Old Spice

Thanks, @Porthos. I wondered if perhaps I was too PLF heavy as BA was doing gangbuster business in Dolby and IMAX and every theater I surveyed except for Sugarhouse had those premium screens. Given the results, I think I will go back to counting Utah but maybe see if I can add one more theater that isn't as spiffy and new as the three that I have, because your point about the best theaters in a given area always doing well is one that I hadn't considered.

So... I did this thing, just for grins, and it must be totally insane because my number doesn't remotely mesh with anybody else's, but I decided to do one comp for BA and do it across 23 theaters nationwide. The comp is Halloween Ends. Fan driven, review proof (at least on preview night), and a franchise with lots of ups and downs over the years. The theaters I chose were as follows: Boston- AMC Boston Common 19 and South Bay Center 12, NYC- AMC Empire 25 and 34th Street 14 Newark- AMC New Park 12 and Dine-in Sunnyvale 8, Tampa- AMC Veteran's 24 and Regency 20, Orlando- AMC Altamonte Mall 18, Indianapolis- AMC Indianapolis 17 and Castleton Square 14, Chicago- AMC Village Crossing 18, Dallas- AMC NorthPark 15 and Village on the Parkway 9, Phoenix- AMC Westgate 20 and Deer Valley 17, Salt Lake Valley- Cinemark Sugarhouse, Draper XD, and Farmington XD, Anaheim- AMC Orange 30, Riverside- AMC Tyler Galleria 16 and Dine-in Ontario Mills 30, and Seattle- AMC Alderwood Mall 16. The counts: Boston- Black Adam 665, Halloween 193 NYC- Black Adam 1570, Halloween 550 Newark- Black Adam 742, Halloween 214 Tampa- Black Adam 1184, Halloween 447 Orlando- Black Adam 556, Halloween 261 Indianapolis- Black Adam 880, Halloween 425 Chicago- Black Adam 348, Halloween 220 Dallas- Black Adam 922, Halloween 375 Phoenix- Black Adam 573, Halloween 331 Salt Lake Valley- Black Adam 331, Halloween 216 Anaheim- Black Adam 884, Halloween 560 Riverside- Black Adam 1400, Halloween 879 Seattle- Black Adam 542, Halloween 142 Total: Black Adam 10,591, Halloween 4805 220% of Halloween preview = $11.9 Now, I would love to see that happen, but the realist in me says that's unlikely, so my question for the gurus is, where did I go astray? I fried my eyeballs doing all these hand counts, when it turns out my little sample of three theaters in the SL Valley would have actually led to a result much closer to the consensus. Thoughts?

The London premiere is Tuesday so figure during or after that.

Halloween Ends preview night report for the Salt Lake Valley, counted 2:30 PM MST. Cinemark SLC Sugarhouse, Cinemark Draper XD, and Cinemark Farmington XD. Sugarhouse- 64 Draper- 63 Farmington- 89 Total tix sold-216 71.7% of NOPE = $4.59M 227% of Smile = 4.45 213% of Black Phone (Sugarhouse only) = 6.83 Salt Lake Valley for this is actually trailing DWD, but the showings I've been looking at on the AMC website for the East Coast and South were all indicating a 25-30% rise over yesterday and that was several hours ago so it seems to be having a good final sprint elsewhere. I'll go with 5.5/44.

Never has a brief snippet of film that the public hasn't yet seen been talked about so much, lol. Gotta admit though, I'm hyped.

I'm probably a little higher, say 65-70/ 75-80, but expecting a crowdpleaser so high 80's/low 90's audience.

Yeah, no guarantees. L&T remains the most disappointing movie of the year for me. Not the worst, but the one with the biggest disconnect between what I was expecting and what I actually got. Marvel looks to end the year really strong though with BP, and I think Adam is going to deliver as well.

Boom!

Black Adam NYC premiere is next Wednesday the *12th*, so social media reactions are sure to follow right after that.

Now Deadline is saying that BA is tracking for $65-70M. Movie is strongest with "males under/over 25" (uh, why not just say males?), women under 25, Latinos, and families. So splitting the current ranges, we have BOT at $62, THR at $72, and Deadline at $68.

Oooof. $80M? That's shocking. I never would have guessed from the trailer that it cost that much. Lots of star power for sure, but still, that's brutal.

