# The Numbers Box Office Scraper (`parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes movie box office charts from The Numbers and returns each movie as a flat row with rank, gross, distributor, theaters, and release date.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $4.07 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### The Numbers Box Office Scraper

**Scrape daily, weekend, and all-time domestic box office charts from The Numbers, up to 100 movies per run.** Each row includes the distributor, gross, theaters, and release date. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The Numbers publishes granular box office data that entertainment analysts and film journalists rely on, but manually copying chart rows is slow and error-prone. This Actor reads any public box office page on The Numbers and returns a clean dataset of movie performances. You get a fixed schema with no login or API key required.

| Who uses it | What they scrape The Numbers for |
|---|---|
| Film industry analysts | Tracking which distributors are gaining or losing market share week over week. |
| Entertainment journalists | Pulling the latest weekend box office numbers for a Monday morning report. |
| Academic researchers | Building a historical dataset of domestic grosses to study release patterns. |
| Movie marketing teams | Comparing their film's per-theater average against the rest of the top ten. |

### What it does

This Actor collects movie box office data from The Numbers chart pages and returns each movie as a flat row with its rank, gross, distributor, and theater count.

- 🎯 **Target any chart page:** feed the Actor a daily, weekend, weekly, or all-time domestic box office URL from The Numbers.
- 🔢 **Limit the rows:** set a maximum number of movies to scrape, from the top film down to the rank you need.
- 🌐 **Proxy rotation:** runs through Apify's proxy infrastructure to keep requests healthy on long chart pulls.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with The Numbers data

**📊 Build a weekly box office tracker.**

A film analyst runs the Actor every Monday on the weekend chart URL and appends the results to a spreadsheet that feeds a distributor trend dashboard.

**📰 Automate a Monday morning box office report.**

An entertainment reporter triggers the Actor on the weekend domestic page and pastes the top ten table directly into their CMS.

**📈 Study seasonal release patterns.**

A researcher scrapes the all-time chart once a quarter, filters by release month, and maps grosses to holiday windows.

**🎬 Monitor a film's per-theater average.**

A marketing team scrapes the daily chart during opening weekend and compares their movie's theater count and gross against the rest of the top ten.

### Why choose this scraper

| | What you get |
|---|---|
| **No manual copy-paste** | Pull a full chart into a structured table in one run instead of highlighting rows in a browser. |
| **Fixed output schema** | Every movie comes back with the same columns, so you can stack runs into a time-series dataset. |
| **Works on any chart** | Daily, weekend, weekly, and all-time domestic pages all share the same parser. |

### How it compares

No other Store actor targets The Numbers the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

| | The Numbers Box Office Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When The Numbers changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor from any The Numbers box office chart URL and set a maximum item count so only the top N movies land in your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
 "startUrls": [
 {
 "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com"
 }
 ],
 "proxyConfiguration": {
 "useApifyProxy": true
 }
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "startUrls": [
 {
 "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com"
 }
 ],
 "proxyConfiguration": {
 "useApifyProxy": true
 },
 "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.0045 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.45 |
| 1,000 results | $4.50 |
| 10,000 results | $45.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [The Numbers Box Office Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to The Numbers through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**Why am I getting no results?**

Check that the URL you entered points to a box office chart page on the-numbers.com and not a movie detail page or a non-chart section. The Actor expects a table of ranked movies.

**The run is timing out or taking too long.**

Lower the Max items value to reduce the number of rows the Actor processes. If you are scraping a very long all-time chart, try breaking it into smaller yearly chart URLs.

**Some columns are empty in my output.**

The Numbers chart pages sometimes omit columns like theater count for older dates. The Actor returns whatever is present on the page; missing values will appear as empty cells in your dataset.

**I'm getting blocked or seeing errors.**

Make sure the proxy configuration is enabled and set to use Apify Proxy. This rotates IP addresses and helps avoid rate-limiting from The Numbers.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Which The Numbers pages can I scrape? | Any public box office chart page on the-numbers.com works. The default start URL points to the daily domestic box office, but you can paste in a weekend, weekly, or all-time chart URL. |
| How many movies can I scrape in one run? | You set the maximum with the Max items field. The default is 100, and you can lower it to grab only the top 10 or raise it to pull a longer chart. |
| What data fields does the Actor return? | Each row includes the movie's rank, title, distributor, weekend or daily gross, total gross, number of theaters, and release date, matching the columns on the chart page you scrape. |
| Does this Actor handle international box office charts? | The parser is built for the domestic box office chart layout on The Numbers. International chart pages may use a different table structure and are not guaranteed to parse correctly. |
| Can I scrape historical box office data? | Yes. The Numbers hosts all-time and yearly charts. Paste the URL of any historical chart page into the Start URLs field and the Actor will extract the rows. |
| Do I need an API key or login for The Numbers? | No. The Actor reads the public chart pages directly. You do not need an account with The Numbers or any API registration. |
| What output formats are supported? | You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify run detail page. |
| How do I scrape multiple chart pages in one run? | Add multiple URLs to the Start URLs array. The Actor will visit each one in sequence and collect the movies from every chart into a single dataset. |
| Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically? | Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to run the Actor daily or weekly on a fixed chart URL, so you always have the latest box office numbers without manual triggers. |

### Related actors

Browse the full [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) for more scrapers.

🆘 **Need help?** Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nash Information Services, LLC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

List of URLs of The Numbers box office pages to scrape. Default is the daily domestic box office page.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of movies to scrape from the box office page.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Select proxies to use for scraping.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Complete dataset of all scraped records.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com"
        }
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com" }],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.the-numbers.com"
    }
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/the-numbers-box-office-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/kPuRViyZAKISG4JKy/builds/R18IYSc956SJyea6g/openapi.json