The Box Office Buzz and Tracking Thread: Electric Boogaloo

[el sid]

Sonic the Hedgehog, counted today at 11am EST:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 219 (total tickets sold for Thursday) / 403 (total tickets sold for Friday, 8 showtimes)
Boston (AMC Assembly Row 12): 146 / 277 (11 showtimes)
Boston (Boston Common 19): 97 / 352 (10 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 196 / 458 (17 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 77 / 264 (8 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): showtimes): 42 / 171 (9 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Center Point 11): 74 / 125 (11 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 248 / 266 (10 showtimes)
LA (AMC Bay Street): 133 / 128 (13 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 264 / 416 (13 showtimes)
Total tickets sold in 10 theaters till today for Thursday: 1.496 and for Friday: 2.860.

The trailers didn't convince me but I have to admit that its presales look good here too.
Comps: Dolittle had on Thursday 386/516 sold tickets, Frozen2 had on Wednesday 2.944/5.206 (so maybe add ca. 35% to these numbers which would still be good for StH in comparison) and Maleficent2 had on Thursday in 7 theaters 671/883 (in the same 7 theaters Sonic the Hedgehog has 851/2.050).

Fantasy Island, also counted at 11am EST:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): - / 190 (total tickets sold for Friday, 5 showtimes)
Boston (AMC Assembly Row 12): - / 127 (5 showtimes)
Boston (Boston Common 19): - / 26 (5 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): - / 38 (5 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): - / 53 (6 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): showtimes): - / 46 (4 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Center Point 11): - / 63 (4 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): - / 153 (8 showtimes)
LA (AMC Bay Street): - / 72 (7 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): - / 120 (7 showtimes)
Total tickets sold in 10 theaters till today for Friday: 888.

Still an ok number but not a big increase compared to yesterday. And after several terrible received horror movies in recent weeks and the first bad reviews I don't expect (much) more than 10M OW.
Comps: The Grudge had on Thursday 475/331 sold tickets, Scary Stories 1.096/754, Crawl 417/334, Countdown 248/190, The Turning 239/219 and Gretel & Hansel 295/301.

 

[stealthyfrog]

They made merch based on the old movie Sonic design, the redesign wasn't just marketing.

[lorddemaxus]

2 minutes ago, stealthyfrog said:

They made merch based on the old movie Sonic design, the redesign wasn't just marketing.

I just cannot see this movie happen with old Sonic. There's way too much shit that happens that it requires him to be cute to happen. Also, the eyelines matched Sonic's head whenever they were talking to him eventhough the older version was taller.

[TMP]

46 minutes ago, filmlover said:

 

Also saying The Way Back is tracking for $7M.

If Onward and Mulan both open in the $40m range, would that be an L for Disney?

[stealthyfrog]

4 minutes ago, TMP said:

If Onward and Mulan both open in the $40m range, would that be an L for Disney?

Onward will probably open at $50M and could pass $200M. Mulan got screwed the moment China shut down its theaters because of the coronavirus.

[john2000]

and here we go again

[ThomasNicole]

I actually think this is a decent tracking, i'll be worried if tracking suggests something in the 30's range

 

Everyone knows tracking for original animations aren't very right on spot because they're harder to predict, especially almost a month before the release date

 

If it's at $44M plus right now, with marketing push that is about to start, the reviews that will be out very soon and the advance screenings for audiences, this will definitely grow up

 

Also, presales seems very robust from what i see on the movie thread

[kitik]

Sonic over Onward?

 

Would not have guessed that a few months ago. (Not that it's guaranteed to happen just yet, but even the possibility seems like a major coup.)

[john2000]

4 minutes ago, kitik said:

Sonic over Onward?

 

Would not have guessed that a few months ago. (Not that it's guaranteed to happen just yet, but even the possibility seems like a major coup.)

thats not how tracking works , and this is a projection based on well , nothing actually, 

Edited February 13, 2020 by john2000

[john2000]

6 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

I actually think this is a decent tracking, i'll be worried if tracking suggests something in the 30's range

 

Everyone knows tracking for original animations aren't very right on spot because they're harder to predict, especially almost a month before the release date

 

If it's at $44M plus right now, with marketing push that is about to start, the reviews that will be out very soon and the advance screenings for audiences, this will definitely grow up

 

Also, presales seems very robust from what i see on the movie thread

that 44 mill ow, could be lower or higher, but for the first official projection, and with minimal info thats great , i would be shocked if it was tracking for the first time with 50 +

[Curtis1986]

Reviews for the photograph seems really good for romantic comedy. Definitely wouldn't be surprised if this works out.

[Legion Again]

38 minutes ago, TMP said:

If Onward and Mulan both open in the $40m range, would that be an L for Disney?

Don’t be silly, of course not.  
 

Spoiler

It would be two L’s for Disney.

 

[kitik]

19 minutes ago, john2000 said:

thats not how tracking works ,

 

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. "What" isn't how tracking works?

 

21 minutes ago, john2000 said:

 and this is a projection based on well , nothing actually, 

 

Tracking is not based on "nothing". It is based on polling and all sorts of data. Is it as accurate as presales from the day before a release? No, of course not, but nobody ever said it was.

