Ryan C

Joker: Folie à Deux T-0 Thursday: 8,275 Seats Sold (13.9% Increase From Last Time) From 16 Theaters Taken as of 3:15PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: Ok, I think walk-ups for the rest of today will be fine. Once again, this ended up having a stronger bump from last night than I expected. Over 1,000 seats (1,011 to be exact) were sold between when I tracked last night and just as soon as the first preview showings started. Just to throw out my prediction, I'd go with a Thursday Preview number of $7M-$7.5M ($8M-$8.5M including Fan Event showings) and a overall final weekend number of between $50M-$55M. Nothing special as that's what tracking is projecting the film will be, but that sounds about right and I don't want to go overboard/be more disappointed at what's already looking like to be a pretty disappointing opening. Still, I hope for the best that this movie can do just a bit better (I'll be legitmately happy if it can get to $60M) than these current projections and doesn't venture into The Marvels territory. I'll be waiting until the weekend is officially over to see how this did. In the meantime, I'll happily stay away from the insufferable/tiring discourse that's gonna unfurl once we start to see domestic numbers for this movie.

Joker: Folie à Deux T-1 Thursday: 7,264 Seats Sold (12% Increase From Last Time) From 16 Theaters Taken as of 11:05PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: Another decent 10%+ increase from yesterday. Though nothing major, this does bode well for tomorrow (which I'll track just before the first preview screenings start). I'm not expecting any huge bump, but I would love to be surprised. Also, I have noticed that pre-sales are selling slightly better on Friday. That's probably due to this releasing in the Fall, but it at least makes the chances of this hitting $50M or $55M more likely. In that case, the Thursday-to-Sunday multiplier (though I'm sure will be highly frontloaded) shouldn't be worse than The Flash's Thursday-to-Sunday multipler last summer (5.675x) Just for comparison, here's the other comic-book movies released during October and their Thursday-Sunday multipliers. Venom: $10M x 8.025 (IM) = $80.255M Joker: $13.3M x 7.233 (IM) = $96.202M Venom: Let There Be Carnage: $11.6M x 7.761 (IM) = $90.033M Black Adam: $7.6M x 8.817 (IM) = $67.004M Unfortunately, all of these films either had better reviews (Joker), had more family appeal (Black Adam), or much more walk-up business than expected (Venom 1 and 2). It would be pretty lucky for Joker: Folie à Deux to reach even the first film's 7.233x Thursday-to-Sunday multipler Maybe we'll know more tomorrow, but I'll just say that if at least this scores $7M in Thursday previews (with no EA showings boosting numbers), a weekend over $50M (and with stronger Friday sales) will most likely occur. Anything less, then we're gonna be in The Marvels territory. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Venom: The Last Dance T-22 Thursday: 1,433 Seats Sold (From 16 Theaters) Taken as of 1:20AM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: This also includes the "Opening Night Fan Events" which would equal 503 seats sold right now. It's good that the actual traditional 2D, 3D, and PLF showtimes have outsold those Fan Event screenings, but that's mainly due to this getting quite a number of showtimes per theater. Still, unlike Deadpool and Wolverine or Joker: Folie à Deux (which did sell more than Venom on its first day of pre-sales), I'm expecting walk-up business to take this film over the finish line. If that happens, then we shouldn't be hitting the panic button just yet. This franchise has proven to be very general-audience friendly and I remember Venom: Let There Be Carnage not having that strong of pre-sales until the weekend it opened. As I've already said, I don't think this is doing $100M, but if the movie is just good enough for audiences, it should open pretty close to the range of the first Venom ($80M). We'll see, but I'm not worried about this one not doing well. Even if it does have the lowest opening of the Venom franchise, Sony is billing this as the last one. Also remember that the budget is closer to $100M than $200M. They don't exactly have to make $500M worldwide to be a hit.

Joker: Folie à Deux T-2 Thursday: 6,481 Seats Sold (17.1% Increase From Last Time) From 16 Theaters Taken as of 11:10PM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: Was going to originally wait untill Wednesday to see how this was doing, but I thought it would be better to track this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (just before previews start) so I could get a better look at how it's pacing in the final week of pre-sales. Though this isn't amazing, I'm actually surprised at the jump this had from yesterday. I didn't think it would be over 10%, but it is and if it keeps pacing like this for the next two days, then maybe we'll be a preview number in the $7M range. Hopefully more (including EA screenings) Still, that's barely more than half of the $13.3M that the first Joker earned in previews back in 2019 and word-of-mouth definitely isn't going to do this movie any favors. We'll see how it does tomorrow and on Thursday, but I'd predict a preview number (at best) between The Marvels' $6.6M and The Flash's $9.7M.

The walk-ups will determine if it gets that high, but I genuinely feel like we're only going to be setting ourselves up for disappointment if we expect Venom: The Last Dance to just automatically open with $100M. I'll track the movie in a few hours, but I'd still expect an opening between $70M-$80M.

I'll never forget when Sony projected a stupidly conservative $40M opening for Venom: Let There Be Carnage and it just absolutely blew up to get to $90M. That's the kind of stuff I always hope for when it comes to box office numbers. When you think it's going to open to a certain number, but then it blows past tracking by like $10M-$20M. That's amazing! Anyways, though Let There Be Carnage did have a lot more advantages than The Last Dance will, I still think it'll be fine. I'd be shocked if this doesn't end up being a walk-up movie as even I know that pre-sales for Let There Be Carnage weren't that great when they went on sale. I'm worried that the poor reputation that Sony's Spider-Man Universe has with stuff like Morbius and Madame Web (both came out after Let There Be Carnage) will prevent people from seeing this one, but Venom has shown to be a completely different beast all together, so maybe audiences won't care. I'm not buying the $100M+ projections, but I'd expect somewhere between $70M and the first film's $80M. Maybe it'll surprise, but I'm not seeing this be a massive breakout like Let There Be Carnage.

