Relevation

Revisiting this post, turns out I was actually a tad bearish on how high comps would be hitting T-7. Pulling the T-7 comps from @Hilts, @Porthos, and @TheFlatLannister, TS:ERAS is coasting around $30-40M FRI as of right now. I’m gonna pull up that lower end to $35M since most T-0 comps have it getting pretty close there, and since comps can’t go down with T-0 I find it very unlikely it’ll fall that low. T-8 to T-7 pace wasn’t very good and unless some serious pace reversal takes place, scenario 4 is very unlikely. TE stabilized against the GOTG3 Orlando comp and the OK Barbie(EA) comps today which is good, but Sacto is still falling and MTC-1 pace is anemic. Saturday sales are also just not great compared to FRI and that could be attributed to lack of demand rather than any other factors since capacity is no longer a problem. I still think the casual Tay walkups later in the week will start coming at some point and the initial volume was sooooooooo high that under $100M feels very unlikely to me. However, $200M+ is totally not happening and Barbie seems like a tough ask. The stabilization in Orlando and OK combined with the general small pickup in sales over the last week is putting me closer to saying Scenario 2 is the likely outcome here, where comps just hold up at $35-40M FRI. However, Saturday being so anemic means it won’t get close to those really high IM estimates I threw out for it. Wagering a 3.25-3.5x range here off $35-40M for FRI, I’ll wager a guess as of now for $120-135M for the weekend.

$200M probably not happening but I still think the casual Tay fans could order their tickets late (due to no refunds) and fuel it to a bigger opening than Barbie $140-170M feels like the range to me

Bro I am not an oracle lmao ($300M TS opening weekend ring any bells?) I just pay attention to the sales in this really great tracking forum and make judgments based on those sales, I can have right and wrong predictions

$15M is obviously excessive given the data we have, but I can’t get the Barbie comparison out of my head. That started off similarly strongly to FNAF and just kept increasing against comps in the face of initial capacity issues. There was a level off eventually but comps got so high that it didn’t matter. Obviously I’m not saying FNAF will open to $150M+ but honestly, I don’t think saying 12.5/100 is that unreasonable of an assertion.

It’s currently outpacing Halloween Ends and Scream VI’s first days combined and comps across the board are pointing to previews in the $8-11M range

Dang it’s less than half of the biggest day one presales for any movie in history If it’s close enough to where that comparison even needs to be made then I think its very likely that the sales will point to a $100M+ debut regardless of how close they are to TET

I think this will do really well. The Renaissance Tour did $300M of business in NA compared to The Eras Tour’s $600M+, so it won’t get that high obviously. But, doing half of a $150M+ opener is still some serious business, and this will have an even higher ATP. Reserving judgment until I see actual sales but for now I’m feeling around a $65-95M DOM OW

Years? UFC already does live streamed fights in theaters all the time, next February looks so dire that I could genuinely see theaters striking a deal to get a one night live-stream of the Super Bowl filmed for IMAX and formatted for PLFs.

Beyonce in Final Talks to Release ‘Renaissance’ Concert Film Through AMC Theatres Following Taylor Swift Deal (EXCLUSIVE)

Great FRI analysis - wanted to explore a bit more on what the potential IM could be here, however. The Eras Tour doesn’t have THURS previews and is only running off half of FRI with a full SAT and SUN. So, if we’re assuming Friday plays like a normal movie’s Thursday, and Saturday and Sunday play like a normal movie’s Saturday and Sunday… Then the logical conclusion to get an IM guesstimate is to take the preview to weekend ratios of other big movies and simply get rid of Friday by itself. A Thursday to THURS+SAT+SUN ratio if you will. Pulling out FRI from the weekend totals for some big movies gets me the following IMs Avengers: Endgame - 4.32x Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - 3.19x Spider-Man: No Way Home - 3.76x Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - 3.69x Thor: Love and Thunder - 3.57x Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - 4.46x Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - 4.41x Barbie - 5.01x Oppenheimer - 5.70x Looking at this range, I think the numbers for Barbie and Oppenheimer are clearly too high to be useful, whereas the mid-October release rather than being buoyed by the Christmas and Summer weekdays makes me skeptical of those TROS and Thor 4 numbers. In my opinion, these numbers point to a likely multiple somewhere in the ballpark of 3.8x to 4x off TET’s FRI number. Soooooo if it’s doing $40-45M for FRI, then I’d probably set the range right now for TET’s opening weekend of around $150-180M barring a huge surge in comps late game.

Comps even with their precipitous decline over the last weeks have still held north of $40M and it’s bound to finally get some new sales traction at some point, be it from Taylor finally promoting it or the more casual Taylor fans waiting to buy tickets due to the inherent risks of the no refund policy. I think at least something like $40M FRI to $160M OW is still far more likely than not to be exceeded at the present moment with the data we have.

Avoiding getting too analytical here considering this is pure speculation, but Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour cleared $295M in sales for the US leg. The Eras Tour is projected to finish in the ballpark of $600M. Sooooooo one could realistically say a Beyonce movie would do half, something something $85-120M OW

Moral of the story: Haunted Mansion bad comp for horror movies

Uh OK It’s just my opinion lol, I don’t have a high degree of investment as to whether you agree with it or not

Did you do a full track for Nope? Where was it at for T-24?

Isn’t that like… REALLY good for Killers of the Flower Moon? Outpacing Nope on Day 1 is fantastic given that Nope was pulling $6.4M for previews and Killers will obviously have a much better internal multiplier. Maybe this actually can hit over $50M..

