TServo2049

Another thing that shows how freaking huge the first movie was. U.S. population was 220.24 million in 1977, compared to 322.07 million today. Heck, let's throw in Canada since it's counted toward the domestic market - add 23.73 million. 1977 population of USA+CAN was 243.97 million. If we look the original run not including the 1978 re-release, $221.3m, estimated 99.24 million tickets, that means it sold a ticket for every 2.5 people in North America. Let's add the 1978 "re-release" - especially assuming that yes, there were people seeing it for the first time then. The average NA population during that 1977-78 period comes out to 245.25 million. So take 118 million tickets total over both releases, and there was a ticket sold for every 2 people in North America. Mind-blowing, even factoring in repeat business.

All the claims that Star Wars (it wasn't called A New Hope I'm 1977 so I will never use that to refer to its original run) made $307m in original release are wrong. That includes the 1978, 1979 and 1981 re-releases. It actually made $221.3m in its true first run, and $43.8m from the summer 1978 re-release. The first run adjusts to $827.6m or $854.4m, depending on whether I calculate based on BOM's 2015 adjuster or their 2016 adjuster. I have no idea what the yearly average will come out to be - averaging those two values comes out to $841m, and using BOM's current Q4 2015 guesstimate of $8.61 to get a rough 2015 guesstimate of $8.41 gives us $834.6m. That does seem low for how huge SW was, though the U.S. population was lower then. But there's a twist: I know people who do not consider the 1978 re-release a true re-release, but an extension of the first run, since the film was never out of theaters completely (at least one theater's engagement ran continuously through both releases). If you add the $43.8m of the 1978 "re-release" adjusted for inflation, you either get $1.016 billion at $8.61, or $983.7m at $8.34. Those two numbers average out to almost exactly $1 billion. Either way, I wonder if the 2009-present NATO yearly averages don't produce accurate adjustments/estimated admissions for heavy 3D/IMAX/PLF releases whose true average paid price would be higher than the official NATO average for the entire theatrical market. No matter how well TFA does, I just cannot bring myself to believe it will end with more tickets sold than the original, either including or excluding the 1978 reissue (especially not including), even with 38 years of population growth. Not from all I know about how ridiculously huge the movie was. Even though I just said $307m wasn't the actual first-run gross, from the prices I've been paying I do still wonder if it would still be best to compare against a ballpark of $1.2 billion for SW's original run. If you take the $221.3m divided by the official 1977 average of $2.23, that's 99.24 million tickets. If you take the $43.8m and divide it by the 1978 average of $2.34, you get another 18.72 million tickets. The total of both runs would be 117.96 million admissions. If you assume the entire $265.1m up to the end of the 1978 reissue would be equivalent to TFA making $1.2b, then the theoretical average ticket price it would be adjusted to would be $10.17. But if you assume just the $221.3m of the original run would be the same as TFA making $1.2b, then the theoretical average paid price for TFA would be $12.09. So let's say TFA does in fact hit $1b. That would mean it would need to sell 98.3m tickets at an average of $10.17, or 82.7m tickets at an average of $12.09. Either way, if it gets to $1b I am convinced it will be doing it off of fewer admissions than we would assume off of whatever the 2015 national average turns out to be. redfirebird2008, are you still around? Can you weigh in?

I still will not believe they are releasing on these dates until they are officially announced and added to BOM. They could just as easily slip again to 2018-20.

Not on BOM, but IMO losing all its theaters still counts. The only other releases to ever close/officially stop tracking while in over 2,000 locations were Delgo and Saw: 10th Anniversary. This had a higher theater count than either of those at time of close. The amount of theaters it lost at one time is topped only by Meet Dave and Jonah Hex.

It somehow increased yesterday. But that Wednesday was the single worst daily number and the single worst daily average for a movie playing in over 2,000 theaters. $9.99 per theater. Based on the current national average price, that would be a average of 1.2 tickets per location...for an entire day. (Admittedly, it's probably down to one showtime per day in some places...) I would not be surprised to find out that a good number of locations sold no tickets to the movie for the entire day. (DAJK, have you had any days where nobody bought tickets to Jem?) This caps off the worst weekend/week (in gross, tickets, and per-theater averages of both) for a movie in over 2,000 theaters.

