MikeQ

Great number for Beauty. $9.5 million would be about a 35% increase from Monday. Looks like great increases all around from what is posted so far at The Numbers: - (3) Kong: Skull Island Warner Bros. $1,737,061 +37% - (4) Life Sony Pictures $1,444,576 +40% - (5) Logan 20th Century Fox $1,240,612 +27% Peace, Mike

I think we're talking around each other, as this is my point. By "heat of the summer", I didn't mean weather, I meant when summer is in full swing, that The Dark Knight was open during a prime summer month when all kids are out of school. Given that films like The Avengers and The Dark Knight (especially) opened during summer months and had excellent second weekend holds given their record-setting opening weekends and large weekday numbers, it is not inevitable that summer films will hold worse on a weekend-to-weekend basis. The Avengers and The Dark Knight are very impressive in this regard. Peace, Mike

Of course, no two weekends are ever directly comparable for various reasons. The landscape is different in the summer when weekdays are much larger. It's not surprising to me that Jurassic World is $85 million ahead of Beauty, given Jurassic World opened over $33 million higher on its opening weekend, and held very well on it's second weekend (which is over $18 million higher than Beauty). Jurassic World had terrific weekday numbers, and was at the time the highest opening weekend of all time (until later that year when The Force Awakens opened). I found, and still find, Jurassic World's box office performance to be incredibly impressive, and I was giddily following its performance two summers ago. So, I hope you don't take my write up to be me trying to minimize the performance of other huge films, only to put Beauty's drop into some context, and I find it interesting to look back at all of the big openers. It's also not inevitable that non-summer films will hold better, and that's evident looking at the large drops of Batman v Superman and the final Harry Potter, for example. Of course, heavily fan-driven films like most comic book movies are usually going to play very differently (re: more frontloaded), but there are exceptions, as can be seen with The Avengers, which only dropped a pretty remarkable 50% given it was the largest opening weekend at the time ($207.4 million opening) and by a huge margin. I wonder if people remember that at the time, the previous highest opening weekend was the final Harry Potter instalment, with a $169.1 million opening weekend, and thus The Avengers stomped on the previous record. The Dark Knight is another example: it also had the highest opening weekend at the time (in 2008) with a huge $158.4 million weekend, and only dropped 52.5% in the heat of the summer in July, and went on to have a 3.36 multiplier. Peace, Mike

With estimates, Beauty and the Beast has had one of the strongest second weekend holds when looking at the biggest openers of all time (those that made $150+ million opening weekend). It’s second weekend gross represents the 4th best second weekend of all time, coming off an opening weekend that was the 6th best of all time. It will be interesting to see how it does over the next two weekends before The Fate of the Furious opens. The Force Awakens was a beast no matter what, but combine that with a second weekend that had Christmas fall on the Friday (and the deflating Christmas Eve not fall on the weekend) and it benefitted from the holiday alignment of that year. Jurassic World benefitted from a Sunday that was nearly flat from Saturday due to Father’s Day. The last Harry Potter may have the worst drop of the bunch, but it is at least partly a testament to how incredibly anticipated the final instalment of the Harry Potter series was. It made $43.5 million in previews (in 2011), close to 50% of it’s opening day, which is insane, and before The Force Awakens came along, was the highest preview gross ever (and by far; the next largest preview gross is The Dark Knight Rises' $30.6 million). 2nd Weekend Drops for Films with $150+ million Opening Weekends Star Wars: The Force Awakens: -39.8% (Christmas Holiday weekend /w no Christmas Eve) Jurassic World: 49.0% (Father’s Day Sunday) Beauty and the Beast: -49.4% Marvel’s The Avengers: -50.3% The Dark Knight: -52.5% The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: -53.1% Iron Man 3: -58.4% Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: -58.7% Avengers: Age of Ultron: -59.4% Captain America: Civil War: -59.5% The Dark Knight Rises: -61.4% Spider-Man 3: -61.5% The Hunger Games: -61.6% Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: -69.1% Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: -72.0% Peace, Mike

For most people this isn't a competition in a negative sense - Beauty and the Beast can make huge numbers and Power Rangers can still do very well. It looks like it will outdo tracking somewhat, given tracking was saying a $30-35 million weekend, from what I recall. I follow box office because it's fun, and I love huge numbers and surprises from all films. Over time, you may be more attached to some films over others because of how much you liked them (or not), but it's just box office. Chin up Peace, Mike

