Porthos

This is the first batch of tracking from the Trades that I know of. That 30 forecast was from our very own Shawn over at Box Office Pro. Checking the latest BOP forecast, this is what they currently have: 10/18/2019 Maleficent: Mistress of Evil $30,000,000 – $50,000,000 $37,000,000 $110,000,000 Disney So this would just be at the high end of BOP's own tracking/forecasting. === Anyway, I just took a look at what's been sold already in Sacto and I don't see any sign of 70m at the moment. 45m to 50m looks decently plausible though.

NOTE FOR FOLKS READING THIS IN THE FUTURE. I DERPED UP AND MADE THIS COMP AT T-21 NOT T-28, rendering ALL of the commentary moot and wrong and bad. Disregard it entirely. ============= Just took a spin around Sacramento for Maleficent 2, and you know what? It's not that terrible for a film 28 days out. I don't have many entries for family films that far out. In fact, all I have is Pika Pika, which had been on sale for only two days at that point. Right now Maleficent 2 is running at about 94.3% of Pika Pika (5.38m). Now, lots of caveats as always. Pika Pika started sales at T-29 and I'm using it's final number for the equivalent day, while Maleficent 2 has had tickets on sale for, what a little more than a week now? So a little bit of a lead time for it. Also Pika Pika didn't do THAT terrible in its T-26 to T-14 time frame, and I don't have any idea if Maleficent 2 can match it on those days if early demand has already been burnt. Still, 199 tickets sold region wide a month before release for a family film isn't a disaster by any means. Not a sign of a breakout either, though. But, yeah. 5m previews might indeed be on the table. Might take another look in a week or so and see if the direct comp against Pika Pika is holding or not. === *thinks* As ludicrous as the comp is, Maleficent 2 is doing 2.26x Hobbs and Shaw (13.11m) at the same point in time, and they had similar pre-sale length. Perhaps slightly more on point is that Maleficent 2 is doing 40.9% of It 2, which also had a relatively long pre-sale window, and that comps to 4.3m. So comping somewhere between 4.3 and 5.3m at the moment? Maybe? 10x that (which sounds right for a family film that has 7pm previews) and we get 43m to 53m? Maybe 45m to 50m if we want to tighten the range? Maybe tracking IS on point after all.

Maleficent 2 is a family film with theme appropriate timing in regards to the calendar. If, if, it opens to approx 50m, I have to think 150m is in fact back on the table (as my last post suggested).

Probably still too early to really say, and as you've pointed out on many occasion Cinemagic is usually weak on pre-sales until closer to release, but the difference between Cinemagic and LS13 does make me wonder if this notion that @cdsacken had of Joker having something of a disparate run has some substance to it. Kinda reminds me of Aladdin in a strange way, which was another recent movie which seemed to do gangbusters in some parts of the country but not so hot in others when we were tracking pre-sales. I've said I'm loathe to draw too many conclusions on so little sale days, and I stand by that. But I can't shake the feeling that it's just odd for Sacto to be pacing behind what CoolEric tracks in Philly and apparently what FlashMaster659 is tracking in Imperial County. === Bringing it back to your theaters, the PLF nature of LS13 is something to consider, of course. Especially since it has Dolby (and we in Sacto don't). Just did a check on my sheet, and PLF priced seats accounts for 20% of all sales in Sacto. If I throw in the Cinema West Giant Screens (which are NOT set at PLF pricing for Joker), it rises to 27%. That's pretty high for an hard-R rated film that isn't an action spectacle. All stuff for me to keep in mind, I suppose, as Joker numbers continue to come in, both locally and from other trackers.

With everything else going on in SW land right now, be easy to forget that this is coming back up soon: So consider this a reminder than the next/last season starts in a few days.

