Box Office Mojo

Box Office Mojo
Type of site	Film, box office revenue
Available in	English
Owner	IMDb (Amazon)
Created by	Brandon Gray
URL	boxofficemojo.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional
Launched	August 7, 1998; 25 years ago
Current status	Active

Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon.

History

Brandon Gray began the site on August 7, 1998,^[1] making forecasts of the top-10 highest-grossing films in the United States for the following weekend.^[2] To compare his forecasts to the actual results, he started posting the weekend grosses and wrote a regular column with box-office analysis. In 1999, he started to post the Friday daily box-office grosses, sourced from Exhibitor Relations, so that they were publicly available online on Saturdays^[1] and posted the Sunday weekend estimates on Sundays.^[3] Along with the weekend grosses, he was publishing the daily grosses, release schedules, and other charts, such as all-time charts, international box-office charts, genre charts, and actor and director charts. The site gradually expanded to include weekend charts going back to 1982, grosses for older films, an international section expanded to cover the weekly box office of 50 countries, international release schedules, as well as box office results from up to 107 countries.

In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury, and grew the site to nearly two million readers.^[4] In 2003, a subscription model was introduced (Premier Pass) to limit certain data and features to subscribers.^[5] From 2002 to 2011, Box Office Mojo had forums, which had 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.^[6] The IMDb forums were closed on February 20, 2017.^[7]

Acquisition by IMDb

In July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through its subsidiary, IMDb^[8]^[9] and the Premier Pass features and content later became free.^[5] On October 10, 2014, all traffic to Box Office Mojo was redirected to IMDb's box office page,^[10]^[11] before returning the following day.^[12]

On October 23, 2019, Box Office Mojo unveiled a dramatic redesign resembling IMDb, and was rebranded as "Box Office Mojo by IMDbPro". The redesign was heavily criticized for being difficult to navigate and moving much of its content behind a paywall. Several features previously provided for free, such as box-office data for franchises, genres, actors, filmmakers, distributors, budgets, and inflation-adjusted figures, were moved to IMDbPro, the subscription service of IMDb.^[13]^[14]^[15] On March 31, 2020, though, certain features that were locked behind the paywall were freed. These include the brand, franchise, and genre lists, which were put under an "Indices" section.^[16]

References

^ ^a ^b Hayes, Dade; Bing, Jonathan (2004). Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became a National Obsession. Miramax Books. pp. 296–7. ISBN 1401352006.
^ "Forecast Archive 1998". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
^ "Brandon Gray's Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. October 7, 1999. Archived from the original on October 8, 1999. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
^ "About Box Office Mojo" Archived November 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ ^a ^b Saulsbury, Sean (October 24, 2019). "Box Office Mojo Redesign by IMDb Pro". Seancast. Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
^ "Forums". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on March 2, 2011. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ "How some users are trying to save IMDb's message board". Vice. February 10, 2017. Archived from the original on September 10, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2017.
^ 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 July 1, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ 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.
^ Jeff Sneider (October 10, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Redirecting to IMDb.com". The Wrap. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ Natalie Jarvey (October 10, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Fate Uncertain; IMDb Remains Silent". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ Dave McNary (October 11, 2014). "Box Office Mojo Returns After One-Day Absence". Variety. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
^ Fuster, Jeremy (October 24, 2019). "Box Office Mojo Criticized After Redesign That Includes a Paywall for Some Data". TheWrap. Archived from the original on October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
^ McNary, Dave (October 24, 2019). "Box Office Mojo Site Transformed by IMDbPro". Variety. Archived from the original on October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
^ "Box Office Mojo Undergoes Dramatic Overhaul". The Hollywood Reporter. October 23, 2019. Archived from the original on October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
^ "Brands (US & Canada)". boxofficemojo.com. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved August 27, 2021.