$38-39 million for Beauty would represent a 61-65% Saturday increase, and make for about an $87-90 million weekend (a 49-50% drop from it's opening weekend). $14 million for Power Rangers represents a solid 23% Saturday increase (from Real Friday), and likely makes for ~$39 million weekend, give or take. Peace, Mike

I think is an excellent way to handle this. People who want spoilers can discuss them in the thread for that particular film. The rest of us should be able to peruse and post in the weekend thread to discuss numbers without fear of spoilers. The two significant issues have been rightly identified by posters, that 1) people often don't spoiler tag responses that clearly hint at the spoiler or allow for two-and-two to be put together, and 2) even more problematic for me, is that Tapatalk doesn't actually hide the spoilers. I often like being able to check updates in the weekend thread while on the go or waiting somewhere. The problems have been particularly egregious this weekend with 'Life' being discussed in very revealing ways in the weekend thread. So big thanks mods Peace, Mike

There isn't one ratio that can be applied to all films for preview grosses. You have to consider the type of film it is and the audience it attracts. Power Rangers was expected to be a fan-driven film and attracts younger audiences compared to Kong, which attracts older audiences (that don't typically "rush out" to the same extent) and which wasn't a clearly established "brand" in the same way that Power Rangers is. Likewise, some films are over-represented in pre-sales due to the fan-driven nature of those films. This is why two films can make around the same amount in preview gross, but have the weekend as a whole play out differently. Peace, Mike

Presuming the Deadline Friday projections are correct, then I think Beauty would be looking at a $77-80 million weekend (a 54-56% drop), and Power Rangers is looking at around $35 million for the weekend, basically in line with where tracking had it. Of course, it's still early, and Deadline could be off. Peace, Mike

Possible scenarios: WED: 11.4 THU: 10.8 (-5%) FRI: 24.8 (+130%) SAT: 39.7 (+60%) SUN: 26.6 (-33%) WEEKEND: 91.1 (-48% from last weekend) or FRI: 23.2 (+115%) SAT: 37.2 (+60%) SUN: 24.9 (-33%) WEEKEND: 85.3 (-51% from last weekend) It comes down to that Friday increase, as usual, and to the questions of how many kids are on spring break this week and thus how "inflated" are the weekdays. Was data on this shared earlier in the week? I know that in my province in Canada March Break was last week. My best guess right now is about a $85-90 million weekend. I think anything around a 50% weekend drop would be pretty strong for such a huge opening. But it all comes down to that Friday - how muted (or not muted) will it be? Friday/Saturday will be fun following the numbers Peace, Mike

6+6+6=18 million? Peace, Mike

This may be a useless stat, but when looking at the top 50 opening weekends of all-time, there are 7 films whose opening weekend Sunday was larger than their opening weekend Real Friday (i.e. Friday sans previews/midnights). Only two of those didn’t have Sundays inflated by a holiday occasion: The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. Each film whose Sunday > Real Friday (with all-time ranking): #6: Beauty and the Beast #23: Deadpool (inflated Sunday due to Valentine’s Day) #28: Man of Steel (inflated Sunday due to Father’s Day) #35: Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith (inflated Sunday due to Monday being Victoria Day holiday in Canada) #36: Shrek 2 (inflated Sunday due to Monday being Victoria Day holiday) #38: The Jungle Book #42: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (inflated Sunday due to Monday being Memorial Day holiday) I'm not sure that this means anything (I'm a pro when it comes to putting together useless stats, ha), but if Beauty does end up following more of a family-film trajectory, this wouldn't be surprising to me, given its backloaded opening weekend. This is something I contemplated after the Friday numbers came out too: whether the film's internal multiplier for the weekend would be frontloaded and play more like a fan-driven film (ala. most superhero movies with huge opening weekends) or not. The opening weekend suggests it may have better legs than your typical blockbuster, but there's certainly the potential that it could prove to be frontloaded anyway. Given the opening weekend is all we have to work off of right now, it will be interesting to see how Beauty fares from here. Peace, Mike

I think it's basically impossible for Kong to end with only $130-140 million. It will hit $130 million or more by the end of next weekend. Peace, Mike

