Weekend Thread | Estimates SS 43.7m, SP 33.6m, PD 21.5, JCIJB 13.6m, BM 11.45m, SLOP 8.8m, STD 6.8m, FFJ 6.58m

[MikeQ]

3 minutes ago, Fromthegrave said:

There's two certainties in life, death and taxes.

 

There also seem to be some certainties with the box office:

 

- most films are getting more frontloaded.

- as time goes on, larger grosses become easier to achieve due to inflation and added gimmicks further inflating ticket prices

- as time goes on, the collective intelligence of some box office forums seems to get dumber, with dominant viewpoints becoming increasingly biased

 

This legs discussion is useless with no context. You can have a film open to a tiny 10M OW and then finish with 100M resulting in monstrous legs. That would make the legs incredible. The TOTAL GROSS though would be very ordinary. In most cases, as the OW of a film increases, legs typically decrease as more demand is used up front during the OW. In rare occasions, we get truly spectacular box office runs with BIG OW numbers, *and* excellent legs. Most films perform at the box office with an average OW, and average legs, or a very small OW, and good legs. So if a film opens with a huge OW, but has weak legs, yet finishes with a large total gross, then the overall box office performance of such a film is still objectively decent. Not great, and not horrible.

 

Then you also have to consider the demographics of a film, and the details of a film. Is a film a 4 quadrant film, or does it have limited demographics? That plays a huge impact in terms of context, and analyzing the box office gross of a film. For example, for a film like Civil War, "Audiences were 59 percent male and mostly adults. Teens made up only 11 percent of the audience." http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2016/05/08/captain-america-civil-war-nabs-fifth-best-opening-ever.html. So according to these stats, Civil War was not even a 4 quadrant film. Which makes its OW impressive, and its legs weak, but the overall total gross still great. Now however, Civil War had a large number of A-list and B-list Marvel characters together in one film (combined with some C-list characters as well) which increased its appeal. So objectively the legs were weak, but the overall box office performance was still good.

 

Now we look at Suicide Squad, which had 54% male vs. 46% female, and 54% of the audience was under the age of 25 and 76% of the audience was under the age of 35. So this is also not a true 4 quadrant film either. However the difference between this and Civil War is the appeal is narrower. Suicide Squad has mostly characters that have never been seen in a live action film before. It has only one true A-list character in the film with Joker, who only plays a small role (and two A-list characters in Batman and Flash who make small and tiny cameos). The only B list character is Harley arguably, and the rest are C-list and Z-list characters. So overall total appeal, when also looking at the marketing, was between Guardians of the Galaxy and a film like Civil War. Well guess what, Suicide Squad had an OW number pretty much between Guardians and Civil War.

 

Now there is one last thing to consider, the universal (or not) appeal of a film. Comic book films, or superhero films appeal only to a certain percentage of the entire movie going public. The entire movie going public itself is only a certain percentage of a total population. In *very* rare cases, like The Avengers or The Dark Knight, does a comic book film push past its typical appeal, and ends up appealing to most of the movie going public.

 

So having a 4 quadrant film or not is one thing. Whether or not it is a 4 quadrant appealing to only a small sub-section of the movie going public, or almost all of the movie-going public makes a big difference as well.

 

So given all these factors, Suicide Squad had a great OW, and WOM seems below-average to average. How the legs end up, we don't know exactly. However Suicide Squad looks very likely to finish with a great overall box office total, given it's fairly narrow appeal to the overall movie-going public. Then there are the (apparently good) soundtrack sales, and the crazy amount of merchandising tie-ins WB did for the film. WB performed almost a Disney-level amount of merchandising tie-ins. Also given that the film seems to be more appealing to, and more well-liked by females, any female-related merchandising is likely to sell well. So overall financially this film will do well for WB. Overall WOM is not toxic, the legs objectively will end up anywhere from bad to below-average. The legs are not, and will not be horrible.

 

 

I think this is an excellent breakdown, even if one doesn't agree with all of the details. I have attempted in the past to fight against the simplistic narrative of "bad legs = bad WOM and good legs = good WOM", when in all likelihood there are a multitude of factors that shape legs and the extent to which a film is frontloaded or backloaded. I appreciate this attempt to break it down, and I think the factors you mention are important to keep in mind. 

