Weekend Estimates: War Room 9.35 | SOC 8.8 | Walk 8.25 | MI 7.15 | Transporter 7.13 | Escape 5.4 | Gallo 3.4

[TServo2049]

This past month has redefined how badly a movie can open in over 3,250 locations.

History of worst 3-day OW attendance in over 3,250 theaters (in adj. $):

May 12-14, 2000: Battlefield Earth, adj. $17.98m

April 8-10, 2005: Fever Pitch, adj. $16.23m

December 15-17, 2006: Charlotte's Web, adj. $14.68m

August 29-31, 2008: Babylon A.D., adj. $11.08m

September 2-4, 2011: Apollo 18, adj. $9.2m

August 21-23, 2015: Hitman: Agent 47, $8.33m

August 28-30, 2015: No Escape, $8.11m

September 4-6, 2015: The Transporter Refueled, est. $7.22m

Apollo 18's record for worst opening (gross or attendance) in over 3,250 locations stood for almost four years. It was broken three times in the span of three weeks.

And Transporter came close to the worst opening in over 3,200 locations, still held by Walking with Dinosaurs. (Though depending on WWD's share of child tickets, and Transporter's IMAX share, Transporter's admissions could well be lower. Despite being in 200 more locations.)

No movie playing in over 3,400 theaters has ever grossed lower than $10m. Transcendence held the record low at $10.89m (beating the previous record low gross of Charlotte's Web, and record low admissions of Cats and Dogs 2 - which sold fewer tickets than Charlotte but made more due to inflation). Transporter just shattered that - $7.22m in 3,434 locations. Ouch.

Edited September 7, 2015 by TServo2049

[grim22]

^The thing that makes me laugh is that Transporter basically prevented Jurassic World, Avengers 2 and basically any other movie from having a potentially very lucrative IMAX expansion over Labor Day.

[kayumanggi]

Year	Total Gross	Change	Days in Season	Avg.	Movies	Avg.	#1 Movie	Gross	% of Total
2013	$4,754.4	+10.7%	122	$39.0	427	$11.1	Iron Man 3	$408.9	8.6%
2015	$4,470.3	+10.0%	129	$34.7	405	$11.0	Jurassic World	$647.5	14.5%
2011	$4,401.4	+4.4%	122	$36.1	378	$11.6	Harry Potter / Deathly Hallows (P2)	$375.6	8.5%
2009	$4,326.0	+4.7%	129	$33.5	346	$12.5	Transformers 2	$400.6	9.3%
2012	$4,292.9	-2.5%	122	$35.2	410	$10.5	The Avengers	$620.3	14.5%
2010	$4,215.3	-2.6%	122	$34.6	348	$12.1	Toy Story 3	$408.9	9.7%
2007	$4,167.5	+11.1%	122	$34.2	384	$10.9	Spider-Man 3	$336.5	8.1%
2008	$4,131.3	-0.9%	122	$33.9	373	$11.1	The Dark Knight	$504.8	12.2%
2014	$4,065.5	-14.5%	122	$33.3	401	$10.1	Guardians of the Galaxy	$281.2	6.9%
2004	$3,885.1	+2.6%	122	$31.8	374	$10.4	Shrek 2	$438.5	11.3%
2003	$3,786.6	+2.7%	122	$31.0	373	$10.2	Finding Nemo	$332.7	8.8%
2006	$3,750.9	+6.2%	122	$30.7	369	$10.2	Dead Man's Chest	$414.0	11.0%
2002	$3,685.9	+10.5%	122	$30.2	299	$12.3	Spider-Man	$403.7	11.0%
2005	$3,531.2	-9.1%	122	$28.9	361	$9.8	Revenge of the Sith	$379.8	10.8%
2001	$3,335.6	+8.6%	122	$27.3	202	$16.5	Shrek	$262.9	7.9%

 

[CJohn]

^The thing that makes me laugh is that Transporter basically prevented Jurassic World, Avengers 2 and basically any other movie from having a potentially very lucrative IMAX expansion over Labor Day.