Tickets are now up for Killers of the Flower Moon, 9PM EST drop

Aquaman making more than the first worldwide is less likely than Aquaman 2 coming under the century mark domestically and under The Flash WW

Gonna explore the question of where TS:Eras comps could end at in this post. It’s been on a slow decline in comps every day for the last few weeks and the current T-# comps (with a 1.45x adjustment to calculate for ATP) have it at $45-54M FRI at @Porthos’s market and $60M FRI at @TheFlatLannister’s market. The bleeding appears to have been stopped in Orlando with comps stabilizing while Sacramento continues to slowly slide. Looking at these, I think heading into T-7 we can expect a roughly 3% rate of daily decline every day assuming Taylor doesn’t start some massive promo push. That’s 16 days of straight daily declines of 3% which would result in erosion of 40% by the time we get to T-7. So I predict we’ll be sitting around like $27-37M at T-7. From there it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens with that final week. Are there huge walkups as more casual fans buy their tickets? Does Taylor begin promoting it leading to higher awareness? Do comps just collapse? I do not think comps will collapse since there are still a huge contingent of casual Taylor fans who aren’t gonna buy the tickets at jump but still want to go, but it really depends as to how strong the late game sales are. I think there are 4 potential scenarios. SCENARIO #1 - COMPS CONTINUE SLIDING FURTHER For curiosity’s sake, let’s say comps just continue sliding further at their slow descent. In this scenario, comps continue sliding at the 3% rate of decline which would probably end comps at $22-30M for FRI. That off a 4.5-5x IM for Friday would probably yield a $110-135M opening weekend. SCENARIO #2 - COMPS HOLD STEADY In this outcome, let’s say that the walkups for The Eras Tour are just as straightforward as a normal MCU blockbuster and ergo, comps remain steady. If comps hold up around $27-37M for FRI then a 4.5-5x IM from Friday would result in an opening weekend for The Eras Tour of about $135-167M. SCENARIO #3 - COMPS SEE SOME GROWTH Now let’s explore the scenario in which the walkups for the Eras Tour do come in moderately strong force. The more casual fans decide to start buying their tickets late, the hype for the concert movie hits more of a pitch, and it can manage some moderate 5% daily growth heading into T-0. This would result in a strong 40% gain over that last week and bring comps back up to $38-52M for FRI. A 4.5-5x IM off that would get this to a massive $190-234M opening weekend. SCENARIO #4 - COMPS SURGE WITH INSANE WALKUPS And finally, let’s explore the optimistic scenario where Taylor Swift decides to put her full marketing force towards this concert movie. The casual fans come out in full force to buy tickets in the final week, the anticipation spikes, and the comps surge with 7.5% daily growth in the final week. That would send comps soaring 67% in the last week to a $45-62M FRI. And that gargantuan total off a 4.5x to 5x IM would send this to a $225-280M opening weekend. In conclusion, I don’t think we can definitively rule out any of those scenarios from occurring when this movie reaches its final week because it depends on a myriad of X factors that we simply don’t know yet. However, I think I’ve explored the 4 potential paths this could take in that last week to hopefully get a sense of what this could do as that Oct 13 release looms.

This is the bottom of the U curve Wait until actual promotion starts up

Meg 2 doesn’t have toxic brand association and got a huge international assist from Wu Jing, especially in China. Meg 2 had a pretty bad domestic drop from its predecessor that I expect to also occur with Aquaman, but unlike Meg 2 I expect Aquaman to careen down hard internationally as well.

$375M WW is assuming like Black Adam tier critical reception and a B/B+ CinemaScore If it’s actually well received then maybe it could swing to $500M

I totally agree The Marvels will make $700-800M WW I don’t see why it’d go down below $400M

Aquaman making a billion dollars is about as likely as Trolls Band Together making a billion dollars

The trailer for this had literally zero new appeal that would bring people who weren’t already on board for this. It looks like an extremely normal DCEU movie (and not really a good one) which I don’t think is bringing people on board anymore. Like even the first Aquaman came out after every previous DCEU movie went over $600M WW. People still cared about the brand in 2018 and the striking underwater action was seen as new and exciting in 2018. Now in 2023, the DCEU is coming off 7 straight audience and financial flops that ripped apart the core audience for this franchise and broke the floor lower than any DCEU movie could’ve done in 2018. The underwater action doesn’t have that kind of new appeal anymore now that it’s been done multiple times (and sometimes better) in other movies (re: Avatar 2, Wakanda Forever, The Little Mermaid). I feel like the people who would’ve been into this in 2018 just won’t be anymore because the DCEU has broken all audience trust and this isn’t moving the needle. ‘Dumb fun’ just won’t cut it anymore given how the last 4 DCEU movies all tried that exact strategy to brutally diminishing returns. And also, it’s gonna tank like 75% in China at least. And finally to boot, the buzz is awful with insiders calling it one of the worst superhero movies ever. And yes I know this didn’t pan out with the Flash, but test screenings often bring in fanboys and people who are excited to watch a new movie before everyone else. If a movie is testing poorly here, then that’s a very bad sign and in my opinion, this is a very bad sign for Aquaman. The trailer also just does not abate my concerns that the movie is in fact, really bad. $375M feels like the natural extent the DCEU brand can pull a movie at this point without some “knock your socks off X factor” to bring people back in and I do not think Aquaman has that anymore.