Smile 2 T-16 Thursday: 429 Seats Sold (From 13 Theaters) Taken as of 12:15AM Eastern Time IMPORTANT NOTES: I've long thought that this sequel will be a big breakout, so I hope this one picks up some steam in the next few weeks. As of now though, this isn't looking too bad for the first day of pre-sales. I would expect this one to be a lot more walk-up heavy as I don't think the fanbase for the first Smile would be the one to buy tickets as soon as they go on sale. We'll see, but I have confidence that this is going to be a solid hit.

Sorry for not providing any "IMPORTANT NOTES" earlier, but while I was counting up the number of seats sold, I was rushing to finish because I was on the way to actually see Joker: Folie à Deux at the Fan Event showing. Didn't have any time to write anything else other than the numbers because I had to get to the theater. Anyways, judging by the numbers I was tracking today, it was a substantial increase from last time (and before more showtimes will be added tomorrow), but it's still not nearly enough to convince me that this movie isn't going to have a disappointing opening. Below $40M seems insane based on the numbers I'm seeing, but clearly something is up in the markets for it to get that low. Maybe it will be saved by walk-up business, but even that is unlikely given the nature of this film (it's probably not gonna get the general audiences who didn't ask for a Joker sequel) and the fact that word-of-mouth is most likely gonna be negative (or mixed at best) on it. I'll track the film again on Wednesday and Thursday (hopefully) to see if anything improves, but we should not be expecting that high of an opening. I'll predict somewhere in the range of The Flash ($55M) for now, but things could always get worse or better depending on its pace these next few days. Lastly, and this might sound dumb, but after I track the film on Thursday, I'm gonna be staying off both the pre-sale thread and the eventual weekend thread at least until Tuesday. Not only that, but I'm not even going to bother looking at the opening numbers for Joker 2 at least until the weekend is over. I'm sorry, but with how much doom-and-gloom has gone around these threads about this movie and it having a bad opening weekend (though I can't deny if it does), I'm genuinely tired of it and I don't want to engage in conversations that never end in a good place. I did the same thing with The Flash and The Marvels last year (I didn't see the opening numbers for a few days so I could avoid all the discourse). Don't know why superhero/comic-book movies that are the worst offender of this, but they really are. In the end, I'm really hoping this movie beats expectations and that we won't be sitting here talking about how it opened lower than The Wild Robot. In a year that's seen the box office try to climb back, we can't have an opening for a movie like this be this bad. P.S. Sorry again for going on a little rant, but I had to let that out somewhere.

Joker Folie à Deux T-3 and T-0 Monday, September 30 - Fan Event Showings: 1,755 Seats Sold (3.6% Increase From Last Time) Thursday, October 3 - Traditional Thursday Previews: 5,532 Seats Sold (37.8% Increase From Last Time) = 7,287 Seats Sold (27.7% Increase From Last Time) Taken as of 6:30PM Eastern Time More on this tonight!

I know the film isn't representive of most MCU flicks, but I do believe that if the movie itself is genuinely good (regardless of it being a cameo fest or not), people will show up. When people enjoy a Marvel movie, they really enjoy it, so I think audiences are far more inclined to see it once they've heard it's good. Also (hot take), I think most people who wanted to see Deadpool and Wolverine wanted to see it because of Reynolds and Jackman as these characters and see them together onscreen, not necessarily because of the cameos that were in the movie or hinted/shown in the marketing. Don't want to start a debate, but Deadpool and Wolverine's massive (though obvious) success really does boil down to seeing two of the most popular X-Men/Marvel characters with two actors who have perfectly defined those characters on screen together in a movie. The fact that it was a "big event cameo fest" was just an extra cherry on top for people who were already hyped to see the movie (which was a lot).

I think that 3x multiplier for Deadpool and Wolverine shows more than anything else that if an MCU movie is genuinely good and crowdpleasing, the audiences who aren't the fans will show up. You don't get to $630M+ domestically without getting a bunch of people who aren't die-hard MCU or comic-book fans.

Because it's a genuinely good movie that didn't deserve to be flat-out rejected by audiences.

I think the Saturday bump was slightly lower for The Bad Guys because there were still some schools on Spring Break during that time. Regardless, a 49% Saturday bump for The Wild Robot is still very good and indicative of strong word-of-mouth. I was hoping for more as well, but getting to $38M or especially $40M off an opening day that was less than $10M (if you back out previews) would've been really hard to do.

I know it's impossible to predict, but do you guys think a $50K+ PTA for Saturday Night bodes well for when it opens wide in two weeks? At first, I was getting Dumb Money vibes from this movie. They were both released by Sony, first premiered at film festivals, and had the same exact release strategy. That one opened to $220,947 in 8 theaters for a $27,618 PTA, but only ended up grossing $13.9M domestically. I thought Saturday Night was doomed to do the same thing, but this strong PTA for its opening in only 5 theaters does make me slightly more optimistic that it can make a respectable amount.