You Too Can Have The Number One Movie In America

People around the world dream of it. It's a trophy. It's the top, the Tower of Pisa, the Mona Lisa. It's sweeeeeeeet success. It's climbin' the charts with a bullet. It's being named as the number one movie in America. Normally it's a crazy dream because you will never have the resources to make a movie that popular, let alone fight the big studios to get enough screens to show it so you can generate the ticket sales to even break into the top ten.

But of course, ain't no normal nowadays.

I've been doing a little Box Office Report for years now. When the box office results are reported by the distributors I relay that data to you. It's more obsessive/compulsive behavior than a real attempt at informing by now, but there's still information. And earlier this year, when the all the movie theaters shut down for the pandemic, I took a week off. But the following week, having nothing better to do on Monday night, I checked it out and saw that my source, Box Office Mojo, reported no box office sales. That WAS news, so I reported that. And that was the report for the next month. No movies out!

Then, remarkably, movies came out. At first they were all from IFC films, and I understand that they were releasing to a few regional drive-ins. They were making almost no money, but at the same time they had all the top movies in the country. They had the whole chart! Then gradually a 2nd distributor came in. We have gone from a top three to a top 8. Collectively last weekend they grossed what might be the catering bill for a few day's shooting on Black Panther. However a movie called The Wretched has managed to break Black Panther's streak with 5 weeks at the top of the chart.

(It's about people who live next door to a witch)

Then there is Unsubscribe. This movie was out for one Wednesday, in one theater in Westhampton Beach NY, and it was the number one movie on that day, making $25k. And here's how!

Last month, Nilsson said, he and YouTuber Eric Tabach were chatting about how movie theaters across the country were closed due to the pandemic. 

"We joked any film put in a theater would instantly top the box office," Nilsson said. "Realizing the unique situation presented a loophole, we hatched a plan." 

The duo decided that if they rented out a theater — what the film distribution world calls "four-walling" — they could keep every dollar they made from ticket sales. 

"If we bought every seat, the money would funnel right back into our own pockets," he said. 

The next day, Nilsson wrote a short horror film titled "Unsubscribe." He shot it a week later, completely over Zoom. 

"Last week, Eric and I bought out a theater in Westhampton Beach and screened to an empty audience," he said. "The next day, it was the number one box office movie in America, as reported by 'The Numbers.'"

Yep, that's the whole audience

You might call it pointless. It's pointless. But is it? Do YOU have the number one movie in America after one week of shooting and post? Could you take advantage of a movie theater that would rent for peanuts because it's better than nothing? More importantly, these guys probably will get a production deal from it. No one will watch the movie but executives admire the chutzpah that it took to come up with it.

Of course when I said YOU could have the number one movie it's true. But since it's been done once and we're all onto it, ain't no production deal for you.

Hey if you want to see this, knock yourself out. It's 4 bucks to watch the whole thing, which is likely the catering budget of Unsubscribe. Help them recoup!