Calum Johnston of Strange Adventures in Halifax, Nova Scotia saw the news about Harry Potter readers vs. movie goers (see ''Harry' Loses Battle With Himself') and wonders why box office success isn't measured by ticket sales:

In the article about the Harry Potter movie losing battle with the book, the last line is 'this summer season will have an unprecedented five films that earned over $300 million.'

This sounds impressive, but I wonder why we still get box-office returns in dollars rather than tickets sold?

The article mentions that the new Harry Potter book sold 8.3 million copies; comics are listed the same way in best-seller tallies, records, music downloads, etc. The big numbers from the summer movies always make for interesting tidbits in the news, but I don't think they really mean all that much without the concrete numbers of 'bums in seats'.

I suppose there's some dark MPAA secret behind it all that will come out someday in a scathing documentary!

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.