I am pretty sure Universal tried everything they could to get it and since they couldn't they went with the previous week instead.

[grim22]

I am pretty sure Universal tried everything they could to get it and since they couldn't they went with the previous week instead.

Possible, I'm guessing Transporter made less this week in IMAX even with the 4-day holiday weekend than JW made over a normal 3-day last weekend (or Fury Road will make next weekend). All around bad decision by IMAX and theaters.

[CJohn]

Possible, I'm guessing Transporter made less this week in IMAX even with the 4-day holiday weekend than JW made over a normal 3-day last weekend (or Fury Road will make next weekend). All around bad decision by IMAX and theaters.

Not sure about Mad Max next week but yeah, JW definitely made more last week in IMAX than Transporter did this week

[TServo2049]

This "must book a new wide-release movie in IMAX on every weekend possible" thing needs to stop. Transporter's OW IMAX admissions may well set a record low for a new wide studio release, worse than Mars Needs Moms; though MNM has a lower OW gross, no kid tickets + 4 years of inflation could mean Transporter sold fewer IMAX tickets. (And earlier this year, Seventh Son may have also had a worse IMAX opening than MNM; remember those tweets of completely empty showings?)

[John Marston]

What studio released Transporter? Guess they have a contract with them

[terrestrial]

Dammit. 

I want at least 100M there for MI5.

 

They can thank the horrible August. The only real competition was MI5 and SOC, and I would say the target audience of the 3 is a bit different so it helped the legs of them all. 

 

MI5 has a bit / some common audience with AM, see AM lost some momentum as MI5 got released (2 weeks after AM), but then F4 being no competition for both (MI5 as F4 I guess has other audience it aimed for and also the few common audience with e.g. AM was probably more than disappointed) 3 / 1 weeks into their runs and than one week later again ( 4 / 2 weeks into their runs) SOC with probably too not so many common audience (not excluding them, but SOC seems to be a very much other genre...)

 

If you look at those visualisations / graphs and move the mouse over day 10 - day 14, than day ~ 19 to 22... and look for the change of angles of said graph per movie and compare it to the release days it might be more clear what I mean

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Ant-Man/Captain-America/Fantastic-Four-%282015%29/Mission-Impossible-Rogue-Nation

I added CA 1 as that was, what a lot here expected at the beginning of AMs run and MI5s run to be similar to AM/MI5 to a degree

Edited September 7, 2015 by terrestrial

[grim22]

This "must book a new wide-release movie in IMAX on every weekend possible" thing needs to stop. Transporter's OW IMAX admissions may well set a record low for a new wide studio release, worse than Mars Needs Moms; though MNM has a lower OW gross, no kid tickets + 4 years of inflation could mean Transporter sold fewer IMAX tickets. (And earlier this year, Seventh Son may have also had a worse IMAX opening than MNM; remember those tweets of completely empty showings?)

Seventh Son shared IMAX screenings with Jupiter Ascending, together they may have done more than the worst ever record.

[CJohn]

What studio released Transporter? Guess they have a contract with them

They booked the IMAX release just a few weeks ago because there were no new movies in IMAX between UNCLE (which isn't exactly the type of movie that does well in IMAX) and Everest.

 

This "must book a new wide-release movie in IMAX on every weekend possible" thing needs to stop. Transporter's OW IMAX admissions may well set a record low for a new wide studio release, worse than Mars Needs Moms; though MNM has a lower OW gross, no kid tickets + 4 years of inflation could mean Transporter sold fewer IMAX tickets. (And earlier this year, Seventh Son may have also had a worse IMAX opening than MNM; remember those tweets of completely empty showings?)

But at least OS, Seventh Son did very well in IMAX (in Portugal it had a few packed shows on his OW). 

