[Infowarrior] - Hollywood Blames Halo 3 For Bad Box Office Weekend

[Richard Forno]

Now The Movie Industry Wants To Blame Halo 3 For Bad Box Office Weekend

The movie industry always wants to blame someone else when something goes
wrong with ticket sales -- and it almost always seems technology focused.
There is, of course, the ever popular technique of blaming bittorrent,
despite the fact that the most popular movies for download do quite well at
the box office. A few years ago, we heard that the industry was blaming text
messaging, as apparently kids would SMS their friends to let them know that
a movie sucked. Again, there was no proof of this -- but the industry
insiders insisted it must be true. Over the summer, the industry had little
to blame (though, they tried to pin some blame on camcording) since it
actually had a record setting summer at the box office. Yet, now that we're
into October, there's been a dip and the blame pointing fingers come out
quick. What's the problem? Apparently it's Microsoft. You see, Halo 3
recently came out, bringing in more money on opening day than any movie
ever. That news seems to have gotten the attention of some movie studio
folks who are now grousing that Halo 3 is to blame for poor box office
performance this past weekend (found via The Raw Feed). While there appear
to be at least a few sane insiders who point out that a much bigger culprit
could be the fact that the movies that came out last weekend just weren't
very good, others are sticking by their story that movie watchers were
staying home to play Halo 3. It's a good thing felony interference of a
business model isn't a crime, or the studios would probably be suing
Microsoft. Actually, I probably shouldn't give them any ideas...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071016/021315.shtml