(Roughly) Daily

source: PBS

The cost of attending a movie, insofar as filmgoers are concerned, is about $4 per hour, or just over a tenth of a cent per second… not including popcorn, of course.

But from the studio’s perspective the cost equation is materially more complicated:  budgets vary, as do run times; but at least the studios have some control over those.  Revenues vary widely too– and entirely at the whim of us, the moviegoers.

The good folks at Sharenator have done the arithmetic to let us cut through this complexity.  Bottom line, “blink for a moment and BAM! You’ve just missed thousands of dollars worth of material.”

source: Sharenator (click to see larger images)

As we debate refilling our extra-large cartons, we might send sultry birthday sentiments to Greta Garbo, who was born this date in 1905, and who insisted late in her life, “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is a whole world of difference.”

Ms. Garbo

(And we might choose our words carefully, as this is also the birthday (1709) of lexicographer, wit– and trenchant observer– Dr. Samuel Johnson, who noted that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”)

Dr. Johnson (by Joshua Reynolds)