DAJK

Any chance Poor Things can out-gross The Favorite? Could see it being at 20M by Oscar noms... not sure how well the Oscars can help bump a movie in the 2020s, but it should at least come close, no?

With school/college back in session, weekend bumps should be stronger this week. Thinking that 10M 4-day for ABY is a definite possibility as long as it doesn’t completely collapse against Mean Girls.

This felt like a Goosebumps book. Which would have been fine for a Goosebumps book I read when I was 10. Not a movie I see in theaters at 24.

Just want to point out that we have 15(!) movies over 1M this weekend. Compared to last year this week, when we only had 8. 15th place was making 142k. 2022 this weekend had 8 movies over 1M, with 15th place making 190k. Compare that to this weekend in 2020 (before Covid obviously) had 14 movies over a million, and 2019 had 17. If for nothing else, this holiday has shown that depth has returned to the box office. We’ve seen that the market can sustain massive grosses (Spider-Man, Top Gun, Barbie, Avatar), and now we’ve seen it can support depth of the product exists. I would say that this is a good weekend for people like us who track this stuff. Shows signs of a healthy market.

Beekeeper EA was selling well, but I missed the final number unfortunately. Strong gross though, there’s definitely interest here.

Honestly, I hope HitMan is a huge hit for Netflix. And I hope the studios hate themselves for it. They need to hurt for passing up on mid-budget films. We need more of those theatrically. If HitMan helps us get there, I’m all for it.

I was surprised we didn’t hear more about that. I read it in a few passing comments, but it didn’t stir up the same level of discussion we had earlier this summer.

Nobody was “expecting” that at all (maybe 1-2 “out there” posts) but the vast VAST majority of people here have been in the 200-300 range ever since OW, and most of those are squarely in the 225-270 range. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here.

I genuinely think one of the smartest (or perhaps luckiest) decisions made for Anyone But You was casting Powell and Sweeney. They're both up-and-comers who have bona fide hits under their belt that make them recognizable (Euphoria for Sweeney, which is very big among the online Gen Z/Millenial crowd; and Maverick for Powell which was strong for older white women) but they aren't A-listers to the point where it's just "Clooney and Roberts in another movie together". They are small enough to disappear into their roles, and big enough to be recognizable. It also helps that they're both strong actors who have genuine chemistry with one another. One thing I've been noticing lately is that the "movie star" isn't as dead as we thought it was 2015-2019. Sure, you don't get surefire 200M grossers just by casting an A-lister anymore, but if you get the right actor in the right role, they are massive massive draws. The "franchise" trend of the 2010s (which is still strong mind you) is somewhat becoming eclipsed by a "star + concept" model which honestly excites me. If ABY can make it to 80M total (or screw it, 100M seems possible) I think it's a huge win for the industry, a huge win for rom-coms, a huge win for movie stars, and a huge win for theaters.

Lol did anyone have Anyone But You outcrossing The Color Purple on their bingo card a month ago? Because we might have to start considering that possibility. Also, this is one unique instance where our faith in the tracking team led us astray. Under normal circumstances, without prior knowledge of Xmas day presales, I would not have thought TCP might become a 150M+ grosser, and would have predicted something closer to 70-80M. Now, obviously this isn’t a bad reflection on the tracking team, since BOTers literally only could work with the data we had, and that was what the data was showing us, but it does show that there are still surprises to be had at the box office even with the clairvoyants we have working with us.

Not bad not bad.

Yea I'm not expecting Minions 2 numbers for DM4, but DM3 numbers is totally achievable. What Minions 2 showed is that there is still life in this franchise (heck, it's technically the highest grossing unadjusted domestically). Thinking 275/900 for it.

Night Swim’s not doing terribly here. Consistently ahead of where I’d expect it to be for 1M previews. Would guess 1.3-1.4 based on comps, but schools haven’t gone back yet here so weekdays may be stronger than usual.

62-72

Lol I waded too far into this discussion on Telegram. Not touching it with a 10 foot pole here.

