Just don't care about box office

I will always be fascinated by the production of movies and TV shows, and am constantly reading books, magazines and websites about things that are coming down the line, and of great works worth remembering. I also have absolutely no interest in anything about the box office taking or the ratings. I just powerfully do not care.

Like every branch of journalism, the amount of good writing about film and television has been utterly demolished, but there are plenty of click chasers that will provide all sorts of cheap analysis based on the box office numbers.

It's just so easy to do that kind of thing, because you can compare numbers and opening weekends and all that nonsense, as if you could really say something is a better film because it got seen by more people straight away. But none of it is intellectually valuable, because you can't say that every Transformers film is better than ever Coen brothers movie, that's just objectively not true. 

Besides, with so many streaming options, with numbers provided by untrustworthy executives, none of those numbers really mean anything, except for the people who are actually making money out of it, and everybody knows studio executives are the worst species of man, and I really don't give a fuck how they feel.

I can kind of understand why people follow the box office performance because they want to know if they will get more of that sort of thing, but worrying about sequel potential instead of concentrating on what you actually got always seems ass backwards to me.

And it's just so dull. I don't care what the number one film at the US box office is, or how badly the Marvel films are doing compared to precious efforts, as if their artistic merit means nothing.

TV ratings are even more worthless, especially when viewing habits have been shredded over the past couple of decades, and I really don't care about them. Even for my favourite show of all time - for years Doctor Who Magazine has done an analytical look at the ratings, but it is endlessly pointing out that it can't do any kind of comparison to previous years, because the broadcast audience has changed so radically in the 20 years Who has been back on TV. 

Most of us do like it when the things we like get a huge audience, but it really shouldn't impact on your own enjoyment if it does, or doesn't. Of all the things to write and say about films and TV, ratings and box office will always be the most tedious.