What type of earnings are used as the primary metric for trade publications and movie companies to assess the profitable success of a motion picture?

Worldwide motion pictures now obtain earnings (revenue) from several sources. The chief sources are: (1) theatrical film exhibitions, (2) home taped video copies, (3) television broadcast rights, and (4) product merchandising. Theatrical box office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications and movie companies in assessing the profitable success of a big screen major movie.

Box office business success if often measured in terms of the number of tickets sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales (revenue). The projection and analysis of these earnings is important to creative film companies, the film industry, and the tangential interests (decisions about seeing a movie) for fans. So this item (box office business success) has over history become predominant in the Hollywood movie industry.

Also to determine if a movie made a profit, it is not correct to directly compare the box office gross with the production budget. On average, a movie theater keeps nearly half of the gross. The actual split will vary from movie to movie. It is common for the distributor to get either a percentage of the gross revenue, or a higher percentage of the revenue after deducting a house allowance, whichever is larger.