Analyzing Friday The 13th Movie Profits.

It is a time when we have to come up with lessons for students that they can do while hoping we can continue the curriculum as written but the reality is we have to find lessons that will interest our students.

The other day, I stumbled across information on all twelve Friday the 13th movies that were made from 1980 to 2009.  The information includes the amount spent to produce the film, the amount brought in over opening weekend, the amount made domestically and the amount it made via world wide box office amounts.

At the bottom, it also includes average cost of production, opening weekend, domestic box-office and worldwide box office for one film and the totals for all twelve films.  The information is such that it would be easy to create a simple project students could do a home.

1.  Have students use a spread sheet to enter the information for each film for production costs, opening weekend take, domestic and worldwide box offices.  Remind students that the figures for opening weekend are usually included in the domestic box office figures so they might want to separate the two into opening weekend and the amount taken domestically after the opening weekend.

2.  Calculate the percent made for opening weekend, domestic and worldwide box offices as compared to the amount it cost to produce.

3.  Use the information to create graphs such as line graphs, double bar graphs, and even a pie chart.

4.  Ask students which film made the most profit and which the least and have them base it on the data.

5.  Ask students which of the movies in the franchise made at least as much as it cost to make the film during the opening weekend and which ones did not.  What about domestic box office or international box office?

6.  Ask the students to research why there haven't been any additional films made since 2009.  It has to do with Paramount Pictures who sold the rights to New Line Cinema after Part VIII didn't do well but the original director and writer got into a legal battle over who owned the rights.  The case is due to be settled sometime in 2020.

If they don't like Friday the 13th movies, maybe you could have students analyze Harry Potter, Star Wars, or The Avengers.  This site has the same information for lots of different movie franchises and you could let students choose the franchise they'd prefer to do. Then have them research why there haven't been any more done or why they might continue making additional movies.

No matter what movie franchises the students choose, they can do the same as suggested for the Friday the 13th movies earlier in this column.  Take advantage of student knowledge of films to assign this type of project.

It is important to let them know that studios often look at information like this to determine if they will fund a sequel or pass on it.  If a film does not make enough money, studios do not want to invest in additional sequels as is the case concerning Friday the 13th films so they sold the rights but it doesn't always happen this way.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.