Joker Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-8 days and counting Sellouts Showings Seats left Total Seats Seats Sold Perct Sold TOTALS 0 199 23346 24361 1015 4.17% Total Showings Removed Today 1 Total Seats Removed Today 87 Total Seats Sold Today 138 T-8 Comps (still somewhat lol at this stage - don't take very seriously) % Sold T-8 Total Sold Sellouts/Shows Seats Left/Total Seats Perct Sold Comp It 2 70.29 140 1444 0/159 17743/17743 7.53% 7.38m PRE-SALES NOTE: It 2 had 36 days of pre-sales while joker had 11. T-8 Adjusted Comps (still somewhat lol at this stage - don't take very seriously) % Sold T-8 Total Sold Sellouts/Shows Seats Left/Total Seats Perct Sold Comp DP2 29.42 152 3215 0/121 10252/13467 23.87% 5.47m Joker (adj) n/a 120 946 0/199 23571/24448 4.82% n/a PRE-SALES NOTE: Deadpool 2 had 30 days of pre-sales, while Joker had 11. ADJUSTMENT NOTE: Joker (adj) is the ticket data at the same theaters I had tracking info for Deadpool 2. Day 3 Adjusted Comp by request (lol at this stage[???] - perhaps don't take very seriously) % Sold Day 3 Total Sold Sellouts/Shows Seats Left/Total Seats Perct Sold Comp CM 54.45 160 1853 0/81 8755/10608 17.47% 11.27m Joker (adj) n/a 138 1009 0/199 21156/22165 4.55% n/a PRE-SALES NOTE: Captain Marvel had 59 days of pre-sales, while Joker had 11. ADJUSTMENT NOTE: Joker (adj) is the ticket data at the same theaters I had tracking info for Captain Marvel. ==== Not quite as good a day as I would have liked to see if I wanted Joker to do well, and certainly still pacing behind Philly. Did gain ground on both It 2 and DP2 though. Also put too much ground on CM, I think. About now is when the 59 days of pre-sales will rear its head. But it was asked for, so I gave it. Might also throw it in tomorrow as well, but that's about it. Posted it more for curiosity than anything else. Overall, I think "decent to good" works. But certainly isn't exploding locally. Yet at least. Still, as I said, can't really draw many conclusions until Sat/Sun and I'm sticking with that.

About to start my Joker comp for the day, but being KotM wasn't that front loaded on pre-sales. Was running at a 1:2 ratio against JW:FK for a long time. It just never took off at the end. Solo was pretty front loaded, yes. Which is why it's a pretty bad comp for Day Two IMO. Right now a Solo comp comes to 4.17m after two days of pre-sales. That's... less than ideal, IMO. On the other hand, KotM comps to 16.47m after two days or pre-sales. Part of that was some theaters in town not selling it for the first couple of days. But doesn't tell the whole tale. So, good ideas. Just don't work out, I think. I'll see what I come up with in about an hour or so after today's check.

I might throw in Captain Marvel, as its the best current comp I have, for a couple of days. But that's about it. I don't have the initial days for DP2 or BP (and I've retired BP from active comps anyway). EG is a lol comp until the last day or two. IW isn't as much of an lol comp, but just looking at it now (6.54m), it's still sorta lol-ly. So not many options outside of CM, really.

Hard R-rated fanboy property though. Don't have Venom numbers until T-2 (didn't track it until the last second). Right now Joker is at 51.57% of Captain Marvel after two days (10.67m). Which is probably a good enough comp.... Except CM had 59 days of pre-sales, so its comp will become very useless VERY quickly.

As @Thanos Legion said, having 11 days of pre-sales pretty much renders ALL comps useless. Even a day two comp against other CBMs is pretty useless as right now we're starting to get into the "oh, yeah, the flick is coming out next week; better buy my tickets" mini-ramp up. Also, 'round about this time, some films start having their embargos lift, either social or review. That in turn spikes those days (or not) before depressing a little until the real surge starts next week. By rights, I shouldn't have ANY comps. But if I do that, folks will still ask for them. So, rock and hard place. Best I can do is provide data and give context for them and let folks make their own conclusions. I do think it's not exploding so the data is telling us something. But it doesn't appear to be cratering, either. But, then again, week plus away. === Let me put this in context. Here is the sale pattern for JW:FK (which 'only' had 23 days of pre-sales): Fallen Kingdom T-22: 0 595 T-21: 0 180 T-20: 0 96 T-19: 0 87 T-18: 0 97 T-17: 0 96 T-16: 0 106 T-15: 0 92 T-14: 0 59 T-13: 0 77 T-12: 0 45 T-11: 0 76 T-10: 0 60 T-9: 0 109 T-8: 0 94 T-7: 0 122 T-6: 0 95 T-5: 0 124 T-4: 0 220 T-3: 0 443 T-2: 0 551 T-1: 0 768 T-0.5: 0 761 T-0: 0 1275 Strong first day, pretty strong second day, then settles into a downward slope before ramping back up... right around the T-9 date. Which is, sadly, right where Joker is. So even something like JW:FK can't be used as a comp. The only other films I tracked at even 21 days of pre-sales were Solo and KotM. Each of those presents... unique problems when it comes to pre-sale analysis, to put it mildly. Sadly, just gonna have to make the best of bad situations and adjust on the fly until the weekend. By then things should have normalized enough to be able to judge things better. But even then, Joker might, and I do stress might, have a stronger week of sales, simply because folks hadn't had the chance to remember to buy tickets yet.

