TServo2049

Is this really true? It's based off an estimated summer ticket price of about $8.60, only about a cent off from NATO's Q2 average of $8.61. Are we not sure the actual average ticket price for this summer wasn't lower, due to July-August not being as loaded with huge 3D tentpole successes? The Q3 average is usually lower, but we don't learn that until October. Do the press keep assuming the Q2 average price was the average price for all of summer? Even with Guardians and TMNT, the average price for Q3 2014 dropped 25 cents from Q2. Can't we assume a similar drop, perhaps more because of the craptastic August, and the far-and-away biggest movie of July-August (Minions) not having IMAX and mostly selling child-priced tickets?

Theater owners should be able to turn down a new IMAX release in favor of a holdover, or at least be able to split showtimes. And if there is audience demand for 2D IMAX showings, they should be able to meet that as well. If I were a theater manager, I'd want to (for example) keep Jurassic World playing, even if not every showtime, as long as it was selling tickets. Speaking of IMAX, I remember something I can't find documentation of - I saw Team America in an IMAX auditorium back in 2004. Was it an IMAX blowup? I can't find anything online mentioning Team America having played in IMAX. Did my theater just run regular 35mm in the IMAX theater because nothing else was available in IMAX that weekend? I'm not going crazy, am I? EDIT: OK, apparently it did play in IMAX in some theaters, but the only info online is someone who had a list of all the IMAX engagements at the Lincoln Square 13 in NYC. Weird that BOM has never documented that it played IMAX. ...and to add further insult to injury with Transporter, BOM doesn't list it on their list of IMAX feature releases either! Yes, I am guessing that's probably a Keith-era oversight, but it's hilarious to pretend that even BOM cares so little about this movie that they don't know it's playing in IMAX.

This "must book a new wide-release movie in IMAX on every weekend possible" thing needs to stop. Transporter's OW IMAX admissions may well set a record low for a new wide studio release, worse than Mars Needs Moms; though MNM has a lower OW gross, no kid tickets + 4 years of inflation could mean Transporter sold fewer IMAX tickets. (And earlier this year, Seventh Son may have also had a worse IMAX opening than MNM; remember those tweets of completely empty showings?)

This past month has redefined how badly a movie can open in over 3,250 locations. History of worst 3-day OW attendance in over 3,250 theaters (in adj. $): May 12-14, 2000: Battlefield Earth, adj. $17.98m April 8-10, 2005: Fever Pitch, adj. $16.23m December 15-17, 2006: Charlotte's Web, adj. $14.68m August 29-31, 2008: Babylon A.D., adj. $11.08m September 2-4, 2011: Apollo 18, adj. $9.2m August 21-23, 2015: Hitman: Agent 47, $8.33m August 28-30, 2015: No Escape, $8.11m September 4-6, 2015: The Transporter Refueled, est. $7.22m Apollo 18's record for worst opening (gross or attendance) in over 3,250 locations stood for almost four years. It was broken three times in the span of three weeks. And Transporter came close to the worst opening in over 3,200 locations, still held by Walking with Dinosaurs. (Though depending on WWD's share of child tickets, and Transporter's IMAX share, Transporter's admissions could well be lower. Despite being in 200 more locations.) No movie playing in over 3,400 theaters has ever grossed lower than $10m. Transcendence held the record low at $10.89m (beating the previous record low gross of Charlotte's Web, and record low admissions of Cats and Dogs 2 - which sold fewer tickets than Charlotte but made more due to inflation). Transporter just shattered that - $7.22m in 3,434 locations. Ouch.

"Now come the days of the Brad. May they be blessed." ...too bad it had to be on the worst-attended (top 12) Labor Day 4-day since 1992, and second-worst of 1982-present, only (barely) above '92.

History of billion-dollar summers: 2008: WB is first studio to ever have a $1B summer, with $1.01B (w/ New Line now part of WB) 2009: WB gets to $1B 2011: Paramount (inc. DreamWorks) comes within $2m of $1B - but just misses it 2015: Universal breaks $1B for first time, then breaks WB's 2008 record, ends up with first summer total over $1.5B; now, Disney also beats the 2008 WB record. Universal+Disney took in over 60% of the total summer BO receipts. I made a joke in a previous thread about how this summer looked like the Disney/Universal theme park wars spilled over into the box office...yeah, that's what this summer essentially was.

