Nate

Incredibles 2 had pretty average legs initially, but actually legged out quite strong in the back half of its run. If it hits a 90m 2nd weekend, I'm expecting Barbie will be able to mostly keep pace (maybe even outpace) before dropping off ever so slightly towards the end of its run. I2 and SMB comps here, with a few others thrown in for fun: https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Barbie-(2023)/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-The-(2022)/Dark-Knight-The/Lion-King-The-(Live-Action)-(2019)/Beauty-and-the-Beast-(2017)/Incredibles-2#tab=day_by_day_comparison Of course, this all changes if Barbie's 2nd weekend goes over 100. We'll definitely know much more after this weekend. Re. between SMB and I2 being a narrow range, I don't think 575-610 is that narrow? I generally try to predict final grosses within a 20-25ish range.

Assuming a ~90m 2nd weekend and 30-45% drops from here on out, I'm going with a range of 575-600m for Barbie. Think it'll land right between Mario and Incredibles 2. Now, if we see 100m+ 2nd weekend... oh boy, Incredibles 2 (and the Avengers) are in big trouble.

This would make for a fun one: OPPIE VS JOKER. They'll obviously have completely different daily patterns because summer/non-summer, but close enough OW (Joker+14m), and a 335m finish - it'll be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Yeah, Harry Potter is just there because it’s represents a likely “worst-case scenario” for Barbie (and has a very similar release date and opening weekend). It would be extremely unlikely for Barbie to go below HP2 as it would take a 2.45 multi. BUT it is a nice visual for the lower limit of Barbie’s potential gross.

Agree completely, I just added Mario for fun / because it will be interesting to see how close Barbie can get. Not a good day-day comp, but a fun one to track since Barbie will almost definitely land in the #2 spot for 2023, behind Mario. Now we just gotta see how close to Mario it can get. Also it’s a nice visual for the upper limit of Barbie’s potential total: Barbie would need 3.7ish multi to take out Mario- which is not impossible, but very unlikely - and so it does make for a nice upper limit.

I don’t agree with 3x multi being a worst-case scenario, especially when you open to almost 200 million on opening weekend. But that’s fine, we don’t have to agree. I just don’t think any studio is seeing 3x multi off 191 million as a “worst case scenario”, even for a 4-quad family movie in summer. Now Lightyear on the other hand… that’s what I’d call “horrific” 😬

No horse in this race, I thought TLK was pretty bad. But I don’t see 2.84x legs as “horrific”, so we can agree to disagree on that. Certainly would have done much better if it actually was a good movie, maybe closer to incredibles 2 (people seemed to enjoy it but I thought was pretty average) which also opened huge but ended with a 3.33 multi.

I wouldn’t call a 2.84 multiplier “horrific”- but it’s certainly not great, which speaks to the fact that the movie itself/WOM was pretty bad, and also to the fact that there was pretty immense upfront hype for it, which inflated the OW.

These could be a fun few movies to track Barbie against. Gives a good min/max final range of 380-580. Pretty unrealistic that it hits the top or bottom of that range, but at least it’s a good comparison point. And tbh, right in the middle of that range at 480 does feel pretty solid as a guess right now. That’s essentially a 3x multiplier, assuming actuals come up slightly. The dark knight: late July release, almost identical opening weekend, strong legs (3.34) The dark knight rises: late July release, almost identical opening weekend, average-decent legs (2.8) The lion king: late July release, +30ish opening, average-decent legs (2.84) Deathly hallows part 2: late July release, +10 opening, weak legs (2.24) Mario: 2023 champ, comparing more for fun/ to establish the upper bounds. Non-summer release, very strong legs (3.94) https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Barbie-(2023)/Dark-Knight-The/Dark-Knight-Rises-The/Harry-Potter-and-the-Deathly-Hallows-Part-II/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-The-(2022)/Lion-King-The-(Live-Action)-(2019)#tab=week_comparison

2.63 would be right in the range I see it, too. I've also updated the tracker (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1weA0j-34xNAfweltuvwcsCFHe_TJ9-vHWYqS3TNANqw/edit?usp=sharing ) to include all Rotten Tomatoes critic score/averages and audience score/averages - so it's easier to compare titles whilst also including that data point, to your point earlier. Hopefully it's helpful! Interesting to look back at all the scores - it's pretty obvious which films were review bombed.

So your prediction is based on RT score being strong? Definitely possible / understandable, and it could do similarly to something like The Batman and have a strong -50% drop and a 2.8 multiplier - it's just outside of the norm by a decent margin (especially that 2nd weekend drop). Right now, I feel more comfortable with it finishing 2.5-2.7, as opposed to something over that. What would your closest comps be, in terms of how you expect this to perform moving forward? Maybe The Batman (2.8), GOTG1 (3.5) , Captain Marvel (2.8), Shang-Chi (3.0), Deadpool (2.8) or Spider-Man Homecoming (2.9)?

