Shawn Robbins

Early studio Fri projections, take at your own caution: 18.2-18.5 Panda 12.5ish Dune 3.8-4.0 Imaginary

I'm very honored by the nomination, but I must respectfully recuse myself from this. Please vote for any of our regular forum contributors that help keep the conversation and fun going on a daily basis! ❤️

Following up on @Porthos' post mostly, but tagging you as well @von Kenni. I mean, I own all my data that could be interpreted as trade secrets... but, yeah, I can't give it all away for free. You're generally in the ballpark with social engagement stuff. On top of that, exhibitors and studios can look at granular data that varies chain by chain or location by location. And honestly, the same applies on a higher view level with national box office numbers and applying common sense. "Box Office 101", so to speak, includes understanding a kids' movie or something without a discernable fan rush is going to draw a lot of business not generated through pre-sales, even in a pre-sale-driven era. (Which is one reason it's always great when a fan-friendly movie does get healthy walk-ups, such as the big Marvel movies.) So at the end of the day, it's all about comps, comps, comps no matter what the metric is.

Going with a $44-54m range on KFP4. Pinpointing $48.3m. Dune at $43.8m. I tend to agree $50m might be on the higher end of likely outcomes... buuuut, it's not overly common for a studio (especially Universal) to come out with a number and overshoot by much. They're seeing something, and that's worth valuing on some level. The age of the franchise has always been a little bit of a concern to me, like others. On the other hand, families haven't had anything new to take their kids to since Wonka and Migration over two months ago, animated comedies have a big reach with parents and kids (let us not forget the magic Universal worked with Rise of Gru, the fifth in a franchise), and Jack Black is one of the few actors even some kids today might recognize -- especially with his social media presence in the wake of Mario last year, which could be helping to pump up on awareness and interest on KFP4. Lots of theories to toss around, and I do wonder why Universal didn't play it a little safer and say $40m+ to the trades. But, even a $2.5M+ Thursday could still net $45-50m this weekend. Only 8% of schools are out on Friday, so that should lend to a big Fri-to-Sat multiplier, while the figure jumps to 20%+ for Monday (which will moderately help Sunday's drop). Either way, two films over $40m in the same weekend is going to be a sight for sore eyes.

KFP4 is definitely pacing better than projected. Gonna be a bit of a noticeable shift in the final forecast range tomorrow.

Another great track all around by the BOT folk. 🙂

Saturday definitely looks strong from what I'm seeing, but we should temper that with the same precaution as before with this movie: walkups might or might not follow the same pace as they would for other movies. In D2's favor, though, is the PLF spillover effect in addition to word of mouth and a long run time that lends itself much better to Saturday (and Sunday) matinee scheduling for non-fans who didn't want to, or couldn't, spend over 3 hours in a theater for a film after work/school yesterday. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Ohh, I see. Honestly not sure, I hadn't heard much of it until now. It's highly unlikely the studio revises those numbers from here. But honestly, since they said $2m from early IMAX shows, I'd lean toward $9.5m - 10.0m for Thursday being fairly accurate. They might round up from a .5 increment, but I'd be mildly surprised if they underreported by a full 50%.

What mystery is there?

100%

32.2 official Fri est with previews

12

It's $12m.

Hearing the official studio # will be out soon, next 10-20 minutes.

I don't mind replying when tagged as long as it's civil/friendly talk and straight-forward questions. It actually helps because I haven't had as much time to read through the thread lately, especially when it gets busy, so notifications help me to not miss anyone's specific questions or comments. That said, your point stands as well. I don't need to be tagged if it's just a topic/convo on constant repeat, or tinged with poorly toned/aggressive comments (which we honestly are going to have to crack down on more when directed toward anyone), especially if I've already answered with my opinion on it. (Also, very intriguing comp re: Transformers -- will be adding that one to the batch.)

I've addressed this already, and you've already made your point that you disagree with the numbers. Time to drop it and watch the tone/misleading comments. Consider this a friendly warning.

