Star Wars Tuesday - 37.3M (Tele/baumer bet for Wednesday drop is on page 24...much to learn one of them still has)

[Rthmessiah]

21 minutes ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

 

Sorry for the blunt obviousness, but it just goes to show how meaningless all of this is. Why should Friday even be counted as a weekend day? It certainly isn't one. Yet for the purposes of counting box-office, at some point it was determined that it should be included, and so it was. Movies didn't used to have midnight shows (the same day as release only as a technicality), and then at some point it was determined that they should be included, and so it was. Now we have preview shows that start on Thursday evening, and it's been decided that they'll be included, and so they are.

 

Everything else is just nitpicking, and for what real purpose? The only thing all this indicates is how release patterns are changing.

To your point what the industry decides making sense or not lol.. what constitutes a normal weekend  figure was decided globally decades ago to be the day films normally open in a territory through Sunday, like France that opens films normally on Wed so the weekend BO is Wed-Sun even though clearly Wed-Fri aren't actually weekend, but then not all countries celebrate a weekend as being Sat/Sun (Some Fri only or Fri/sat, but  their weekend BO will still be from normal OD thru Sunday). China which can open films any day of the week because of that its an exception has Weekend fri-sun (Sat/Sun if opens Sat  )

[4815162342]

5 extra hours.

 

I did it right, right?

Edited December 23, 2015 by Dr 3va2an

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

4 minutes ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

 

Again, all I can offer are the numbers I collected from my general area. For what it's worth, the Star Wars marathons had more sellouts than the others, but even then they only had 4 total. 

 

So the interest was there, they just didn't have the supply to meet the demand so the sales were obviously way less and had less of an impact on the total preview numbers. 

 

Still makes little sense that those organizing these marathons would not see the benefit to their pocketbooks by adding more showings or at least as many as AOU. That's if the demand was there and I would think it would be. You're basically telling me that they made 248m on OW and left money on the table. 

 

[Blankments]

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

 

Discuss

[spizzer]

39 minutes ago, ecstasy said:

If TFA made $20 million in previews nobody would even be discussing whether or not they should be counted with Friday. This has been going on for years now and all of a sudden its a problem.

 

Just using this as a springboard.

 

FWIW, I think its irrelevant what studios want to report.  For the sake of analysis, splitting up previews/Friday makes sense.  I can't speak for anyone else, but that's how I view the grosses.  For me the Friday record is OD minus previews (whether they're Thursday 7PM, 10PM, or midnight).  Same standard for them all whether its TFA or TDK.  Its day 0 gross.  

 

If studios want to report it all as one day for headlines, its their prerogative.  As long as they provide the preview/Friday split, it shouldn't matter, and they've all done a fairly good job about it (because previews/midnights are just another record to add to the headlines).  Anyway, as Rth said, while other markets do count previews as a separate day, they end up including them in weekend gross anyway.  Its all fine as long as there's an appropriate degree of transparency.

 

@Baumer Fett: It's not technically correct to say that with no previews, all that audience would simply shift over to Friday anyway.  The truth is we don't know precisely what each individual would do.  What should be determinable though, is that the preview audience will still come see the movie, and the distribution of that audience over the run would be greatest on Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday, and so on and so forth.  

 

1 hour ago, doublejack said:

 

Strictly speaking you are not correct. I'm all in favor of taking the preview numbers out of the "real" / true Friday numbers. TFA is a perfect example as to why it makes sense. You can claim that everyone who went on Thursday would have gone on Friday, but the reality is that it is physically impossible. There were not enough screens to satisfy that level of demand in one day. The capacity does not exist at this time for one movie to haul in over $100M in a day. We've seen a few times now, starting with Avengers, what a maximum day and weekend look like. What TFA did was, more or less, what JW did just with a bigger preview, the same way JW was a minor bump over what TA did. If we measure what a film can really make in a weekend, and we mean all sellouts (or as many as reasonable) the max is about $210M in a weekend.

 

I'm not a fan at all of how previews are counted. It was one thing when they were limited to midnights, but at this juncture we need a new way to track them. Counting that as Friday money is misrepresenting reality. What's going to happen when movies start "previewing" on Mondays and Tuesdays. You know that's going to happen eventually.

 

No this is wrong.  The capacity absolutely exists.  210M is nowhere near the max for a non-preview weekend that's ridiculous.  TFA just had 198K shows over the weekend (minus previews).  $10 average price for OW x 198K shows x 150 seats per theater (low) is 297M, and 150 is probably below the average number of seats (we've seen films sell higher).  We just got 190M this weekend and it was not even close to 90% sold out.  Heck me and Tele tracked over 1000 Thursday preview shows in LA Metro + DC Metro and combined we were a little over 50% sold out and that was the most heavy business period (we also did Friday and were running at a sub 20% sellout rate for ~2100 shows).  

 

We've gotten nowhere near capacity, even feasible capacity.  In fact TFA is only 5th best all time ITO non-preview opening weekend attendance.  Heck SM3 with current 3D/IMAX/PLF splits would adjust to over 210M for the Fri-Sun period.  

