This is exactly what they do in Russia, but in US... I don't believe it.

I'd say there are actually two items here:
1) What forces a studio to be 100% accurate about dailies?
2) What forces a studio to be 100% accurate about final gross?

In the case of the first - nothing does. They can through out any figure within reason because while there are tracking firms, the final numbers are really nobodies business except the studios and the theaters that have to send them a cut. The purpose of the tracking is more for the studio to be able to double check they are getting the right cut then they are for us to know how a film did. The real purpose of publicly reported dailes is of course publicity, and as we have seen, the estimate is far more important than the actual to that purpose.

And when it comes down to it, from a business perspective, the only number that truly matters is the final dollar, as this has to go on the bottom line, and is therefore subject to audit. In a bizarre way, I think this type of revenue is least likely to fall prey to Enron style manipulation. There's no percentage in it. If a studio were to inflate the final gross of a blockbuster, consider that they would in all likelihood have to shell out MORE cash to those on the production who have contract clauses tied to the gross/net.

Having said that - since the final is the only thing that truly matters, I can't see anything stopping a studio from shifting some money from one day to another, as long as the number they report in the dailies for trade purposes are reasonably close. I am sure we can all recall cases of "mystery" drops, oddball patterns, etc. that indicate this is done from time to time. You may recall the back and forth between Disney and Fox over Lilo and Minority report, and I seem to recall the suspicions that surrounded several of the Star Wars sequals numbers. Not to mention the 666 nonsense already mentioned.

In summary - I don't think there is anything really stopping a studio from shifting some money from day to day as long as the final numbers add up correctly. It simply means that if they report an actual that is "inaccurate", they will have to pay for it in harder drops somewhere down the line.

I can agree with that. Manipulating the final numbers would be impossible because of the things you pointed out. People would find out if there was that kind of manipulation.

Okay, all of your reasons as to why they shouldn't do it are interesting, but nothing here has said with any kind of absolute that they couldn't. I guess none of us really know how the gross is tallied or who is responsible for doing it. What if there is no one on the production that has any kind of performance clause? Take films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Blair Witch or Halloween or any number of films that made shit loads of money when nothing was expected of them. How hard would it be to manufacture their numbers?

Just a thought.

It be too hard, because the govt could audit the studio. Besides why would they want to post they are making money when they are losing money?

99% of studios are also publicly traded companies. Reporting false financial information would be a felony. wouldn't it?

not just lesterq's point which is very valid.

the other issue is the number of stake holders.

the total gross of the money is shared between multiple stake holders. if a studio says that they made 20 million instead of 10 million ... guess what ... that means the other stake holders will also demand their cut of the 20 million, not 10 million. meaning the studio ends up losing the money.

i'm sure there is a bit of fudging going around but not at a significant scale.

I read that rival studios keep track of each other numbers and that while they will allow a studio to fudge a little they won't allowed them to fudge alot. Two examples of studios snitching on each other involved films released by Miramax and FOX. Miramax reported an opening weekend for Scream 2 of $40 mil when the real opening weekend was $33 mil.Rival studios reported that Scream 2 could not possibly have earned what Miramax reported forcing Miramax to admit to an "accounting" error along with the real opening weekend number. The other example is ATOC in which FOX reported an opening weekend $6 mil higher then the actual. Rival studios went public with their suspicions about ATOC forcing FOX to report the real opening weekend number.

Good point.

Well, I'd love to have an official from one of the studios make an official statement on this. Because it looks awfully fishy.