Agree... when looking at ALL past SH movies 2017 to now, and disregarding midweek & Christmas openers, the multiplier range is solidly 1.9-3.0. I'm intentionally ignoring 2020 releases + outliers Wonder Woman (4.0), Joker (3.5), and Black Panther (3.5) - since it's unreasonable to expect GOTG3 to perform like any of those. In the upper bounds of that 1.9-3.0 range, between 2.7-3.0, you only have Shang Chi (3.0), The Batman (2.8), Captain Marvel (2.8), Ant-Man2 (2.9), Thor 3 (2.9), and GOTG2 (2.7). This has to be the limit of what is doable for GOTG3, and still higher than the 2.5 average for a SH film (that's between 2014 and now, it's lower just looking post-covid). As far as 2nd weekend drops for those films, you're looking at Shang-Chi (-54%), The Batman (-50%), Captain Marvel (-56%), Ant-Man 2 (-62%), Thor 3 (-54%), and GOTG2 (-56%). Seeing as none of these could manage a sub 50% drop, I don't see the argument for it, especially being that these are high-end comps. Even sub 55% has only been done a handful of time outside the holiday period. Going to say that the 56% 2nd weekend drop and 2.7 multiplier for GOTG2 would be a great place to finish. GOTG3 has a better reception, for sure, but that may be balanced out by the fact that multipliers for SH films have generally dropped post-covid. We're looking at just 2.38 for all 2021 - 2023 SH films, and that's including No Way Home over Christmas, compared to 2.68 for 2014-2019 (excluding midweek (Far From Home at 4.2) and Christmas (Aquaman at 4.9) releases. What am I missing here? Would genuinely love the reasoned, data-influenced argument for an above 2.7 multiplier. BTW: I've created a tracker for all of these figures, you can see it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1weA0j-34xNAfweltuvwcsCFHe_TJ9-vHWYqS3TNANqw/edit?usp=sharing

Please keep this matrix going from here on out, it's such a useful way to see the ranges. Love.

Yes- and I wouldn’t necessarily say GA appeal will be soft overall, just soft compared to these early presale signals we’re getting. Strong Thursday night, strong Friday, but looking for a pattern that more closely follows MCU/ fan driven movies than a GA family film.

Not to temper things, because there’s obviously a huge group of people very excited for this film, and it feels almost guaranteed to improve on the 190m of the first film, but the conversation around this film is feeling extremely MCU/fan-driven right now, and these very strong initial presales feel like they’re speaking for that audience. It still feels inherently more niche because of the style, potentially limiting how much bigger it can go, especially in a crowded month. Can’t quite put a number to the final number yet, but feels like it starts with a 2

Seeing as it should land between 95-100, this might be one of those situations where the studio is committed to pushing it over 100 to save face somewhat, assuming next week doesn’t chop it’s legs right off to the point where that isn’t a possibility anymore, which is entirely plausible.

You'd need to see it having 30% holds weekly here on out, and 600million is a lock. 35% weekly drops from here, and it'll fall just short. (I think *technically*, if my math is mathing right, 33% or worse and it misses. Let's say 35% to be safe though.) That's tough, it would require Mario to hold better than it has so far. Not impossible, but it still feels more probably that it goes just under. That being said, if Mario nabs a number with a 4 in front of this weekend, it shows Mario is doing what it needs to do.

I do wonder how much of an impact PLF screens will have on a movie like Mario this late in its run. I agree GOTG3 as family competition will have some impact. But loss of PLF specifically? Not sure it plays as much of a role for a movie like this in its 5th week, assuming # of showings stays strong.

Mario stays neck and neck with beauty and the beast weekdays this week, but the much stronger weekends have pushed it way ahead of that comp. Against incredibles 2, it’ll be about 25 million behind going into the weekend. The next two weeks (full weeks, not weekend) are going to be mario’s big chance to gain ground back, since incredibles suffered 2 pretty big back to back weekly drops - from a 82mil third week to a 44mil 4th week (-46%), down to a 26mil 5th week (-41%). Mario should best both of those weeks handily and will look really good against this comp before incredibles’ relatively strong late legs kick in (for weeks6-12 incredibles 2 doesn’t drop any harder than 37%). Needs to make back as much of that 25mil deficit as it can over these next 2 weeks to have a chance at keeping pace / keeping the 600mil dream alive.

Huge props

Assuming 'regular good' holds (30s %) after the next 2 weeks, and barring any 'crazy good' holds (sub 20%) late in the run, 41 next weekend + 29 the one after (29% drops) would be the minimum needed to flirt with 600+ imo.

Right where I’m seeing it too. Would need to either hold even stronger (20ish drops) or start dropping a bit harder (40ish drops) to get out of the 580ish range.

Assuming 58mil, which is a great number, and guesstimating weekly drops in the 32-37% ish range for the rest of its run, Mario ends around 585 million. Does it have enough gas to push to 600million? It would only need a couple mid-20% weekly drops in the next 2/3 weeks to get there. Not impossible at all.

Mario's been following Beauty and the Beast very closely for 10 days in a row - it's remained 30ish million ahead due to the bigger 5 day opening + holiday Monday. Looking like we'll continue to see slightly higher weekdays for Beauty and higher weekends for Mario, maybe cancelling each other out or allowing Mario to gain a little more on Beauty thanks to the bigger weekends more than making up the lower weekdays. Still feels like a super solid comp, leads to a 550-570ish final.

Incredibles 2 is going to really expand its lead with summer weekdays, so you can expect that 10m lead to only increase with each M-T. That’s on top of very solid weekends, so I have a hard time seeing Mario do anything but continue to lose ground on it. BATB will be a good one to watch, I think we’re still looking at a final total close to it, assuming BATB claws back 10-20m over this weekend. We’ll know a lot more after this weekend- IMO Mario needs ~80 to keep 550 dream alive.