For those interested, this is a list of top preview/midnight grosses, including the preview grosses as a percentage of the opening day gross for each film (adapted from the Data & Numbers Archive - credit to @The Futurist): Estimated Top Midnight/Preview Grosses of All-Time Rank / Title / Gross / Share of Opening Day Star Wars: The Force Awakens — 57.0 million (47.9%) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 — 43.5 million (47.7%) The Dark Knight Rises — 30.6 million (40.4%) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 — 30.4 million (42.7%) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 — 30.25 million (42.2%) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse — 30.1 million (43.9%) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — 29.0 million (40.8%) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — 27.7 million (34.0%) Avengers: Age of Ultron — 27.6 million (32.7%) The Twilight Saga: New Moon — 26.27 million (36.1%) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — 25.26 million (35.6%) Captain America: Civil War — 25 million (33.1%) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 — 24 million (38.9%) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — 22.8 million (39.2%) Suicide Squad — 20.5 million (31.6%) The Hunger Games — 19.735 million (29.3%) Marvel's The Avengers — 18.7 million (23.1%) The Dark Knight — 18.5 million (27.5%) Jurassic World — 18.5 million (22.6%) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 — 17 million (30.8%) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith — 16.9 million (33.8%) Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen — 16.8 million (27.1%) Beauty and the Beast — 16.3 million (25.5%) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 — 16 million (35.1%) Furious 7 — 15.8 million (23.4%) Iron Man 3 — 15.6 million (22.7%) Transformers: Dark of the Moon — 13.5 million (35.8%) The Hobbit: Un Unexpected Journey — 13 million (35.0%) Deadpool — 12.7 million (26.8%) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — 12 million (27.1%) I was also curious about preview grosses as a percentage of opening weekend for the top openers, so I made a list of the top 25 opening weekends of all time and the percentage of each from the preview/midnight gross: Top Opening Weekends of All-Time & Share from Previews Rank / Title / Opening Weekend Gross / Share of Opening Weekend from Previews/Midnights Star Wars: The Force Awakens — 248.0 million (23.0%) Jurassic World — 208.8 million (8.9%) Marvel’s The Avengers — 207.4 million (9.0%) Avengers: Age of Ultron — 191.3 million (14.4%) Captain America: Civil War — 179.1 million (14.0%) Beauty and the Beast — 174.8 million (9.3%) Iron Man 3 — 174.1 million (9.0%) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 — 169.2 million (25.7%) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — 166.0 million (16.7%) The Dark Knight Rises — 160.9 million (19.0%) The Dark Knight — 158.4 million (11.7%) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — 158.1 million (16.0%) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — 155.1 million (18.7%) The Hunger Games — 152.5 million (12.9%) Spider-Man 3 — 151.1 million (6.6%) Furious 7 — 147.2 million (10.7%) The Twilight Saga: New Moon — 142.8 million (18.4%) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 — 141.1 million (21.5%) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 — 138.1 million (21.9%) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest — 135.6 million (6.6%) Finding Dory — 135.1 million (6.8%) Suicide Squad — 133.7 million (15.3%) Deadpool — 132.4 million (9.6%) Iron Man 2 — 128.1 million (5.9%) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 — 125.0 million (19.2%) Peace, Mike

Presuming estimates for Friday and Saturday stay about the same, we have a weekend that looks about like this: Thursday Previews: $16.3 million Real Friday: $47.5 million Saturday: $62.7 million (+32%) Sunday: $48.3 million (-23%) Weekend Total: $174.8 million This gives Beauty 6th highest opening weekend of all time. Peace, Mike

As mentioned, if $50 million is the floor for Beauty's Sunday gross, then it's looking at a $177+ million weekend. If so, this is kind of funny because back when Deadline had first posted Friday numbers they projected a weekend gross of $177 million for Beauty, and at that time in this thread many posters were slamming Deadline for being "crazy" and incorrectly projecting the weekend, and that the weekend gross would be much lower. I mean, I get it, Deadline is often wrong, but it's funny looking back. All in all, terrific weekend for Beauty. Peace, Mike

Taking Matrix4You's great list of Saturday increases/decreases from real Fridays and adding Beauty and the Beast to the list (with estimates), Beauty ended up having a terrific Saturday increase. It suggests that, while the film is clearly driven by a fan-base, it is also playing as a family film. Peace, Mike

Actually, it would best Civil War. With $60-62 million on Saturday, that represents about a 26-30% increase from Beauty's real Friday gross, at least with estimates. Thursday Previews: $16.3 million Real Friday: $47.5 million Saturday: $60-62 million (+26-30%) Sunday: ? Peace, Mike

Page 212 - RTH said this regarding its Saturday gross (I know it's hard to follow because the thread is so off-topic): Peace, Mike