 

I find it problematic when conversations in weekend threads turn into a back and forth of "it's doing terrible" vs. "it's doing great", and are devoid of more careful analyses. We aren't all ever going to agree on all of the details, because analyzing box office and understanding a given films' box office run are messy exercises, but we can engage in good, non-confrontational conversations that help us all be better prognosticators/analysts/etc.

 

Peace,

Mike

[Brainiac5]

45 minutes ago, Blaze Heatnix said:

So, let's be pessimistic!!! I have that side too, yes.

 

Domestic numbers for SS before this weekend: 179.1 million.

 

So, I'll be pessimistic and make brutal predictions for the next 7 weekends for this movie. Sometimes we have to go way down! After weekend 8, movie stops playing!

 

 

Weekend 2: 40 million ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 3: 12 million ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 4: 3.6 million ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 5: 1.1 million ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 6: 120.000 ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 7: 36.000 ( 70% drop )

 

Weekend 8: 11.800 ( 70% drop )

 

Let's also imagine that this movie will only have more 24 weekdays ( only including Monday to Thursday, considering that the weekends are covered above my predictions ). Let's imagine the movie only makes 19 million in 24 weekdays left ( not counting weekends ).

 

So, we would have 40 + 12 + 3.6 + 1.1 + 120.000 + 36.000 + 11.800 = 56.867.800 million.    Now let's add 56.867.800 and 19 million. We would have 75.867.800 million.

 

 

So, SS final domestic numbers would be 179.1 million + 75.8 million = 254.9 million.  So, basically 255 million.

 

 

Sure, there's a chance I'm being dramatic and maybe this movie might drop even more. Or it could drop less and surprise all of us!

???? The jokes are coming ?

[Nova]

I'm sorry I'm not buying this whole legs nonsense thing. OW have been larger now than ever before because of front loading yes but also because of ticket inflation, 3D and IMAX. Some films have no 3D and no IMAX. Some films open in 4,000+ theaters while others don't. A movie that opens to $10M and makes $100M had fantastic WOM and really stretched out its run. Odds are that film also didn't have IMAX, 3D or 4,000+ theaters in it either compared to the film that opened to $100M and made let's say $205M for its run. Of course the latter made more. It doesn't take a genius to see that. It also doesn't take a genius to see that the film with the $10M OW had better legs. 

 

I will use two examples to show how this doesn't work. Bad Moms is having a fantastic run on its way to $110M domestic off of a $23M OW. It had no 3D and no IMAX. Now take a film like let's say Jason Bourne. It opened to $60M and had a large theater count. It's going to gross a little over $150M maybe. Would we seriously say that Bourne had the better box office run? 

 

A lot of times we adjust for inflation or we look at how many tickets a film actually sold. Maybe that's what we should do in North America now. Include the admissions number as well as how much money a film has made. Because then there will be no excuses. Either a film passed a certain number of admissions or it didn't. 

 

It just amazes what lengths people will go to in order to justify the legs the films in the DCEU are having. I wasn't here for other films but I'd never try to justify legs of my favorite films by trying to degrade box office runs in general. That's just ridiculous. 

Edited August 14, 2016 by Nova

[Fromthegrave]

2 minutes ago, MikeQ said:

 

I think this is an excellent breakdown, even if one doesn't agree with all of the details. I have attempted in the past to fight against the simplistic narrative of "bad legs = bad WOM and good legs = good WOM", when in all likelihood there are a multitude of factors that shape legs and the extent to which a film is frontloaded or backloaded. I appreciate this attempt to break it down, and I think the factors you mention are important to keep in mind. 

 

I find it problematic when conversations in weekend threads turn into a back and forth of "it's doing terrible" vs. "it's doing great", and are devoid of more careful analyses. We aren't all ever going to agree on all of the details, because analyzing box office and understanding a given films' box office run are messy exercises, but we can engage in good, non-confrontational conversations that help us all be better prognosticators/analysts/etc.

 

Peace,

Mike

 

Thank you. Your post is very respectful, and quite a rarity on these forums.

