EmpireCity

Yeah, I am less than nice sometimes on here. I did try and explain it fairly nicely at first but MovieMan89 continued to spew bullshit and false narrative, so at that point sometimes it isn't the worst thing to be blunt about it when it gets to that point.

Maybe because I have the ability to talk about something other than a single movie that came out 9 years ago? Try it and maybe your likes will go up and people might take you a bit more seriously.

Translation = you made an ass out of yourself on this and now want to change the subject. Bold strategy, Cotton.

Here are the most common ways a movie can be fudged.... At the start of a run of a movie, the studio does buyouts instead of promo screenings. Instead of paying a theater rental rate for a promo screening, they simply do a buyout and pay for every seat and have the theater report the gross on opening day. No customer has paid for tickets but the studio has and it boosts the gross. Studio has a sneak peak of another film and then takes that gross and puts it towards a current movie in theaters. Customers paid for one movie but it gets applied to another. Studio does the double feature trick where the entire gross can be applied to both movies. Takes the new popular movie and puts it with the old movie they are trying to push over a threshold and lets it piggy back the gross. Sponsorship buyouts where a studio has a sponsor on the film and they have them committed to purchase x number of tickets either at the start or the end of the run and apply it towards the gross even if nobody shows up. The most famous hybrid example of this would be Man of Steel where Wal-Mart committed to buying $10m of tickets and no matter how many they resold all of that money went towards the opening gross of the movie. Fudging is one of these or similar methods. It is not on any level where a movie is still in theaters and paying customers are buying tickets and watching the movie.

Do you actually want to learn how this whole box office business actually works or do you want to simply make up random shit when you don't understand something? Here is something that might help..... Fifty Shades Darker released in Feb. 2017 and Universal had a jam packed schedule the first 3 months of the year. Split and A Dog's Purpose released weeks before and both did very well taking up over 3,000+ screens each. Then Darker came out on 2/10/17 in 3,700+ screens. The Great Wall came out a week later on 3,300+ screens and smash hit Get Out came out a week later on what would end up being 3,000+ screens. Universal had 5 pictures at some point playing at the same time. Fifty Shades Darker became expendable due to Split and Get Out. At some point fair play becomes and issue and studios have to sacrifice the run of a film so something else that is doing better can stay in theaters. Fifty Shades Freed is released in Feb. 2018 and Universal literally does not have another film in theaters. They had Insidious on 1/5/18, but that was done by the time Fifty Shades Freed opened and the next film they have is Pacific Rim on 3/23/18. Since they have nothing else, Universal can naturally have Fifty Shades Freed stay in theaters longer than Fifty Shades Darker. There is no fudge, there is no conspiracy, this is simply how things work. The next time you want to spout off and make an idiot out of yourself, maybe you should stop and consider asking how this stuff works instead of making things up and flailing about.

What do you think I "admitted" to earlier? What do you think "incentive" means in this case? I'm not backtracking from anything, you simply don't understand how all of this actually works. **Hint** the "incentive" is currently being given to about 30 other movies currently playing.

Also, "giving theaters incentives" doesn't mean what you think it means. They aren't giving theaters anything.

Bullshit. That is not a fudge on any level. It isn't like we are in week 20 of a movie and they are paying an incentive to keep the movie in theaters so it can make artificial gross. Fifty Shades is well within its natural run and it is the only Universal picture in the market. Nothing about this is a "fudge".

Cheap and a loser if you aren't in a 3rd world country.

It isn't really notable to be honest considering both of those were limited release non-studio arthouse movies and Love, Simon is a major studio wide release. It is great the movie is well reviewed and people are loving it, but beating out those two isn't notable giving the circumstances.

What the hell are you talking about? Fudge has always and by definition means a movies is making money that it didn't earn. Don't make shit up because you were wrong about something.

