"Box Office receipts are very hard to manipulate because all the studios get the same numbers."
I can see that. But couldn't whole theaters or "blocks" of tickets be bought up by someone promoting a movie, such as boxes of books can be bought up and counted as "sold" by a publisher pimping a book? That would be manipulating the numbers. They just want "tickets sold" they don't check to see if people are actually in the theater...or do they? I kinda doubt that Hollywood trusts a pimply-faced sixteen year old usher with that critical data, LOL!
That would explain the SOLD OUT theater with four bodies actually in it...if, in fact, that caller was telling the truth.
The data is from the theatre manager, not the pimply faced usher. Not that the manager might not have a few pimples. Also, spot checks are made on the theatres. These checks are made by independant companies paid by the studios. The checks include head counts and checking the ticket sales. There are also covert checks, where someone goes to see the movie and gets the count on that particular show in that theatre.
Actually, the studios do send out auditors to theaters to make sure that the number of tickets sold for a show match the number of people who attended. I worked in a movie theater in high school and I saw this happen a few times.
Like someone said before, in a multiplex, you can buy a ticket for BBM and then go see king kong and BBM gets credit for the sale.