Yeah, the Star Wars appearances were surprising enough. WB had to rush to get their agreement with Lucasfilm finalized before the Disney deal happened. If only we could go back in time to the 80s and snatch up height-of-his-power Steven Spielberg to executive produce, THEN we could get Lego DC vs. Marvel. He was the only person who could get Disney and WB to agree to anything.

Will probably be a spoof. Not an Adam West-style camp spoof, I would guess more a gentle, loving, self-aware ribbing of the general "dark" Batman of the past 25 years. Basically, the Lego Movie character extrapolated to an entire universe. And with Lego-related jokes and sight gags thrown in. Just my guess. There is plenty of precedent in the Lego video games for this sort of thing.

They probably aren't. Those were slotted a couple years ago, a lot of those untitled "films" slotted by Fox and Sony will likely not happen.

If this estimate holds/drops, Jem will have the 2nd worst weekend in over 2,000 locations, second only to the OW of Oogieloves. And that average is actually worse than Oogieloves. It would be even more hilarious if the actual dropped below Oogieloves' $440k OW.

Yeah, I wish BOM still kept estimated showtime counts, I'd have loved to see estimated per-showtime averages for last weekend and this weekend.

Yeah, I see your point. But that was one movie in, not three. I still bet Lionsgate probably believes they have too much riding on it to stop 3/4 of the way through. If they do think this, they may be wrongheaded to do so, but what the hell else do they have after Hunger Games is over? It would still be hilarious for them to prematurely end a book series adaptation on part 1 of the split final book, though. That would be the ultimate karmic fuck you to final-chapter splitting.

I know. The point is, none of those got a second week in over 2,000 theaters. This will.

This is going to post some of the worst averages ever (daily, weekend, weekly) in over 2,000 theaters next week - possibly worse than Delgo or Oogieloves or Saw: 10th Anniversary. (Those only got one week before losing most of their theaters or closing entirely.)

The fact that Jem is going to spend a second week in over 2,000 theaters, when the three worse-performing 2,000+ releases (Oogieloves, Delgo, Saw 10th Anniversary) lost most/all of their theaters after the first week, means that we could see the worst weekend/daily averages ever for a movie playing in over 2,000 locations. Which would mean 2015 would have yet another film lowering the bar for wide studio releases with a particular theater count.

My pre-casting-announcement Feig Ghostbusters suggestions of Emma Stone and Zoe Saldana would work here too. Also, for some reason I envision Lucy Liu, and/or Michelle Rodriguez. And I bet a ton of people are going to automatically suggest Emily Blunt and/or Rebecca Ferguson, calling it now...

You really think they are going to end the series without a conclusion? I don't give a rat's ass about Divergent, but they are not going to kill it 3 movies in.

Actually, you've got it exactly backwards. What actually happened was that an existing script for a cliched sci-fi action film was turned into an "adaptation" of Asimov.

It feels like this generation's equivalent to a Dune movie directed by David Lynch...

Yes, I know that. I just find it telling that they decided to stop estimating on only the third weekend of wide release.

I wonder how little The Walk made this weekend, if Sony isn't even reporting an estimate...

Does Pan have enough juice left to get another $4.2m and pass the gross of Snakes on a Plane? I ask because if it finishes under SOAP it will break its 9-year record as the lowest-grossing release to open/play in over 3,500 theaters. Though even if it doesn't finish behind Snakes, as long as it finishes under $43m it will be the lowest total *admissions* for an over-3,500 release...

There's a long and storied history of flops teasing a follow-up that will never happen. I find it so funny that this trend actually predates the modern would-be-franchise-mania by 20-30 years (including the occasional use of post-credit teasers!)

And I was born in 1987; this is the most top-heavy, disproportionate-studio-market share year I've ever seen. Even the early/mid-90s had mid-level hits (that didn't need to make a fortune to be successful). This really does feel like we're heading into the doomsday scenario Spielberg and Lucas foretold, doesn't it? And I thought it was a crazy scenario when they said it (in 2013, the last year which was both huge AND "balanced").

In terms of total BO, yes. But this is the top-heaviest year I can recall, and the only one where two studios combined took over 40% of the market.

#SpielbergWasRight?