Yes, I know. That's why I made disclaimers on the first day and an lol-disclaimer on that one. I don't have those days for DP2 (I only started tracking it a couple of weeks in). If I compared it to the second day of It 2, it'd be: 30.96m. ... There's reason why I ain't using that comp. (more later, have to take care of something)

I just checked on Fandango and came up with 59 tickets as well. Since it is only one theater, could be a blip/one of those things. Any individual theater could over or underperform on any given day, after all. Could also be that folks in that area of town aren't that interested in the flick. Be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of days, I agree.

Too soon to tell; ask again this Sat/Sun.

The problem with the comps is that, presumably, they're being done versus the entire pre-sale run of those movies to date. A movie that's been on sale for three days simply isn't going to be comparable to a movie that had pre-sales for weeks on end. That Joker is even pulling those sorts of numbers is pretty decent. Like, take Sacto last night: Joker sold twice as many tickets on its 9 days out than It 2 did. And that's because it was only the second day of sales for it, while It 2 already had 26 days of sales under its belt. The comp against DP2 tells a similar story: Here Joker sold around 20% more tickets than DP2 did on their respective 9 days out. And, again, that's because DP2 had already been on sale for 21 days. As we get closer to release, those movies will hit their own "ramp ups", of course, so Joker has to keep making up ground before next Monday hits. But I wouldn't draw too many conclusions on "great/terrible" until at least this Sunday. Such is the problem with a severely truncated pre-sale window.

Fixed. I was putting in my initial comp sheets from my drafting thread and hadn't caught all of the things I needed to change. Thanks for the heads up.

Better day out of Sacramento today. The spread across the theaters in the region was more in line with what I expect. Still not a patch on CoolEric258 out of Philly, but the It 2 and DP2 comps rose significantly, as one would expect. Not that it matters too much given the disparity in length of pre-sale windows but Joker also outsold the Day 2 of Fallen Kingdom, if only just (JW:FK Day 2 - 180 | Joker (adj) - 189). Still haven't seen enough data to draw large conclusions, but my hand is drifting away from the panic button for now.

Joker Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-9 days and counting Sellouts Showings Seats left Total Seats Seats Sold Perct Sold TOTALS 0 200 23571 24448 877 3.59% Total Showings Removed Today 1 Total Showings Added Today 7 Total Net Seats Added Today 649 Total Seats Sold Today 211 T-9 Comps (somewhat lol at this stage - don't take very seriously) % Sold T-9 Total Sold Sellouts/Shows Seats Left/Total Seats Perct Sold Comp It 2 67.25 102 1304 0/142 16219/17523 7.44% 7.06m PRE-SALES NOTE: It 2 had 36 days of pre-sales while joker had 11. T-9 Adjusted Comps (somewhat lol at this stage - don't take very seriously) % Sold T-9 Total Sold Sellouts/Shows Seats Left/Total Seats Perct Sold Comp DP2 26.97 154 3063 0/119 10404/13467 22.74% 5.02m Joker (adj) n/a 189 826 0/200 23133/23799 4.19% n/a PRE-SALES NOTE: Deadpool 2 had 30 days of pre-sales, while Joker had 11. ADJUSTMENT NOTE: Joker (adj) is the ticket data at the same theaters I had tracking info for Deadpool 2.

If you get the right type, you won't be able to hear their tut-tuts. 👍

*Googles* Wasn't actually sure if you were being sarcastic or not, so I quickly checked tonight's box score just to make sure.

Better in the urban areas, actually. Gets weaker the further one gets out from the city itself. Skewed slightly as the strongest theater in town is inside the city. I gots some thoughts on it, but I want to see some more data before comitting to some takes. But it could just be that Sacto itself isn't that hot to trot for the movie. Only one day though, so still holding off on that though.

I am such a rotten speller that I pretty much give most typos a pass. Especially on Twitter.

By rights I should put this in the US politics thread, but I'm putting here for the casual "LOL at State Media" angle: Just waiting for the patriotic music against a picture of a flag to start.