The Per-Theater Defense: Melania's Advisor vs. Tom Cruise's 'Digger'
After Tom Cruise's “Digger” flopped at the box office, Marc Beckman, a senior advisor to Melania Trump, took to social media to make a case for the First Lady's documentary. Variety described the film as “much-reviled,” but Beckman's argument was quantitative: “Melania” performed better at the box office earlier this year than Cruise's latest endeavor, and his post put the comparison on a per-theater basis, where he said “Melania” outperformed “Digger.”
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Per-screen averages are one of the few ways to wave two films at each other when one played in a handful of cinemas and the other in thousands. As a rhetorical move, it at least engages with arithmetic.
Engages, but chooses. Dividing by screens rewards scarcity — full houses in a narrow release can look Herculean next to a wide one. The choice of measure is itself part of the argument.