[Fromthegrave]

4 minutes ago, Nova said:

I'm sorry I'm not buying this whole legs nonsense thing. OW have been larger now than ever before because of front loading yes but also because of ticket inflation, 3D and IMAX. Some films have no 3D and no IMAX. Some films open in 4,000+ theaters while others don't. A movie that opens to $10M and makes $100M had fantastic WOM and really stretched out its run. Odds are that film also didn't have IMAX, 3D or 4,000+ theaters in it either compared to the film that opened to $100M and made let's say $205M for its run. Of course the latter made more. It doesn't take a genius to see that. It also doesn't take a genius to see that the film with the $10M OW had better legs. 

 

It just amazes what lengths people will go to in order to justify the legs the films in the DCEU are having. I wasn't here for other films but I'd never try to justify legs of my favorite films by trying to degrade box office runs in general. That's just ridiculous. 

 

You don't get it do you. Bad legs for these DC films is IRRELEVANT if the total gross ends up good or great. Yes the legs are bad, and so what?

Edited August 14, 2016 by Fromthegrave

[EmpireCity]

1 hour ago, Baumer loves Dory said:

 

Hmmm, interesting.  I've been following box office religiously for about 25 years and the more I think I know or understand, the more I realize I don't.

 

Great post.  I'll keep that mind.  

 

Star Trek Beyond even showed recently that a well reviewed film that had decent WOM isn't immune to 50%+ drops in the 3rd weekend.  I know it had a ton of competition with Suicide Squad opening and Bourne 2nd weekend, but it happens.  

 

X-Men: Apocalypse dropped 56% for the 3rd weekend.  Alice 2 was over 50% drop.  BvS was 54% drop.  Huntsman was 58% drop.  Civil War was a 55% drop.  TMNT 2 was 63.5%.  Me Before you was 56.7%.  Warcraft was 69%.  Independence Day was 54.5%.  Ghostbusters was 51.8%.  

 

If you are only wanting to look at August releases, they do tend to recover better, but August has also never seen anything like Suicide Squad.  It has never had a monster 100m+ opener that at the same time had shit reviews and not great WOM.  I think it will follow the pattern of falling something like 65% in week 2, 60% in week 3 and then possibly in week 4 stabilize with a 50% drop.  

Edited August 14, 2016 by nilephelan

[cannastop]

2 minutes ago, Fromthegrave said:

 

You don't get it do you. Bad legs for these DC films is IRRELEVANT if the total gross ends up good or great. Yes the legs are bad, and so what?

I don't think it's totally irrelevant. Might be a sign that the audience is shrinking. And DCEU's movies are objectively less successful than MCU's right now.

[Fromthegrave]

If the total gross for Suicide Squad was going to end up very poor, then and ONLY then would all this hate be warranted. Since Suicide Squad had such a great OW, and what looks like bad legs now, that will still result in a pretty good OVERALL box office total.

[Dementeleus]

Obviously SS is doing well in terms of basic numbers. Finishing with 250m+ domestic and 600m+ WW isn't peanuts. But, equally obviously, DC hasn't done a good job expanding past their basic hardcore audience. And they've failed (in that regard) despite using their most familiar and iconic characters. So clearly that's an ongoing issue.

 

Their best chance to change this perception is with WW -- literally a break from the other movies in almost every respect. But right after that we're go into JL, which (unless Johns, etc manage to bust out a much stronger story) is gonna be more of the general same.

[ecstasy]

Just now, Fromthegrave said:

If the total gross for Suicide Squad was going to end up very poor, then and ONLY then would all this hate be warranted. Since Suicide Squad had such a great OW, and what looks like bad legs now, that will still result in a pretty good OVERALL box office total.

Hate?

[Fromthegrave]

2 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I don't think it's totally irrelevant. Might be a sign that the audience is shrinking. And DCEU's movies are objectively less successful than MCU's right now.

 

Where's the context here? Such vague statements are meaningless.

 

"Less successful" compared to what? Suicide Squad compared to Guardians of the Galaxy? We don't know what the final total will be for Squad, so too early to tell. Squad cannot be compared to any other Marvel films. The only logical comparison is Guardians.

 

If the audience was shrinking, Squad would have had a poor OW.

[baumer]

5 minutes ago, nilephelan said:

 

Star Trek Beyond even showed recently that a well reviewed film that had decent WOM isn't immune to 50%+ drops in the 3rd weekend.  I know it had a ton of competition with Suicide Squad opening and Bourne 2nd weekend, but it happens.  