Just reminds me how absolutely massive Memorial Day, 4th of July and Thanksgiving were in 2013. In the case of the 4th, if you go from Mon-Sun instead of Fri-Thu, the Mon-Sun before/including/after 4th of July 2013 just edges out 1996 as the highest-attended top 10 ever for that week. (Yes, I said 1996 - ID4 was an absolute beast.) I wonder if we will ever see holiday frames of that sheer size again...

It's Canadian Thanksgiving, and Columbus Day in the U.S. - though the latter isn't really observed that much these days, for reasons you can probably guess, the U.S. side probably does still contribute some to its holiday Monday status. (Up to 1995, it was actually tracked as a 4-day weekend.)

In admissions, the biggest 3-day weekend to fall on or around the 4th of July is actually 2013 (where the 4th was on the preceding Thursday) followed by 1996 (where the 4th also fell on Thursday). 2013 top 12 was $237.2m adj., 1996 was $229.7m adj. The biggest weekend where the 4th was part of the weekend was 2004 (4th on Sunday, top 12 $214m adj.) followed by 1997 (4th on Friday, top 12 $211.1m adj.). 4th of July has only six years where a Fri-Sun top 12 adjusts to over $200m - the other two were 2002 and 2011.

Where do those NATO averages come from, anyway? Do they have too much weight in favor of child tickets, matinees, discount theaters? Or is there really that large a spread? I'm near San Francisco, California - I pay the same prices you do. (Are you in New York, as per your username, or somewhere else?) And this discrepancy isn't new. Scott Mendelson of Forbes said that when he saw Batman on opening weekend, tickets were $3 - the 1989 average was $3.97. And there was some MTV coverage of Batman Returns where Cindy Crawford said there would be "more bang for your seven bucks" - the 1992 average was only $4.15. And I'm also looking at photos of ticket stubs people have put online. For example, this is someone from New York City: https://jasonvorhees.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/movie-ticket-stubs-1999-2011.jpg 1999: Adult evening ticket to The Other Sister: $8.00 Adult evening ticket to Star Wars Episode I: $8.50 National average for 1999: $5.08 2000: Adult evening ticket to Deuce Bigalow: $8.75 Adult evening ticket to The Green Mile: $8.50 Adult (I assume evening) ticket to Scream 3: $9.50(!) Adult evening ticket to Coyote Ugly: $8.75 National average for 2000: $5.39 2001: Adult evening for Memento: $10.00(!!) Adult evening for The Others: $9.00 Adult evening for From Hell: $9.75 Adult evening for Monsters Inc.: $9.00 Adult evening for Vanilla Sky: $9.00 Various adult matinees: $5.75 National average for 2001: $5.66

In terms of unadjusted dollars, it's #3 - Labor Day weekend will likely take it to #2 just ahead of 2011. But it will still be around $300 million behind 2013. And in terms of ticket sales, 2015 will only be ahead of 2014 as the second-lowest summer from 1998-present. The top 10 best-attended summers are: 2002, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2007, 1998, 2001, 2013, 2009, 2008. From 2010-2015, only 2011 and 2013 surpassed the attendance of 2005, the lowest-attended summer of the entire 1998-2009 period. And comparing 2011 and 2013 to those 11 years, 2011 was only above 2005, while 2013 was only above 2005, 2000, 2006, 2008 and 2009.

They're comparing summer to summer. It is interesting, we like to adjust yearly average to yearly average, but does adjusting one year's seasonal average to another yield more accurate results for that season? That said, they are still comparing apples to oranges. The $8.20 summer 2014 average they are giving is being compared against the $8.61 Q2 2015 average. Q2 only includes May-June, not July-August. Q2 2014 was $8.33, not $8.20. Q3 2014 was $8.08 - we have to wait until NATO releases the Q3 2015 average in October to be able to get a summer 2015 average we can compare apples-to-apples to that $8.20 summer 2014 average.

Who's saying that? August was down from 2014, but BOM still shows 2015 ahead in terms of the whole summer, with/without adjustment.

These things happen. Remember when Al Pacino was replaced by Benjamin Bratt less than 3 months before Despicable Me 2 released? Or how William H. Macy had all his lines recorded for Finding Nemo before they decided to recast with Albert Brooks?