[CJohn]

Seventh Son shared IMAX screenings with Jupiter Ascending, together they may have done more than the worst ever record.

Jupiter Ascending did incredibly well in IMAX over here. Tons of sold out shows in the 2 weeks it had in the format. It is the type of movie it does very well in the format. Kingsman got IMAX after it and while it had a bigger OW (and a bigger total of tickets sold) over here his first IMAX week was far below the second IMAX week of JA. I would say JA probably performed well in IMAX in America as well.

Edited September 7, 2015 by CJohn

[TServo2049]

Theater owners should be able to turn down a new IMAX release in favor of a holdover, or at least be able to split showtimes. And if there is audience demand for 2D IMAX showings, they should be able to meet that as well. If I were a theater manager, I'd want to (for example) keep Jurassic World playing, even if not every showtime, as long as it was selling tickets.

Speaking of IMAX, I remember something I can't find documentation of - I saw Team America in an IMAX auditorium back in 2004. Was it an IMAX blowup? I can't find anything online mentioning Team America having played in IMAX. Did my theater just run regular 35mm in the IMAX theater because nothing else was available in IMAX that weekend? I'm not going crazy, am I?

EDIT: OK, apparently it did play in IMAX in some theaters, but the only info online is someone who had a list of all the IMAX engagements at the Lincoln Square 13 in NYC. Weird that BOM has never documented that it played IMAX.

...and to add further insult to injury with Transporter, BOM doesn't list it on their list of IMAX feature releases either! Yes, I am guessing that's probably a Keith-era oversight, but it's hilarious to pretend that even BOM cares so little about this movie that they don't know it's playing in IMAX.

Edited September 7, 2015 by TServo2049

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

A really good weekend for A Walk in the Woods. Looks pretty mediocre but they picked a good weekend to release it.

[Maxmoser3]

War Room is doing quite well so far for it's low budget I wonder if it can get close to 50 million by the end of it's run. Compton is still doing decent it should earn at least close to 165 million domestic by the end of it's run. Not too bad start for Walk In The Woods way better than I expected it should maybe hold up ok in the following weekdays but should probably see some not too great drops in the weekends to come so it could earn between 25-30 million domestic. MI5 is still doing solid both stateside and overseas it could still enough gas to get close to 200 million but with Maze Runner 2 coming next week (which also has IMAX screens) as well as Everest could hurt it. Horrendous but expected for Transporter:Refueled which will probably crash and burn before the month is over and fall short of 20 million domestic. Excellent holds for Inside Out which expanded to over 2,000 screens for the Labor Day and could get close to 360 million since 400 is out of play right now,Ant-Man is still doing solid numbers 180 is in play for sure at this point, and Minions is still shining possibly a domestic total between 335-340 domestic is reachable at this point.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Maxmoser3

[babz06]

This late July/Early August release date is brilliant for legs

Bodes well for Suicide Squad, that's probably going to be the last hurrah for summer 2016. 

[CJohn]

Bodes well for Suicide Squad, that's probably going to be the last hurrah for summer 2016. 

Paramount is super dumb if they don't move TMNT2 to August. I guess Pete's Dragon will do solid business and will have long legs into September.

[DAJK]

The fact that our theatre got Mr. Holmes this weekend (and that I just saw it) has made this weekend a whole lot more bearable.

[Olive]

The MI5 midnight gross in China is less than half of Genisys. But hopefully it picks up since it was a Tuesday as opposed to Saturday.

 

 

Dammit. 

I want at least 100M there for MI5.

 

They can thank the horrible August. The only real competition was MI5 and SOC, and I would say the target audience of the 3 is a bit different so it helped the legs of them all. 

It will destroy T5 easily.

 

2D movies don't have big midnights here.

MI5 midnights about 3.5x MI4.

MI4 made more than 100M..

[Kvikk Lunsj]

The box office has been so boring lately save Compton. It won't get better until Maze Runner and Black Mass open.