Salt Lake Valley preview night report for Smile and Bros. Sugarhouse Cinemark (SLC), Cinemark XD Draper, Cinemark XD Farmington. Smile (nine showings) Sugarhouse 30 Draper 22 Farmington 45 Total tix sold 97 Comps: Halloween Kills (Sugarhouse) .337 = $1.62M Black Phone (Sugarhouse) 100% = 3.2M NOPE (all three theaters) .322 = 2.06M Bros (seven showings) Sugarhouse 42 Draper ZERO Farmington 1 Total tix sold 43 Comps: Lost City (Sugarhouse) .45 = $1.48M Elvis (Sugarhouse) .44 = 1.55M Smile has been a slow but steady performer and is looking equally strong over all three theaters. With good reviews and WOM, and the @Krissykins seal of approval, I'm expecting this to continue to build over the weekend and wind up somewhere in the $18-20M range. Call it $1.8/19, because why not $19 again? Bros is a tale of two worlds. It's having a mini-breakout, at least relative to its wobbly start, in liberal Salt Lake, but is D.O.A. in the more conservative suburbs. Don't really have any good rom-com comparisons, and I don't have any comps with this wide a demographic divide. So I'm not even going to hazard a prediction. But I'd be shocked if Bros makes it to double digits.

Same in mine.

Private screenings, perhaps?

Usually advance tix here go on sale at 8:00 AM local, so about 4 minutes from now. I assume it will be then, or possibly one hour later. But I haven't seen any formal announcement. Update: well, it wasn't 8:00. Hopefully, an hour from now.

I was thinking that Halloween Ends was going to be something of an 'event,' but after three hours of sales at the Cinemark Sugarhouse in SLC, only two tickets out of 436 available have been sold for preview night. Maybe the day and date release and poor reception to Kills have really taken the wind out of its sails. Others: Bros (two screenings) -9 tix sold Smile (two screenings)- 7 tix sold Amsterdam (one screening)- 1 ticket sold

Super Pets goes to streaming and is up 45% from last Monday? Was yesterday a school holiday?

Was talking with a friend yesterday who saw this with her mom and they both loved it. Going to try and catch it this week.

I think that from Halloween Ends on the 14th through the rest of the year, the box office starts to feel 'normal' again. HE, Adam, Ticket, Wakanda, Strange World, Glass Onion (for a few lucky folks theatrically), Fablemans, Babylon (limited), Avatar, Puss... that's a lot of diverse and potentially high-quality product. Combine that with some intriguing specialty fare like Banshees (can't wait for that one) and She Said, and I think we have the makings of a really good final quarter. Just no more variants from Hell, please!!

I find this fascinating. Confess, Fletch pulls in $25,000 from 242 locations in its 8th day of release, which brings its grand total to $439K. $439K. What happened here?? Known IP, popular lead, strong reviews (85% RT)... and it doesn't even have a pulse. Is this a day and date on Paramount? It feels even more of an afterthought than See How They Run, which is another film I would have thought well positioned to make some cash in a largely empty marketplace. Strange times.

There was a lot of handwringing when BA vacated its July 29 slot, and in retrospect, that would have been a great date for it given the desolation of late summer, but this one is very favorable too. It almost has what Batman had in March in terms of a PLF monopoly. (As I recall, The Bat had 4 weeks).

Yikes. Start Worrying, Darling.

Preview showings for Black Adam starting to show up in the Salt Lake Valley. 17 screenings at the West Jordan Cinemark 24 XD, which is right in line with where TGM, Dominion, and Thor were.

Well, after all the sordid BTS drama, I finally saw the movie, and ya know what? I thought it was pretty damn entertaining. Pugh is incandescent, Styles is fine (even his screaming didn't bother me @ThomasNicole 😂), and the production values are top notch. I can't see Pugh and Sound Design not being nominated for this come Oscar time. The script's internal logic doesn't always hold up, and I would liked to have seen Pine's character more fleshed out (he's excellent in what little screen time he has), but overall, I was pleasantly surprised. 3 sizzling slices of bacon out of 4.

Nice Awareness bump for Adam, from 47% to 50% at 28 days out. With the marketing blitz about to crank into high gear, this should comfortably reach 55-60% by the time previews get here. Aquaman-level or better reviews, which is what I'm expecting, get this into the upper end of BOP's range, IMO. And I'm not sure that even bad reviews- DWD, for example- would hamper it that much OW.