That montage has all the ones that immediately came to my mind - Star Wars, 2001, Alien, Blade Runner, etc. - and Raiders was also mentioned here. But here's another: Back to the Future. It may just be a simple pan across a bunch of clocks, and it is an admitted homage to that abstract montage of flying clocks in George Pal's The Time Machine, but that tracking shot of all those ticking clocks is so thematically perfect. I cannot think of any better way that BTTF could have started.

$460m is to AOU what $260m was to CA:TWS.

A few movies were super successful but nobody wanted to see much else.

Remember in about 2004, when Disney was vulnerable enough / there was enough of a lack of confidence in Eisner that Comcast actually attempted a takeover of Disney? I remember that being a huge shock at the time, and another sign that "Disney is in trouble under Eisner."

Universal has tried to acquire/distribute DreamWorks before; when it went up for sale in 2005, Universal was believed to be the frontrunner to take over, due to their long working relationship with Spielberg, and I remember it being quite a shock when their bid was rejected or they were outbid by Paramount or whatever it was. I swear I remember the same thing with the Reliance sale and/or the Disney distribution deal - I thought Universal's name was thrown around a lot in industry speculation, but they were passed over in the end. For a 80s/90s kid like me, Spielberg and Universal go together like peanut butter and jelly, hamburgers and French fries, and so forth. If this is true, then I say: Welcome home.

I actually am somewhat glad of that, with the way their adjusting works (with the price in the *quarter* a film was released as the base price), it would have totally screwed up any April-June releases by deflating their grosses in the adjuster. (Especially since this year's Q2 average was so high.) I'm sure they will get around to it by the time the year-end average releases in January.

I overheard someone at work say Daft Punk "sold out to Disney" - I assume by doing Tron Legacy. That's the first person I've heard of who had a problem with Daft Punk having done that movie.

Hence why I put it in quotes.

It felt weak at the time because of a shit 4th of July, Ant-Man "underperformed", and Pixels/Paper Towns weekend sucked. MI only had one day in July. Also because July 2010-13 all crossed $1.3B, and every July from 1993-2013 adjusts to at least $1.25B. 2014-15 are the lowest-attended Julys since 1992.

I think Frollo is the most messed-up villain to ever be in a G-rated movie. I'll definitely give that to Hunchback. That was the first time I noticed that the comic relief did not fit into the serious story. Up to The Lion King, it always fit. Pocahontas had a lot of the comic relief cut out during production (the John Candy turkey, and all of Percy the dog's dialogue), so it wasn't as big a problem there. But Hunchback started my awareness of "Oh, this looks like it could be a serious film, Disney's growing up--oh wait, jokey talking comic relief? AGAIN?" I noticed the same thing with Mulan, then Tarzan - this was going be the one that was more grounded, more mature, more serious, then BOOM, Eddie Murphy dragon, Rosie O'Donnell gorilla, sorry Disney, you lost me again. Why can't you be more like those new Pixar people? They're not shoehorning in the same cliches into stories where they don't fit simple because It's The Formula. As a kid, I thought the Disney Renaissance was going to grow up with us kids that saw TLM-TLK, and some of the films seemed to show that, except that they had shoehorned-in comic relief, which was much more clumsily inserted and jarring than the stuff up to The Lion King. (I had the same reaction to The Prince of Egypt at age 11, it was a good serious movie, except when Steve Martin and Martin Short showed up and took me out of it.) You wanna know why I didn't see anything after Hunchback? Because except for Hercules, which was a comedy and made it obvious, they all offered the promise of a serious action story for 8-12 year olds like me, and then poisoned the well with their stupid comic relief sidekicks. Atlantis was the first one that seemed to be for kids my age, so was the first one I saw in 5 years, but it turned out to just be a mess. I later saw Mulan on video and it was good, Mushu didn't ruin it like I feared, and though I never got around to watching it, I'm sure Tarzan is good too (I had no idea that Rosie was only in the early scenes with Tarzan as a kid, the trailers didn't make that clear), but as soon as those characters showed up in the trailers, I just lost interest. Call it what you want, late-90s tween boy cynicism, I dunno, that's just my story.

Not as of today. If it gets over $185m by/on Labor Day, then we'll talk. Four movies over $300m and nothing between $200m-$300m is still a complete reverse of 2014's seven movies between $200m-$300m and nothing over $300m. (Again, this is just the calendar summer, I know GOTG made another $50m in the fall.)