Ryan C

For those wondering, I'm starting to see showtimes pop up for Weapons. Don't know when tickets will officially be on sale... but this is telling me that we won't have to wait much longer. P.S. Showtimes apparently start as early as 2:17 PM.

No, but as amazing as it was that Sinners became an original success story... that doesn't suddenly mean that every single original film coming out will be successful. I don't agree with calling general audiences "braindead idiots," but I totally get maintaining pessimism or expecting the worst out of an original until you are proven otherwise.

Eddington T-2 Thursday: 1,673 Seats Sold (13.19% Increase From Last Time) (From 14 Theaters) Comps: Materialists - $1.02M Taken as of 8:20 PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: A weak increase... but not entirely unexpected. Also, another thing I didn't mention in yesterday's update was that reviews have been out for a while and they are... decent (currently 68% on Rotten Tomatoes), but definitely not strong enough to move the needle on pre-sales in a significant way. The sole comp I using for this is Materialists (another A24 film that crazy over-indexed in AMC Lincoln Square 13), but I expect it to continue to decrease against it over these next two days. Between having better reviews and being a lot more mainstream, that film had significant advantages that Eddington won't have. There is still a chance it does $1M in previews, but something in the low $900K range looks more likely. Despite today not being that good, I hope it can at least recover from here.

I Know What You Did Last Summer T-2 Thursday: 1,250 Seats Sold (24% Increase From Last Time) (From 15 Theaters) Comps: M3GAN 2.0 - $1.6M 28 Years Later - $2M Smile 2 - $2.13M Final Destination: Bloodlines - $2.93M = $2.17M Taken as of 7:30 PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: A surprisingly good day for this one. Though not by much, it slightly increased against all the other horror sequel comps and makes the chances of a $2M Thursday more possible. However, tomorrow and Thursday need to perform well because most of the other horror sequel comps I'm using for this (outside of M3GAN 2.0) had very strong finishes. Unless reviews are amazing... I highly doubt walk-up business will be on the levels of something like Final Destination: Bloodlines, but I am definitely encouraged by how it performed today. Hopefully, reviews are at least halfway decent when the embargo lifts supposedly tomorrow.

Man, next week is going to be simultaneously exciting and nerve-racking.

Freakier Friday T-23 and T-24 Wednesday, August 6 - Fan First Screenings: 267 Seats Sold (From 4 Theaters) Thursday, August 7 - Regular Thursday Previews: 166 Seats Sold (From 15 Theaters) = 433 Seats Sold Taken as of 9:20 PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: Didn't get around to tracking this a few days ago... but I'm making up for it now. I thought I would do with this one like what I'm currently doing with The Bad Guys 2 and just wait until the release week to start tracking (because I'm expecting both of these to be late bloomers), but I ultimately decided against it. However, sales are definitely nothing to go crazy about right now. The only thing that's odd to me is that not many theaters (at least the ones I'm tracking) are doing the "Fan First Screenings." Maybe more will start to add showtimes for it as we get closer to the release week, but it's certainly odd that some theaters are showing it and some aren't. Anyways, given the target audience for this movie, it's probably not going to pick up until the final days leading up to release. Though on paper, this should look to be a slam dunk because it's a sequel to a film that has become very popular/nostalgic (2000s nostalgia is also big right now) and it's one of the few movies this summer that is actually geared towards women. For that demographic, this could be a genuine event... though maybe not to the extent of something like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (another nostalgic comedy legacy sequel). Things could go south for it if reception is terrible or we end up overestimating the popularity of 2003's Freaky Friday, but I see more things working for it than against it at this point. As much as Hollywood will continue to forget that women will go out to the theater if you give them something they want to see... I hope this becomes a success story.

If it makes you feel any better... it could be people who want to see the movie because of how bad it looks. Like, they know it's going to be a trainwreck, but they have to see it for themselves.

Eddington T-3 Thursday: 1,478 Seats Sold (From 14 Theaters) Comps: Materialists - $1.08M Taken as of 8:05 PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: This is going to be an interesting one. In the theaters I usually track, it's selling very well (AMC Lincoln Square makes up about half of the total seats sold right now), but that's to be expected given that this is an Ari Aster film and those usually over-index like crazy in NYC or LA. Plus, Aster has managed to grown a fanbase... so seeing this sell as many seats as it has already isn't 100% surprising. However, I'm firmly expecting a pretty front-loaded performance here. Aster's movies are known to not be crowdpleasers and his fans are probably all going to show up this upcoming weekend. Combine those factors with there just being a lot of competition out there for general audiences and more on the way (F4, Weapons, Naked Gun, Freakier Friday, etc.) this is probably going to drop relatively quick after this weekend. Regardless, it should at least have a solid debut weekend going by sales right now and we could be looking at a Thursday preview number in the low $1M range. It could go lower depending on how front-loaded it is or if there's any kind of walk-up business in markets where this is not expected to over-index, but we'll see how this paces from here on out. Unless it craters, it should open higher than Aster's last film, Beau is Afraid ($2.6M).

I Know What You Did Last Summer T-3 Thursday: 1,008 Seats Sold (150.12% Increase From Last Time) (From 15 Theaters) Comps: M3GAN 2.0 - $1.47M 28 Years Later - $1.89M Smile 2 - $2.07M Final Destination: Bloodlines - $2.9M = $2.08M IMPORTANT NOTES: Still maintaining doubts about this breaking out... but things are now pointing to more respectable and less worrying numbers. I think we can ignore the Final Destination: Bloodlines comp because there's no way it's reaching close to $3M in previews, but the other comps point to what should be both the worst case scenario (~$1.5M) and best case scenario (~$2M) for Thursday. Honestly, as long as it paces better, reviews aren't disastrous, and has better walk-up business than M3GAN 2.0, it should avoid the worst case scenario... but we're probably still looking at a $15M opening at best for this movie. We'll see how it continues to do these next few days, but it has a lot of work to do if it wants to show any signs of a potential breakout.

I was talking about in general. Of course, an early review embargo is not happening for Fantastic Four and like you said, it doesn't necessarily need it because of how sales are right now... but I was just talking about how despite what happened with Thunderbolts, Marvel shouldn't avoid having a early embargo for social reactions/reviews for future movies (though definitely ones that don't have major spoilers).

I'm not going to dwell on this too much because this is the F4 thread, but just because Thunderbolts didn't pay off with releasing the social reaction embargo earlier doesn't mean that Marvel should never try that again (or even having a slightly earlier review embargo). That's not the reason why that movie didn't pay off financially. I understand wanting to play things safe and it ultimately doesn't matter if the movie ends up becoming a success, but if they are truly confident in a movie and know it will be well-received... why not have an embargo (whether it's social reactions or actual reviews) be lifted earlier? If Fantastic Four is well-received, that wouldn't be a death sentence.

It is silly, but Nolan has a fanbase that would definitely buy tickets that early in advance (especially if they are for IMAX 70MM).

Same, I have one theater that's listing The Odyssey... but I know it's going to sell out as soon as possible. After one day, it's not going to be worth tracking until more showtimes/more theaters list the movie.

I know Universal usually has longer pre-sales for their movies... but WHAT! Is filming even going to be done by the time those 70MM IMAX tickets go on sale? This is nuts!