People need to stop thinking studios fudge numbers other than very, very, very, very rarely. Yeah, there are times where it happens like Spectre, but there is no fudge happening with Fifty Shades right now. Universal only has one movie in the market place at the moment and they are asking theaters to hold onto a show per day of it. That is how the theater count is staying up and how the gross is still going. There is no conspiracy, they simply helping the film out by keeping it going by offering theaters an incentive to play it. There can be manipulation, but everyone reports to the same service that everyone can plainly see not only the numbers but where exactly they are coming from.

Maybe it could happen, but Saturday going to be $6m after a $3.75m true Friday? Sunday bigger than true Friday?

Also, if that is correct the sneaks from last weekend aren't rolling in for Love, Simon then I think it will hit around $4.4m for Friday with Thursday previews and $3.55m without. Might hit around $12m for the weekend or so it seems like.

Yeah, unfortunately you hit the nail on the head. The vast majority of families in North America are going to put Love, Simon very last on the list during Easter weekend. Even more progressive families that have absolutely no problem with someone being gay or even with gay members of their family are still very likely to opt for other choices first. It is unfortunate, but that is the reality for the most part.

Friday's number is looking to be around $5m for Love, Simon. I am pretty sure that includes the $850k from last weekend and $850k from Thursday previews. That means it did about $3.3m on Friday, so even if it has a fantastic increase to around $5m on Saturday, it is still looking at around $13.5m or less for the weekend. That puts it at #5 for the weekend. Next weekend even though the other wide releases aren't direct competition, it still likely slips down to #6 or #7 on the chart and then over Easter it could stay around #7 or slip further. It is going to be hanging more towards the back end of the Top 10, and that is before it even hits April 6th when both of those releases are going to do very well. Long story short, as I have said for weeks and weeks it could have a nice multiplier, but to get to the $100m+ that many were hoping it will take 7.5x multiplier or better.

It usually is a negative in the sense that people are more often with their family and go to movies together as a family and Love, Simon is going to be down on the list when it comes to that. For example, Call Me By Your Name took a huge dip right leading up to and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then recovered very nicely as soon as people weren't with their family.

Also, speaking of raw numbers, as good as the RT and Cinemascore is for Love, Simon it is currently #4 in per theater average likely for the weekend despite being in a more limited 2,400 theater run. Tomb Raider (3,800+ theaters), Black Panther in Week 5 and of course I Can Only Imagine are all likely to beat its per theater average by a decent amount.

It has a higher chance for sure, but again, the calendar is no friend to it. Having a major religious Holiday and 16 new wide releases between now and April 13th isn't a good thing. Hopefully it breaks through and can make it despite Fox not really pushing it all that hard. Fox might fight more to keep it around, but they will also be pushing hard to get screens for Isle of Dogs.

Again, it could really show great legs, but the math of the business at this moment shows more roadblocks for it than help. There are 16 wide release movies between now and April 13th. You have a major religious Holiday thrown in there as well. It will need to show really incredible legs to hang onto theaters.

Man, this is going to be one of those movies where people will not accept anything less than pure sunshine blown up their ass when it comes to discussing even the raw numbers.

Again, listen to what I actually typed. Pacific Rim will be some competition, not exclusive due to rating alone. Ready Player One is nostalgia, but it has 2 young leads and will also pick up some audience. A Quiet Place is most likely PG-13.

Looks like you left off another 4-5 movies there on purpose, sport.

Pacific Rim: Uprising, Ready Player One, Midnight Sun, A Quiet Place, and even Blockers (more of an R rated stretch but very well reviewed and has younger skewing elements) will all bleed off some of the audience and screen space. I never said "explicitly teen targeted" in my post.

I put it in the other thread, but the timing for Love, Simon might end up hurting it. Not only is there a lot of younger skewing PG-13 competition in the next 3-4 weeks, but like it or not the Easter Holiday might actually hurt it. Same sort of thing happened over Christmas to Call Me By Your Name and how that bottomed out on some level because a lot of people gay and straight are with family for that weekend and most families won't choose that to go to with all the other options out at the same time. Either way, hope it finds a way to stick around. Maybe it can become the second mega legs hit for Fox in the last few months.