One of the things I keep seeing when people try to talk about the box office on social media/tiktok etc. is a fundamental misunderstanding that I don’t see addressed a whole lot. I’ve mentioned it before, but I wanted to bring it up. I just saw a video of someone talking about how theaters were all empty this year because of bombs like Indiana Jones or Aquaman or Transformers. As opposed to last year when we had hits like EEAAO. This person said that 2023 needed more big hits like EEAAO in order for theaters to survive. I’m going to assume that either this person never actually looked at the raw numbers and only looked at Letterboxd, or they misunderstand how box office works. For theaters, a 150M DOM grosser and a 170M DOM grosser are solid hits. Indiana Jones was a solid, consistent performer this summer at my local theaters, and it didn’t over perform or underperform here. The reason it’s a bomb is because of its massive budget. But theaters don’t really care about the budget. Indiana Jones is going to sell 2-3x the number of tickets that EEAAO will sell, bring in 2-3x as many people to the concession. For theaters, they would much rather have an Indiana Jones or Transformers than an EEAAO or an Aftersun or a Saltburn. Just because smaller movies are hits relative to their budget, the budget doesn’t matter to a theater. What is the raw number of tickets being sold? That’s all that matters. So no, theaters weren’t more empty in 2023 than they were in 2022 or 2021 simply because there were more bombs. Many more tickets were sold, revenues were up, even though it’s still far below where we were pre pandemic. AMC and Cinemark don’t care that Dial of Destiny had a 325M budget and was therefore a bomb. It was still a 60M opener that had decent legs throughout the summer.

Had a dream about this movie, or rather I was watching the movie (but from first person POV so I was “inside” the movie). Swift was the twist villain, but her motivation was that she wanted to steal my grandpa’s house. I remember thinking in my dream “well that’s pretty effing stupid, who the hell decided THAT in the screenplay?” And then I called my grandpa to tell him he was in a new movie.

Agree with your predicts, although I feel like "expecting the worst out of life" isn't a very fun way to live life. Hope you're doing okay man

Anyone But You is really fun, not surprised its WOM is strong. Feels like a genuine throwback to 90s/00s rom-coms, and that’s probably where a lot of the WOM comes from. Hope it legs it out to 50M+ and we start to get more studio rom coms after this and No Hard Feelings. That being said, we need to temper our expectations for the Wednesday hold. Female-driven movies (ESPECIALLY rom coms) have always had insane attendance spikes on Tuesdays, at least from my 7 year experience working in theaters.

Marvel filled a niche. Something else will inevitably fill it. Just because we are in a transition time is nothing to freak out over.

TCP is pretty much doing what I would have expected it to do prior to the pre-sale explosion. Budget was way too high, but 80M isn’t a terrible finish for a 2.5 hour adult drama/musical.

January: M3GAN Plane A Man Called Otto Missing The Son February: 80 For Brady Knock at the Cabin Knock at the Cabin Titanic 3D Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Cocaine Bear March 65 Creed 3 Scream VI Champions Shazam! Fury of the Gods Shazam! Fury of the Gods John Wick: Chapter 4 Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves April Air The Super Mario Bros Movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves The Super Mario Bros Movie The Pope's Exorcist Evil Dead Rise Evil Dead Rise Are You There God? It's Me: Margaret May Are You There God? It's Me: Margaret Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 Fast X The Little Mermaid June The Boogeyman Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Elemental The Flash No Hard Feelings No Hard Feelings Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny July Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Insidious: The Red Door Joy Ride Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 Barbie Oppenheimer Sound of Freedom Barbie Haunted Mansion August Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Meyhem Talk to Me The Last Voyage of the Demeter Blue Beetle Strays Blue Beetle Gran Turismo September Bottoms The Nun 2 A Haunting in Venice The Creator Dumb Money Saw X October Killers of the Flower Moon November The Marvels Next Goal Wins The Holdovers The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Napoleon Saltburn Thanksgiving December The Boy and the Heron Godzilla Minus One Wonka The Iron Claw Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom Migration Big Fish Ferrari The Color Purple Total: 83

Happy birthday to all 408 BOTers with birthdays today @baumer @ringedmortality @bcf26 and a few others I recognize... along with the 400 others who are all turning 31 or 32, have no profile pic and zero posts. Hope y'all are having an amazing day!

I actually enjoyed this holiday season vic office more than the previous 2 years, mostly because the wealth was “spread” across multiple movies and not just concentrated on one megahit. We’ve seen that the market can sustain a 700M+ grosser, now we need to know that there can still be depth at the box office, which this holiday corridor has shown is still possible, even if the numbers themselves aren’t huge.

Haunted Mansion should take the #5 spot for bombs in 2023.