EmpireCity

Trust me, they're lying. They haven't cut deals with 1,000 theaters. My guess is they are attempting to negotiate or have started negotiations, but they do not have 1,000 signed on any level.

They're lying.

Only the most desperate theaters will work with them, and more than likely not a single major or even mid-major theater will go for any of this. This was always their ploy, make a splash, grow the subscriber list to huge levels, show a box office impact and then use that as a threat against the theaters to negotiate a better deal and cut of their profit.

I said this months ago, but Moviepass is not going to last through the year in their current form. They might not even make it through May. Theaters hate it, know it won't last and will come out with their own versions and kill them off. Goodnight, sweet prince.

Agreed. The movie is already a smash hit at what seems to be a lock of $30m considering the budget is reported it at $11m and Neon/30 West paid something like $5m for it. If it hits $40m or $50m it will be a mega hit for everyone involved.

I mean crazy when you look at where both films were sitting at TIFF in September with one of them having a glitzy premiere that was very well received and the other film was deciding between Netflix and start up distributors for a low $ amount. If you had to guess you would have said Molly's Game was locked for the much higher gross and I, Tonya would be lucky to see the inside of a theater. I completely agree now that I, Tonya is no surprise. The rollout the film has had worked perfectly it seems like and with Oscars and the Olympics and solid word of mouth it is going to possibly be scraping $40m+

I think they are saying 3,000 publicly to make a splash, but they are only going to get about 2,000 and they know it. The other expansions are I, Tonya and I think that will go to around 800 theaters this week and then depending on Oscar nominations it will go between 1,000 - 1,500 locations on 1/26 Crazy that I, Tonya is likely going to make about $10m more than Molly's Game and shows you how one distributor can fuck up a release and another can knock it out of the park with similar films and material.

You haven't seen the movie if you made that comment.

I would agree, but they put 50 Cent as a lead so it sort of proves that a studio will put anyone shitty in a lead role if they were popular once.

I honestly don't see how it misses $30m+ at this point.

This year is worse than most, especially last year. On the same weekend last year there were 3 wide releases and this year there are 4. The weekend of 1/19 had 3 wide releases last year and 2 this year. The weekend of 1/26 had 3 wide releases last year and 1 this year. The weekend of 2/2 had 2 wide releases last year and 1 this year. From 1/19-2/2 there was 8 releases last year vs. 5 this year. They fucked up badly this year, but at least starting after next weekend the Oscar content will have a few weeks to get back into theaters and do some good business before 2/9 and Black Panther the following weekend.

You can blame the studios for the current mess at the box office. They all did a terrible job of spreading out the release calendar. I said it weeks ago that this was going to get ugly on some level because they crammed way too much into the last 5 weeks and it hurts everyone including themselves because nothing has a chance to breathe. Something should have moved back to 1/19 and 1/26 and even 2/2. Now there is a situation where everything is smoked this weekend and there are like 3 movies releasing between now and 2/8. It's fucking ridiculous.

Well, sort of but not really. Franco is mainly being accused right now because he had a female sign a contract to do nudity in an indie production for standard rate. That is now being called out for power abuse due to the amount of money paid.

It is a terrible movie.

Hostiles is going to be an epic bomb. I, Tonya is hitting around 500 theaters this weekend I would guess. Given it got like 5 BAFTA Nominations and won Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, I think it gets at least 3 Oscar nominations. They are at $5.66m right now, likely around $6.5m before the weekend expansion. Likely $11m after the 4 day. Another expansion wide next week, then Oscar noms and a very empty schedule with the Olympics and I see this getting to $30m+

Lol.

Tomorrow.

I also forgot to add that many reports and anecdotal stories from theaters that MoviePass is an increasing hassle. Many of the customers will buy the seats they want online and then they come into the theater right before the movie wanting a refund and then want to re-purchase the same seat with their MoviePass card. It is creating a logistical nightmare at the box office in some cases and even a few loud incidents when the theater refuses to refund back the purchase and the guest gets angry.

This is all about data and access to customers. If theaters allow an outside subscription source to cut them off from the data of a large customer base, it is a slippery path to go down.

You are going to see nearly every theater roll out their own version this year and many will refuse to take MoviePass in the near future. It is coming and the theaters see the game going on. They aren't going to allow MoviePass to drive a wedge between them and the data on their customers. This also isn't comparable to Amazon or Netflix in my opinion. It wasn't like people were walking into Wal-Mart with an Amazon card and picking up a ton of items and swiping the card at the register and when Netflix gets a subscription they aren't having to turn around and pay out sometimes 10x the amount to a studio if someone watches a bunch of movies. It is pennies and not on the same level.

I posted about this some yesterday, but the numbers for I, Tonya are pointing towards a big breakout in the next 2 weeks. It made about $750k on Friday after adding roughly 200 locations and then actually went up to $1m on Saturday. Given there was likely a lot of Thursday shows packed into that Friday number, to have that sort of jump on Saturday points to really strong word of mouth. This movie likely plays in middle america better than most of the award season contenders and if it wins something tonight at the Golden Globes it could really take off as they expand next week and then wide on 1/19 Something to keep an eye on.

That is revisionist history of the highest order unless you are talking about 2 weeks max prior and even that is suspect.

That isn't totally true. I said $250m+ and others had some predictions in the same realm. Always thought it had the chance to break out. IT was stuck in September and broke all the rules there. It had the much more shocking and incredible total run in my opinion even though people knew it would break the September opening record.

No way. It's not even the most surprising $300m gross of 2017.

If it picks up some awards tomorrow and then gets the Oscar nominations it might get, I don't think $30m is out of the question. It should be around $15m by the end of 1/19 with a lot of room to run in the next 3 weeks.