[Tau Ceti]

5 minutes ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

 

It doesn't really bother me, I just get surprised when people decide to arbitrarily parse the data to fit some defined system when it's all really nebulous to begin with. Mojo doesn't do the reporting, the studios give out the numbers. The studios get to call Friday part of a weekend. They decide to call May a summer month. They decide to allow Thursday night previews to be considered part of Friday's gross.

 

In this particular case, it seems odd to single Star Wars out because since it had shows round the clock, a solid chunk of them would've technically been within Friday (since they would've come after midnight). On the other hand, maybe some of the super-late Friday sho bws should've been called Saturday.

 

If you want to fight that fight, go ahead, I suppose. But the rest of the box-office world will basically just play the studio's game because at the end of the day, that's all we have.

 

Of course Mojo does reporting. They're a secondary source to the primary numbers. They can and do parse numbers a whole bunch of ways. But I agree they have no need or desire to reinvent what they get handed to them when it comes to openings so if the studios want to redefine a "single day" then it gets redefined. I just find it annoying and I'll leave it there.

[spizzer]

5 minutes ago, Blan Solo said:

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

 

Discuss

 

62M Friday

77.5M Saturday (+25%)

62M Sunday (-20%)

 

201.5M 2nd weekend.

 

45-50M 2nd Monday.  Gone with the Wind here we come.

Edited December 23, 2015 by spizzer

[Biggestgeekever]

5 minutes ago, Blan Solo said:

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

 

Discuss

I think the BOT servers' days would be numbered.

[B J]

 

Quote

 

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

What?, that's a dumb Q, 120m+ guarantees avatars fall, 200m+ would send the film into 1.5b+ talks aka potentially doubling avatar.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

5 minutes ago, Blan Solo said:

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

 

Discuss

 

Nahhh. I don't think they are looking at things fourth dimensionally. 200m would actually represent an increase from fri-sun without Thu previews. That's pretty doubtful.  

[Dementeleus]

7 minutes ago, DarthArachnid!™ said:

 

So the interest was there, they just didn't have the supply to meet the demand ...

 

What? No, demand didn't really warrant more shows, especially when you consider it meant either extending or bringing on more staff to start work at 1am (on Wednesday (early Thursday morning) when the marathons began. 

[XXR & Friends]

7 minutes ago, Blan Solo said:

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice  17m17 minutes ago

The big question is: Can STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hit $200M+ in its 2nd weekend? If so, AVATAR's days are numbered...

 

 

Discuss

Hello everyone! This is my first comment ever in the forum. I've always been interested in BO stuff but never signed up, just observed. Glad to be here. 

Ok I can do this....

I say a $200m plus second weekend is 100% impossible. One thing this film will run into quicker than most December releases is the law of large numbers. Due to this I don't think it will hold like most do. The number of eyes available who want to see it will be filled faster than say an Avatar or ROTK. That being said, I do think it's going to best Avatar's domestic total, I just don't think it's going to keep up these enormous holds much longer (I'm not a hater I promise! This is my 2nd favorite SW movie and #1 movie of the year!!). I'm pegging the 2nd weekend at $133 million  

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

6 minutes ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

 

What? No, demand didn't really warrant more shows, especially when you consider it meant either extending or bringing on more staff to start work at 1am (on Wednesday (early Thursday morning) when the marathons began. 

 

Didn't they have to do these very things to accommodate the other franchises you mentioned?

[POTUS 2020]

9 minutes ago, spizzer said:

 

62M Friday

77.5M Saturday (+25%)

62M Sunday (-20%)

 

201.5M 2nd weekend.

 

45-50M 2nd Monday.  Gone with the Wind here we come.

Was I in the bathroom when the Crack pipe was passed around? Where/why did this come from?

[Orestes]

Yeah, a 200m 2nd weekend is impossible and about as crazy as a 300m OW. I just want it to make enough to have 2 weekends in the top 10.

[spizzer]

9 minutes ago, B J said:

 

What?, that's a dumb Q, 120m+ guarantees avatars fall, 200m+ would send the film into 1.5b+ talks aka potentially doubling avatar.

 

LOL didn't even notice that remark.  WTH are they thinking

[spizzer]

1 minute ago, No Prisoners said:

Was I in the bathroom when the Crack pipe was passed around? Where/why did this come from?

 

Sarcasm bro.

[spizzer]

ERC's good for giving us official numbers early.  That's about it.

 

Whatever happened to Mason?  And SBD?

[ecstasy]

Rth still waiting for the West Coast to call it a night. A few late sell outs still in So Cal. 38-39m?

[Ajipon]

28 minutes ago, Blan Solo said:

It must've dropped because MARY SUE MARY SUE MARY SUE

 

If Rey was a male, it would've increased 200%

On a more serious note, I suspect that East Asia will not perform well due to Finn. There is a reason why they minimize Finn in the Chinese poster. 

Digression: The English speaking culture get scrutinized much more because English is such a universal language and everyone can see what English speaking people think in the Internet, but no one criticizes the Chinese for being racist, or for Arab speaking media not caring about Kenya more than Paris.