[kitik]

10 minutes ago, Arendelle Legion said:

Don’t be silly, of course not.  
 

  Reveal hidden contents

It would be two L’s for Disney.

 

 

Mulan seems destined to have a giant asterisk next to it.

 

But whatever imaginary money Mulan loses out on (which we'll never know for certain, so its pointless to debate any numbers), it's probably not Disney's biggest concern. I think their earning call last week said they could take a $280M hit from their Asian themeparks being closed. I wonder if they have insurance to cover "natural disaster" losses like that.

[john2000]

7 minutes ago, kitik said:

 

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. "What" isn't how tracking works?

 

 

Tracking is not based on "nothing". It is based on polling and all sorts of data. Is it as accurate as presales from the day before a release? No, of course not, but nobody ever said it was.

the presales started , like 3 hours ago, what data ? social media for an original animated film ? yeah ok

[john2000]

13 minutes ago, Arendelle Legion said:

Don’t be silly, of course not.  
 

  Hide contents

It would be two L’s for Disney.

 

imo 45 mill is the lowest for onward, and i think mulan will open way higher

[Eric Atreides]

23 minutes ago, john2000 said:

the presales started , like 3 hours ago, what data ? social media for an original animated film ? yeah ok

Tracking firms have all kinds of data, even when there are no presales. Awareness surveys, social media activity, genre, related films, etc. There's a lot more than just presales when firms and industry people/magazines determine this kind of information. A movie like Onward might be harder to pin down, but it's not that difficult.

[Menor the Destroyer]

13 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

Sonic the hedgehog (T-1)

MTC1 Prev - overall 1512 shows 27613/235631 414979.05 334210.19 +7390
MTC2 Prev - overall 1783 shows 18799/256331 230628.34 164405.34 +5255
MTC1 OD - overall 3545 shows 63886/592581 855607.25 696350.93 +22396
MTC2 OD - overall 3511 shows 60404/548771 644493.47 511724.49 +19419
MTC1 D2 - overall 3562 shows 38544/592039 474017.35 413735.30 +12466
MTC2 D2 - overall 3515 shows 32911/549857 323916.70 274090.48 +9102

 

Good day but not as good as I expected 🙂 If the preview numbers double tomorrow it should be good for 3.5m. With better walkins even 4m can happen. OD is where the main action is and that had another good day though it tapered off a bit in the evening. Saturday PS is also very robust and what is great is MTC1/2 ratio which shows movie is playing strong in big cities and smaller cities overall. I will stick to 50m+ 3 day and 60m+ 4 day for now. 

Based on this, final Friday ps should be more like 204k at the 2 MTC which I guess would be 6-6.5 million national ps, which using Charlie's projected multi would be 18-20 million OD. I think it may be a little lower at something like 16 million, which would still be pretty good.

[Barnack]

4 hours ago, john2000 said:

the presales started , like 3 hours ago, what data ? social media for an original animated film ? yeah ok

 

Tracking firm call/reach online movie goers every 3 days or so and sell that pooling information to people.

 

you can read a bit about it:

https://slate.com/culture/2005/07/the-secretive-research-group-that-helps-run-the-movie-business.html

 

A studio will receive something that will historically look like this

 

For example the 27 april 2014 the tracking for the upcoming Godzilla movie (may 16 release) looked like this:

Godzilla(05/16/2014)

cat: TT : M- : M+ : F- : F+
UA : 09 : 11 : 10 : 07 : 06
TA : 83 : 87 : 93 : 74 : 81
Def: 49 : 60 : 55 : 37 : 40
FC : 14 : 19 : 20 : 08 : 10

 

Category being

unaided awareness (does the polled person on the phone knew about that movie coming up when asked about movie coming up)

Total awareness (when asked did you heard a Godzilla movie is coming up)

Definite interest

First choice (if they go see an upcoming movie, that would be their first pick)

 

TT: % of people 

m-: % Among male under 25

etc....

 

Studio have a bank a comparable they build (same genre, release pattern, pg-13/r-rated and so on) from those they build model that give them a OW range from the metric above, that can look like

 

Original Sci-Fi R-rated: 3M+12.5xUnaided awareness+5.5xFirst Choice

Family movie PG: 4.5M + 17MxTotal Awareness

 

There is a lot of room on what you put as comparable in the model you construct and many movie will be multigenre, so sometime you will see different prediction from the same tracking raw value, will Deadpool play like R rated action, usual SH, a date movie for St-Valentine weekend, R-rated Seth Rogan type comedy......

 

Every upcoming movie are including in the tracking (and all studio see all the tracking and I imagine trade magazine/movie chain that are interested in buying them) but sometime studio will pay for a special command from time to time, say an event super heroes releasing in a very long time but that people already know about, they can start tracking every month 1 year's in advance.

 

 

Now they also track social index and other more modern affair as well:

https://deadline.com/2015/10/psb-research-in-talks-to-acquire-nrg-nielsen-1201562190/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Barnack

[Madhuvan]

Sonic is getting the same support that Alita got during Captain Marvel release. This time it will actually help the movie. 

 

Sonic is a great example of every publicity is good publicity.