Legion Again

Okay, I’ve got to level — the reason I find your posts a bit tiresome is not that Avatar isn’t impressive, it’s that Avatar is too impressive. Watching a bunch of movies do “incredibly well” Worldwide but not come remotely close to a record just sucks so much excitement out of things that it’s more interesting to think about records for “the box office minus Avatar” than “the box office.” If something, anything, I don’t even care if it’s Avatar 2, can come even within 300M I will be incredibly grateful for the proof that Avatar’s record is a real number and not some mirage, fabricated solely to fool people into believing that an impossible number might be possible. So, best of luck, I really hope it does happen, but could you possibly post about this less than 50 times a day? Everyone already knows that nothing holds a candle to Avatar WW, there’s not actually that much more to be said about it.

Of top 10 openings, TLJ, IM3, and CW are also not events. They succeeded on the strength of a past event, rather than bringing something new(ish) to the table like TFA, JW, TA, BP, somewhat BatB, and, I’m hoping/guessing, IW.

Speaking strictly domestically there. Ultron opened solidly based on hype from Avengers 1, but had mixed-good reception and in the end just didn’t capture the interest of the broader US culture. It was a box office event, but not an event for America at large, and I think the multi and total demonstrate that pretty clearly. People might have different ideas about exactly why that was. In my opinion it was just too similar to Avengers 1 — same 6 main hero cast, adding 0 new sub-franchises, simply made it a reaction of “oh, this again” rather than “wow, I’ve never seen this before.” Some people thought the same might be true of Infinity War. “Oh, it’s this formula again, but for the third time now.” However, I think what we’re seeing is that by introducing 5 solo franchises never before in an avengers film (Ant-Man, Guardians, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange) and [redacted details about plot], IW successfully feels (to the GA) like a sufficiently new thing rather than just the third iteration of an old concept. Anyway, like I said, it’s early still. Until next Sunday I won’t be too confident in this thesis, since I’ve seen more convincing looking things that later turn out to have been held together by pure cherry-picking and confirmation bias

The best two comps we have are The Avengers and Black Panther, in that order. At least until some cold hard numbers come in to suggest otherwise, there is every indication that this belongs with the other two true event MCU movies and not the previous 16 non-event MCU movies. That said, it is indeed a sequel, and that also provides important information. If it does turn out to be the first sequel phenomenon, it will likely have legs between those of the non-phenomenon sequels (2.3-2.6ish) and the non-sequel phenomenons (3-3.4). Something like 2.75, if I had to pick a single number this early.

Just for kicks, GotG increased about 17% from 1 to 2, very near the mean 1 to 2 increase. If GOtG gets about a mean 2 to 3 increase that would be 47%, for a 573 DOM gross. Honestly depending on how A4 unfolds that seems totally possible at this stage, though realistically the fact that it is the highest raw second entry should mean a smaller % increase — maybe +20 to +35 for 470 to 525. Avengers looks real wacky with -26% and then +40% (estimate), but I don’t think it is a great comp for the smaller series.

47% increase from 1->2, 57% from 2->3. Iron Man franchise is -2% 1->2, +31% 2->3. Thor is +14% 1->2, +53% 2->3. Of solo trilogies Cap is literally the most consistent growth between all 3, whereas the it’s the other that experience way bigger jumps for the third entry. If the argument is “the more 3 increases vs 2, the more it means the third was an Avengers film,” then it really doesn’t hold up in the slightest. Put another way, just looking at First Avenger Numbers, Winter Soldier Numbers, and Numbers from other entries, we’d expect a third Captain America movie with just the Winter Soldier cast to have pulled about 400M, and Civil War not going much over that is proof that it wasn’t being treated like an Avengers entry.

I am enjoying it, but passing it adjusted would be nice. Passing figures without needing help from inflation is extra impressive to me.

In other words, IW-Thursday would have placed #2 straight up? Adjusted TFA in our sights? This weekend just gets better and better.

Wow, the triple 700 crown, when only Avatar and TFA has made it before? Really ballsy prediction.

Going to beat TFA’s true weekend by like 30M, adjusted by maybe 20M. That’s a solid 10% clobbering. Clear as day that TFA wasn’t operating near capacity for Fri/Sat/Sun, though it very likely was for Thursday.

“Based on the numbers I’m seeing, we can confidently say IW should be headed for a 55-75M Sunday.”

And this is with a domestic number of 688 from there (probably lowballed by about 300k), meaning OS at 645.1 (wow, BP OS total will be super close to IW WW Opening)! That wizard kid is toast.

1 sub-studio. 3 month period. 500M combined opening (using BP’s full holiday frame ). Near 1.5 Domestic gross. Over 3B WW.

MCU will hit a billion off of 1st and 2nd place while 2-8 are still below a billion combined. Seems decent.

Stagnation in Russia, you say? I have just the movie to help them out of their funk...

BP: 1.35 IW: 2 AM&tW: 650+ They’re going over 4B this year boys. The absolute madmen. I guess my new goalpost for them will be one full TA over 2017 gross.

This feels crazy to be typing, but honestly 2B looks harder to miss than hit at this point. Actual OS likely coming in above 380. +~20 from Russia and the OS-China opening is 400+. Gets to 1B on worse than 2.5 legs. Opening a bit over 250 domestically, gets to 600 with worse than 2.4. China with a good chance to come in a round 400. SW7 WW is incredibly on the table, as it Titanic (including rereleases!). Titanic would be a bit of a stretch even now though.

Cmon baby, gimme that R$200M total.

Casual 34% clobbering of the earlier record, eh? That would be like TFA Opening with 280 DOM

Just noticed this page has great taste in profile pictures. I should probably up my game.

If it comes in with 3.3 I’ll be pretty ecstatic, but my sense from Rth is we’re going higher than that. The other numbers were an excercise in finding a figure which was 100% unapproachable. By by the way, what anime is your current avatar from?

Seriously? IW over 250 was a super common prediction by optimistic fanboys (self included) here and on reddit.

I’m not going above 4.5M. No way, no how. If Rth tells me that got beat I’ll just pass out and come back when the weekend is over.

Nice. (Also shockingly plausible)

Oh no, it got a like. Was I not crazy enough? Seemed pretty flipping crazy to me, but I did start at 4 before I got chicken....