BadAtGender

I'm not sure studios especially care unless a film is going to take #1 in some prominent context. If it was looking like it'd finish with $750m rather than $650m then, yes, they'd probably fudge it over the Avatar line, because that would matter. Beyond that, I think they probably only care about round numbers: 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m. So maybe if it's petering out around 647m or something they dig into the couch change for that extra bit to get to 650m. But if it's finishing up around 653m or so? Eh, just call it a day.

Really? They didn't make sure that F7 beat Avengers WW, I don't see why they'd make the effort here.

More and more I wish adjusted tracking was based on real inflation and not ticket price inflation. It's supposed to be an approximation of admissions, but since that isn't tracked it gets to be this kludge of a thing, which isn't really measuring either tickets sold or how much two films across eras made (or cost.) It seems much better to abandon the admissions attempt and just acknowledge that it's better to compare dollars to dollars and make the straight adjustment from there. Hmm... Maybe I'll take that up as a future spreadsheet project.

I dunno. JW probably gets a better bump this weekend, at least. It's played pretty strong on the weekends, and while I think Minions might hurt both a bit, it'll probably hurt IO more. I wouldn't be surprised to see JW ahead for this weekend at least. Say, something about 21-22m in comparison to IOs 19-20m. After that, though, sure I expect IO to get ahead next week on the weekdays and stay there.

If we just adjust the 7-day chart on BOM from lowest-to-highest percentage of the total, it gives us an idea: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/grossbydays.htm?days=7&sort=percoftotal&order=ASC&p=.htm Avatar, of course, is great. As is Frozen. Matrix Revolutions, 50 Shades, Twilight films all have bad legs. We could also just take the 3-day grosses, regardless of when the release happened. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/grossbydays.htm?days=3&sort=percoftotal&order=ASC&p=.htm

Somewhere, Billy Ray Cyrus sheds a single tear.

Doesn't the El Capitan only have one screen? Are the tickets especially high there or is it just selling out like bonkers at the moment?

Probably because it's not likely his main job. It seems that he was dragged in to cover for things until they hire a replacement. The hiring notice is still up on Amazon, after all.

I wonder on what day JW is going to fall behind it for a total. Any bets?

Without knowing the volume of tickets that are sold in a given 24 hour time period, the Movietickets numbers are not especially helpful.

Huh.

Well, he's directed two feature films. One of them did very good business and had good enough audience response. Thor 2 got him the Terminator job. We'll have to see if he has another shot after this. If Taylor can deliver on time and on budget, he can probably keep getting feature work. Though his next may be a lower level. There are directors who basically have careers that are entirely underperformers and flops. Hasn't Renny Harlin basically been cashing in on Die Hard 2 for the past two decades or so? David Ellison. Megan Ellison's brother, but they have separate production studios. Skydance is his and they've got a pretty good track record.

1) Will Terminator be number one? NO 2) Will Magic Mike be number two? YES 3) Will Jurassic World drop more than 45%? YES 4) Will IO have a Saturday decrease of more than 32.7% on Saturday? NO 5) Will Terminator or MM fall more than 20% on Thursday? YES 6) Will any film in the top 10, playing in more than 999 theaters, have a Friday increase of more than 75%? NO 7) Will Spy increase more than 22.2% on Thursday? YES 8) Will IO and JW both make more than Terminator? YES 9) Will San Andreas fall less % wise than Spy? NO 10) Will Ted fall more than 49%? YES 11) Will Max make more than 7 million? YES 12) Will JW be over 1.375 billion by Sunday estimates, according to RENTRAK http://www.rentrak.c...rankings.html#1 YES 10/12 5000 11/12 7000 12/12 9000 I think the questions are kind of tough this week. What films finish in spots: 1 Inside Out 2 Magic Mike XXL 3 Jurassic World 4 Terminator: Genisys 5 Ted 2 9 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 2000 each, get all 6 right bonus of 7000 Bonus 1: What will T5's total be for Wed and Thurs? 5000 15.893 Bonus 2: What will JW's total be after Thursday? 5000 527.003 Bonus 3: What will Ted's total be after Sunday? 5000 63.187

ET came out in an era when home video was still not widespread. It existed, but generally people still had to go to the theater if they wanted to see a movie. Titanic came out in an era when home video was super widespread. In fact, it was close to the widest for VHS. Blockbuster and the other video rental stores were huge. Definitely by that time people would "wait for video" on films. ET also came out in an era when films really did play long. Its business was spectacular, but how it got there wasn't anomalous for the time. While film legs in the 90s were definitely better than they are today, what Titanic did was unreal. Even ignoring the size of its gross, the sheer longevity is completely out of context for the time.

I wasn't doing a comprehensive check of previews, but I did see that the Cinerama here in Seattle didn't show TG yesterday. In fact, they aren't getting started on the showtimes until 7pm tonight.

A comparison between two films three years apart isn't that useful. But this is comparing it specifically to a film within the past two months, so there haven't been huge marketplace changes in the number of online sales. If TG's 5-day can match SA's 3-day, it's probably going to be declared a success.

That's some accurate predicting from Gopher.

I'm hyped. MBJ is so good.

It's possible, but the marketing/distro costs aren't usually considered in the rules of thumb for whether a film is profitable. In the past, if you doubled your budget in WW gross, you were doing okay. I'd probably amend that to say it's the WW-China gross, since the returns are so different there. Either way, MMFR's 360m is more than double the 150m reported budget, so it's doing fine. It's not a huge money maker, but it's still good.

It's partly that. IMAX gets a benefit when their tech is used in production. But it's also that while IMAX has the brand as THE premium format, it's not like they hold all the cards. If they did something like what you propose, they'd probably get a smaller cut of the pie. More limited choice but bigger cut of the profits > Specific choice and smaller cut. Assuming such a thing could even be possible. There might be industry-wide agreements that prevent it. There are also technical limitations, probably. It's probably not something that can happen on a whim.

I believe IMAX was taken by MiB 3 over Memorial Day weekend. It didn't drastically affect Avengers.

Because the contracts are signed well ahead of time and there's no way for IMAX to know what's going to sell well based on "merit and profit" that far before release. Like, we know NOW that choosing to showcase AoU and Tomorrowland for 3 weeks apiece was a mistake, when they could have done AoU for 2, MMFR for 2, and San Andreas for 2 before JW opened. But earlier this year it looked like giving Avengers and Disney a long period would be the right choice. The 2 week minimum is pretty standard. It sucks if a film underperforms, especially if you're running a single-screen premium theater, but that's the business. Theaters project the best they can and hope for the best.

It won't happen. The IMAX switch-up is happening too often, now. MMFR only managed to get some screens for a week because Tomorrowland had a 3-week engagement and really underperformed. TG has two weeks. Ant-Man has two weeks. MI has two weeks, I guess. By then we're deep into August and JW won't be a factor.

It was the film he was working on and going to direct when he died. He'd been working on it for years, though, I believe even well before Eyes Wide Shut. Supposedly, Spielberg shot it as Kubrick had planned it out. Even the epilogue bit that feels excessively Spielbergian was apparently Kubrick's plan.

The kids in JW easily trump them.