 

X-Men: Apocalypse dropped 56% for the 3rd weekend.  Alice 2 was over 50% drop.  BvS was 54% drop.  Huntsman was 58% drop.  Civil War was a 55% drop.  TMNT 2 was 63.5%.  Me Before you was 56.7%.  Warcraft was 69%.  Independence Day was 54.5%.  Ghostbusters was 51.8%.  

 

If you are only wanting to look at August releases, they do tend to recover better, but August has also never seen anything like Suicide Squad.  It has never had a monster 100m+ opener that at the same time had shit reviews and not great WOM.  I think it will follow the pattern of falling something like 65% in week 2, 60% in week 3 and then possibly in week 4 stabilize with a 50% drop.  

 

Well, I don't think it is going to fall that hard in the weeks to come, but at this point, we'll just have to wait and see.

[AJG]

Can we just all admit that Suicide Squad is trash and move on?

 

 

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, Fromthegrave said:

 

Where's the context here? Such vague statements are meaningless.

 

"Less successful" compared to what? Suicide Squad compared to Guardians of the Galaxy? We don't know what the final total will be for Squad, so too early to tell. Squad cannot be compared to any other Marvel films. The only logical comparison is Guardians.

 

If the audience was shrinking, Squad would have had a poor OW.

Compare BvS to Cap 3. Done.

[Dementeleus]

3 minutes ago, Fromthegrave said:

If the total gross for Suicide Squad was going to end up very poor, then and ONLY then would all this hate be warranted. Since Suicide Squad had such a great OW, and what looks like bad legs now, that will still result in a pretty good OVERALL box office total.

 

Sure, it's having a very solid run, especially when you consider people's expectations when it first was announced. The hate is because a lot of people really didn't like it.  

[Fromthegrave]

3 minutes ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

Obviously SS is doing well in terms of basic numbers. Finishing with 250m+ domestic and 600m+ WW isn't peanuts. But, equally obviously, DC hasn't done a good job expanding past their basic hardcore audience. And they've failed (in that regard) despite using their most familiar and iconic characters. So clearly that's an ongoing issue.

 

Their best chance to change this perception is with WW -- literally a break from the other movies in almost every respect. But right after that we're go into JL, which (unless Johns, etc manage to bust out a much stronger story) is gonna be more of the general same.

 

Yes it's true, WB since their leadership change years ago hasn't done a good job. They're at best only doing an average job with many of their DC films now, but it's still enough for them to be profitable, and for some fans to enjoy the films. It is what it is. Will WB learn, or change? Who knows. WB reached their peak with comic films with Burton's Batman films and Nolan's Batman trilogy.

[Haley Ross]

3 minutes ago, Fromthegrave said:

If the total gross for Suicide Squad was going to end up very poor, then and ONLY then would all this hate be warranted. Since Suicide Squad had such a great OW, and what looks like bad legs now, that will still result in a pretty good OVERALL box office total.

 

The only way I see Suicide Squad's overall box office total being poor is if it needs $750, $800 million to break even as that THR reported and from what I understand Ike Barinholtz said about the movie.

[Nova]

5 minutes ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

Obviously SS is doing well in terms of basic numbers. Finishing with 250m+ domestic and 600m+ WW isn't peanuts. But, equally obviously, DC hasn't done a good job expanding past their basic hardcore audience. And they've failed (in that regard) despite using their most familiar and iconic characters. So clearly that's an ongoing issue.

 

Their best chance to change this perception is with WW -- literally a break from the other movies in almost every respect. But right after that we're go into JL, which (unless Johns, etc manage to bust out a much stronger story) is gonna be more of the general same.

All my blabbering and all my posts...THIS is pretty much everything I've been trying to say. Thank you Tele. 

[The Panda]

Yeah, I do find it funny that we've gotten to a point where people act like a near 70% drop isn't bad.

 

I understand certain films are frontloaded in nature, but it doesn't make those massive drops good.

[baumer]

I must be the only one that the new DCU regime is pleasing then.  I loved Watchmen, like 9.5/10 loved, thought MoS was a passable mess and then liked BvS and liked SS a lot.  

 

Thanks Zack for making movies for me.  Now go team up with Bay, get Ryan Reynolds to play the lead and find a role for Bill Paxton and I'll blow my load before the film even starts.