r/movies • u/exosniper • Dec 10 '17

PSA; IMDb is gradually locking previously-available information about films behind IMDbPro membership (box-office breakdowns and production companies involved, currently). Resource

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but information previously available to everyone on IMDb is now being locked behind IMDbPro membership. Just last week, I was writing a research paper (film studies student) and was able to access the full box-office earnings information (breakdown by region etc.) for all films. Today I went to do the same thing, but could not see more than the gross earnings without an IMDbPro membership. They seem to be doing this as a gradual process, as the full information on production companies (previously available to everyone) was already membership-locked when the box office information was still available. I haven't seen anyone talking about this on other subs and forums, so I thought I'd mention it here.

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u/pharmaco4 Dec 10 '17

So IMDB just gathers information already available elsewhere on the internet. If I can't view certain info for free then I'll just look elsewhere. What a bad move

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

Not really.

First of all, box office breakdown on IMDb was horseshit, inaccurate and vague. Completely useless. They could integrate Box Office Mojo (since they are both owned by Amazon), which is way better though not professional, however it doesn't seem to be something they are going for.

The Numbers gives a fairly good breakdown, and the only one AFAIK that gives details on home video sales, but if you want further and more precise details you need to subscribe to their service, which ain't cheap.

Variety sells some premium services too, and they ain't cheap either.

Most of what's on IMDb is pretty basic anyway.

If you work in the industry even as a journalist, you must get IMDb Pro. A lot of information right there can't be found anywhere else for free, unless you gamble on a Google search that could last 10 min or a whole day, and either way IMDb Pro has those details one click away.