Shawn Robbins

Following up here after putting some thoughts together late last night/early this morning: I'll start off by jumping to the end result of all this -- that being, I think you're bringing up a great point and definitely want to adjust the pinpoint multi with this week's BOT update. As for the comp sets (which we both seem to agree are less than ideal), what I had been doing before and after this topic was brought up was to take the 2013/2019 list and break apart the non-established IP or characters popular with audiences at their time of release (Aquaman, Annie, Mary Poppins, Walking with Dinos), toxic audience reception before and after release (Cats), non-fan rush movies (Anchorman 2), and soft reboots (Bumblebee). That basically left NATM3 and Avatar 2 outside of SW/NWH/Hobbit as my core analogs for Sonic 3, a straight-up three-quel to well-liked movies with established fan rush to some extent but, also, considerable family appeal. Those two achieved high multipliers, for sure. NATM3 famously opened well below its predecessors, though (70% below NATM2 and 44% below NATM1). We know Sonic 3 is tracking much better than that relative to its own predecessor(s), so that basically leaves Avatar 2's 5.1x alongside the SW/NWH/Hobbit trio (which top out at 3.5x) from a demographic and "opening weekend bucket size" standpoint. That being said... Trying to aim for like-for-like in terms of an opening weekend fan base, as best as possible anyway, what if we look at films in December that opened over $40 million (there are 24 of them)? Most of them opened at a point in the month where Christmas landed on or before the second weekend, and about half of them opened within a week of Christmas. On average, those 24 had 4.58x OW-to-total multiples. Narrowing down to just Friday openers, they averaged 4.3x. Narrowing down to established IP/prequel/sequel, that average dips to 3.86x (notably, this still includes perceived outliers like Avatar 2, Jumanji 3, and National Treasure 2 (5.1x, 5.4x, and 4.91x, respectively). For the sake of argument, if Sonic plays more like Hobbit/SW/Spidey (which account for the remaining films at this point, plus Tron: Legacy's 3.91x), the average dips to 3.38x. After looking back on all of that and having the new benefit of seeing very recent marketing the past few weeks, I feel like splitting the difference is more than fair. I'd love to see a massive 4x+ multiplier on it, but am definitely willing to concede sub-3x would be surprising with how the calendar lands around the holidays (even despite Sonic 2's own fairly front-loaded run). Word of mouth would have to really sink it going into the new year. I also think the Keanu + double Jim Carrey angle can't be overlooked, which wasn't as baked into those forecasts awhile back. Will fine tune a few more things, but definitely count me in on the $200m+ train at this point. Probably landing around $230-250m for a pinpoint total.

That whole time frame and everything that unfolded is still surreal from a pop culture aspect, and also tied to a very formative time in my life that keeps everything front of mind. I know exactly where I was and what I was doing the day I read about Heath in breaking news. Sorry to go off topic, but can never resist some TDK nostalgia.

I never saw the TDK prologue in IMAX, but I fondly remember seeing the full trailer in front of I Am Legend on opening night with my friends at our hometown theater. We all debated the IAL ending and talked about that a bit, but we certainly talked about the trailer more as it was the first time any of us had seen it and all of us were either Nolan and/or Batman fans. One of my final fond theater memories with my hometown crew before I moved a few months later.

Very valid arguments. I have some thoughts on these, as well as a different approach we'd been taking for Sonic 3's overall multiplier, but I want to type it when I'm not as loaded with cold medicine. The TL;DR version: I wouldn't rule out a leggier run than the BOT range currently indicates. I just think the volume of foot traffic it's tracking to open with puts it in a much different category than most of those films you highlighted, and even more so because it's a well-established franchise with a hybrid fan/family fan base (akin to Hobbit/SW/Spidey) that will/are drive/driving pre-sales. Is 3-3.4x somewhat conservative? Very possibly. But I don't think I agree (pending a bit more double checking of my own research from a few weeks/months ago) that sub-4.5x should be contextualized as outlier status with respect to Sonic 3 itself... unless tracking is off and it opens more along the lines of $40-45m instead of the consensus projections ranging between $55-70m-ish. ....unless (x2) we're looking at $300m+ domestic for Sonic 3 and that's what you're getting at.

Maybe more like 15ish and 4ish? One would think Kraven can top Madame (15.x) but who knows anymore with how comic book movies have gone. Sub-15 is very possible. And even as a LOTR fan, I have a hard time seeing WFTR having strong walk-ups.

LOTR definitely looks soft. Not sure it and Kraven combined will hit 20.

Mostly law of averages on that one since Christmas can be screwy with legs depending on where the holiday(s) lands. Sonic plays strongly to male audiences and fans (SW lite), so it's largely a function of that + Sonic 2 being relatively frontloaded in a less competitive market (still recovery era, admittedly) + expected loss of premium screen prices after OW + Mufasa competing for similar family crowd. That said... if we expect WOM to be comparable to the first two, I'd probably lean toward something more reflective of the high-end total vs. low-end or pinpoint opening (3.38 or 3.09), rather than the current pinpoint vs. pinpoint, which may (?) get more in the ballpark of the multi you have in mind. I usually prefer to err on the side of caution (i.e. coming in too low rather than too high) when few direct comps are available and we have no guarantee the movie will be as well liked as the first two. That's one purpose of the ranges on any movie, so they don't necessarily mean only the low should be compared to the low, nor the high to the high.

Under 20 most likely for now

Friendly note: we're removing the Kraven update from this (way too late, admittedly). Due to a calculation and copy/paste error on my end, the tracking ranges in that report were not accurate.

You're very possibly onto something here, but it's when the calendar alignment can just throw all historical expectations off. In general, we're going to see Saturday holds behave more like summer again since many will start school breaks no later than that Friday. That's also going to be good news for Sunday drops and onward. Obviously that is not strictly relevant to your question, but what I'm meandering toward is that our best idea comes from 2013 and 2019 patterns. The wrenches in those: Star Wars skewed everything in the latter, and the former had little in the way of major Friday openers. I also wonder how much the move to online shopping over the last 11 and 5 years could play a role. Shopping and walk-ups at movies used to be co-beneficiaries of each other especially in packed out malls. But that is a bygone era in some ways (though not entirely). Again though, it effectively starts a 2-week weekend for many people, so that's going to spread out walk-up potential naturally with or without brick and mortar shopping being a variable.

Insane numbers. Congratulations to all who believed in Moana 2 being this big ages ago. I failed y'all on this one and I said I'd admit it. 🤣 Happy Thanksgiving, BOT fam! And happy Thursday to those who don't celebrate the holiday!

Anytime I've said a number for Moana over the past month, it's gone up... so you'll probably get your wish. 😂

My gut feeling is Wicked could go up as evening shows start since it's playing older than Moana and a lot of people had work today.