$60 million or close to it for Saturday (per RTH's comment) would be terrific for Beauty and the Beast. That would represent about a 22-25% increase from the Friday (sans previews). Peace, Mike

It's really difficult to know how exactly the weekend will play out with only Deadline's Friday projection of $60-62 million. First, the projection could be off (lower or higher than Deadline's number), as Deadline is notoriously unreliable (at least this early in the day). Secondly, even if they are spot on, it's still up in the air what Beauty and the Beast's internal multiplier will be for the weekend (i.e. will Saturday stay flat, increase, or decrease), because it's somewhat of a unique case (clearly having a built in fan-base but also being a family driven film too). It will be interesting to see how it pans out. I think we need a later update from Deadline, or for RTH to show up. Peace, Mike

Here's a nice summary article of all the planned live-action remakes: http://collider.com/upcoming-live-action-disney-movies-release-dates/ Mulan is slated for a November 2, 2018 release. I'm looking forward to both Mulan and Aladdin, as it appears they are going in the right direction for both and will not be whitewashing either film, thankfully. Peace, Mike

This was a whole bucket of fun that flew by quickly. I can't remember the last time I've seen such a perfect action B-movie. It really hits the sweet spot. In an era where it feels like we have big action movies that either 1) aspire to be serious, complex and "issue-oriented" and are light on the fun and adventure, or 2) that are so generic and unintelligably drenched in action that they are dull and boring, it was quite nice to see a carefully directed monster/action film that was funny, surprising, and so much fun. The action is well-framed. The film is well-paced. ILM does a terrific job with the CGI. Its retro/absurd/"Apocalypse Now" vibe works. All of the ingredients come together nicely. And while the characters certainly weren't fully realized human beings, they were mostly interesting and fun. And at the same time, the film clearly nods to basic themes of humankind vs nature, holding up a mirror so that we reflect on who are the real monsters here. Overall, the film feels like it has a clear vision in terms of what it wants to be, and executes that very well. Peace, Mike

I'm not sure if there was room for a dozen helicopters, but there were definitely more than four on the ship that we saw. There were the four helicopters that we got the nice overhead shot of on the mid-section of the ship that you're referring to, but also the large helicopter was on the bow, and there were at least 3 more helicopters on the stern of the ship behind the control centre (one right on the stern that we see taking off and two hidden under the elevated portion underneath the control centre). There may have been a few more hiding in the elevated portion of the bow of the ship. The film didn't show all of the helicopters take off, as there was only room for a few at a time on the helipad areas, but I would go back to watch that part of the film. Perhaps it didn't give us a clear sense of where each helicopter came from, but I wouldn't fault the film for being edited so as to speed that process up. You seem to imply that this is an odd occurrence, but when we first come across the tribe's village, we see a row of canoes that they have. I don't think it's unusual that they would have a portion of the wall that they built that they can get through in order go out on their canoes along the river. In the control centre, before they make the decision to fly through the storm, Samuel L. Jackson's character asks how far the island is from them, and the captain of the ship says "maybe 50 miles, or more". Thus, it's evident that the storm does not circle immediately around the island, it's a ways out. Once they're through the storm, they had a ways to fly until they were to the main part of the island where they meet Kong. So, my hunch would be that the storm wouldn't be hovering immediately behind Kong when we see the shot of the helicopters making their way toward him. If you go back and watch that part, you'll see the sun rising out of some clouds which are beyond the mountainous landscape of the island - thus, as is, it's clearly not clear blue skies anyway. Just my thoughts from my viewing of the film. Peace, Mike

This was a whole bucket of fun that flew by quickly. I can't remember the last time I've seen such a perfect action B-movie. It really hits the sweet spot. In an era where it feels like we have big action movies that either 1) aspire to be serious, complex and "issue-oriented" and are light on the fun and adventure, or 2) that are so generic and unintelligably drenched in action that they are dull and boring, it was quite nice to see a carefully directed monster/action film that was funny, surprising, and so much fun. The action is well-framed. The film is well-paced. ILM does a terrific job with the CGI. Its retro/absurd/"Apocalypse Now" vibe works. All of the ingredients come together nicely. And while the characters certainly weren't fully realized human beings, they were mostly interesting and fun. And at the same time, the film clearly nods to basic themes of humankind vs nature, holding up a mirror so that we reflect on who are the real monsters here. Overall, the film feels like it has a clear vision in terms of what it wants to be, and executes that very well. Peace, Mike