I think best case is a little over $80-85m at this stage with the caveat that the $2m EA will probably be included in the weekend gross. Logan's $88.4m for the 7th top March opener... not impossible, but it's on the outer bands.

Friendly heads up to those keeping track: Drive-Away Dolls' preview gross has been updated (studio reported) as $350K. (I think some outlets had it over $400-450K last week.)

See my previous reply in the other thread about that range not having been revised in awhile and was not supposed to have been included yet (accidental copy/paste on my part)... but in general, yes I don't see much over $40-45m currently. It isn't tracking much differently than GvK and I think there's a strong argument that it has less novelty this time around for non-monster movie fans that offsets the streaming/pandemic factor. That said, let's see how things go. Maybe it can improve a little.

To be fair, I'm leaning toward the lower end of the Ghostbusters range at the moment, so 35-49 / 96-144 is definitely one of those ranges where I wouldn't automatically assume the middle (or especially the high) end reflect the current expectation.

Looking back through my database, it seems that was the last update on those numbers.

Not sure it was ever reported anywhere else, but Lisa Frankenstein did $700K last Thursday according to studio sources. For comp purposes.

Yeah, I understand why Oppy is in the convo here because of the PLF dominance. I just worry that sets too high of an expectation because Oppy didn't have the natural frontloaded aspect of a fan-driven sequel *and* also had the Barbenheimer aura to boost appeal among casuals. Those are two momentum variables that Dune 2 doesn't have. It's also probably a result of the fact that not many of the current ticket counters in this thread were pulling data for Dune 1, so it's not available as a comp for the markets that you all have come to rely on (for good reason) in comparing sales. That being said, I was a proponent for years before the pandemic that Dune could/would be the next big franchise. So I definitely empathize with the hope that this sequel does overperform for whatever reason.

Sure, there are a few elements to approaching that. For starters, the list of sequels to nearly double their domestic gross after their predecessor earned less than a 3x multiplier is incredibly short. So that's a basis for comparison. The major caveat here, as we know, is that Dune was a hybrid release mid-pandemic, so it's also safe to bake in the possibility that it could have achieved a 3x+ under normal circumstances and that its sequel will benefit further from the goodwill. We also know casual audience attendance is more robust now than it was in October 2021, so that's another element to potentially work in favor of either opening weekend, staying power, or both. The current projection of a 2.7x multiplier on the high end tries to account for a high-performing weekend that ends up more likely to lead to front-loading in case of fan-driven rush and/or the possibility that word of mouth isn't strong enough to help it follow the path of other sequels that managed 3x+. With that in mind, it opens up numerous scenarios where the actual opening within that range could indeed lead to a higher multiplier. For example, if it opens to $65m and legs out to $190m, that ends up being a 2.92x -- higher than Dune 1 in terms of OW, total, and legs across the board, reflective of strong reception outside fans, and reasonably similar to something like that of (arbitrary comp here) the John Wick franchise which has consistently had great legs with each sequel. Could the best case scenario end up being higher than $75M+/$195M+? Of course, and the model will (try to) adjust for that if more data, sales included, point to it. But as franchises go, they are usually their own best indicators... not always, but usually. So the question then becomes, "what are the best comparisons to Dune 2 besides Dune 1?" That's a big fill-in-the-blank that can be subjective. All that said... it's also generally more responsible to err on the side of caution when there's any doubt on either end of the spectrum, IMHO. That's the philosophy I've seen more success with and reflective of most of the feedback I usually receive from clients and exhibitors. Consistently being too bullish is even less valuable than being consistently too bearish, and since neither are ideal, the goal in my approach is to (again, try to) find a goldilocks zone that has as much utility as possible (developing a baseline, essentially, rather than never knowing how to frame projections). Obviously this all is underscored by the understanding, after nearly 25 years doing this, that finding that goldilocks zone before it's too late to matter isn't going to happen 100% of the time, but it usually does.