-06-17. Retrieved June 17, 2018. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  8. Natalie Jarvey (October 10, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Fate Uncertain; IMDb Remains Silent". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-mojo-fate-uncertain-739999. Retrieved June 17, 2018. 
  9. Dave McNary (October 11, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Returns After One-Day Absence". Variety. https://variety.com/2014/film/news/box-office-mojo-returns-after-absence-1201327623/. Retrieved June 17, 2018. 
  10. Michael Cieply (October 10, 2014). "With a Click, the Data Site Box Office Mojo Disappears". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/business/media/with-a-click-the-data-site-box-office-mojo-disappears.html. Retrieved June 17, 2018. 
  11. "Twitter". Archived from the original on 2015-01-07. Retrieved 2014-10-12. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  12. Jeff Labrecque (October 13, 2014). "Box Office Mojo is back online, and its editor isn't taking questions". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 2018-06-17. Retrieved June 17, 2018. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  13. "Twitter". Archived from the original on 2016-03-07. Retrieved 2015-09-15. Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>

External links[]

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