Box-Office Breakdown

Re “It’s ‘Rush Hour’ at the Box Office” (by Richard Natale, Aug. 6): Paragraph after paragraph describes but does not analyze the $163.8-million take at the box office last weekend. We only get which movie made how much money, percentage increases and decreases, and lots of puns (“The second weekend brought Tim Burton’s interplanetary adventure closer to Earth”).

What we don’t learn is how those dollars translate into moviegoer attendance. Since tickets cost much more than they did, say, 10 years ago, how much has the movie audience shrunk? Are there figures that tell us how much of that $163.8 million was for tickets bought by teenagers, seniors, children, and adults paying the retail price? How about matinee attendance and “twilight” attendance?

Please, put some meaning into the box-office count.

ABRAHAM HOFFMAN

Canoga Park