The Box Office Buzz and Tracking Thread: Electric Boogaloo

[kitik]

6 hours ago, Eric Sparrow said:

Although I doubt I’ll use my old data either way, so I don’t know how valuable it will be

 

 

Obviously, comparing New Mutants to any older numbers will be useless. However, having NM numbers, so you can compare future releases to NM, should be useful.

[charlie Jatinder]

Waiting for everyone to freakout when New Mutants is 85% plus on Rotten Tomatoes. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

7 hours ago, lorddemaxus said:

New Mutants presales are starting in a week (on the 18th). You guys gonna track it?

Hell, why not? Of course who knows what there will be to track but pennies are certainly better than nothing.

[Porthos]

23 hours ago, lorddemaxus said:

New Mutants presales are starting in a week (on the 18th). You guys gonna track it?

Sure.

 

Here's my local presale data:

 

[Tinalera]

Doing a totally unscientific informal poll around here (aka known as asking complete strangers i see or friends i know), up here in ontario there isnt a lot of comfort in the idea of theatre going when they do open theatres.

 

Guessing our tracking will be more other countries that are opening theatres with staggered openings ( im looking at you Tenet, which in a pre covid world would represent marketing coolness with surreal opening times to tie in with film)

 

Edit apparently cineplex is opening doors for spongebob this weekend for 137 theatres. See if we can get any numbers.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Tinalera
Update

[Eric Duncan]

@lorddemaxus and Tracking Team peeps:

 

I'm in a conundrum mah bois. I saw some AMC theaters got showtimes up, and despite Unhinged not having Thursday previews as of yet, I wanted to check things out of morbid curiosity. And the issue comes from that the way things are considered "unavailable" is not good.

 

On Fandango, Atom, and AMC's website, seats that are unavailable, signified with a little "X" include both seats that were sold, and seats that will be unsold because of social distancing. So that makes things kind of hard for yah boi. For showings that only have one or two "Xs", that might not be so hard to grasp what's a real seat and what isn't. But if we see a lot of tickets sold, that's a conundrum. I'm already not gonna bother looking at my old data, so do I just count all the "Xs" until social distancing ends or movie theaters go kaput (whichever comes first)? Or do I just do some weird math with how many "Xs" there are? This shit is so annoying and kind of counter-productive. Wouldn't you want different markers for both sold seats and social distancing seats so people can see they're not gonna be near anybody? It's just stupid!

[TwoMisfits]

1 hour ago, Eric Sparrow said:

@lorddemaxus and Tracking Team peeps:

 

I'm in a conundrum mah bois. I saw some AMC theaters got showtimes up, and despite Unhinged not having Thursday previews as of yet, I wanted to check things out of morbid curiosity. And the issue comes from that the way things are considered "unavailable" is not good.

 

On Fandango, Atom, and AMC's website, seats that are unavailable, signified with a little "X" include both seats that were sold, and seats that will be unsold because of social distancing. So that makes things kind of hard for yah boi. For showings that only have one or two "Xs", that might not be so hard to grasp what's a real seat and what isn't. But if we see a lot of tickets sold, that's a conundrum. I'm already not gonna bother looking at my old data, so do I just count all the "Xs" until social distancing ends or movie theaters go kaput (whichever comes first)? Or do I just do some weird math with how many "Xs" there are? This shit is so annoying and kind of counter-productive. Wouldn't you want different markers for both sold seats and social distancing seats so people can see they're not gonna be near anybody? It's just stupid!

My AMC is eliminating every other row, but only spacing 1 seat between groups in a row.

 

So, I'd look at what you have already eliminated in an empty showing...and then I'd plan groups of 2 1 seat apart for the rest of the seats...and see what that max number is, and assume that's the max that can sell, and you can "wag" something close looking at presales...

[Eric Duncan]

Hey remember when I said I'll only do pre-sale checking if there are Thursday previews?

 

 

Get ready in about an hour or so mah bois

[Eric Duncan]

Unhinged Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-8 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Unavailable	Total Seats?	% Unavailable
TOTALS	0	18	42	1184	3.55%

 

So I found a loophole here. Instead of just reporting on whether seats are sold, why not just count all the "Xs" I see and use that as a reference for the coming weeks? It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than nothing. I also used AMC's reported 30% capacity as a reference for all three theaters I tracked, all AMC.

 

And yeah, this is the first of its kind, so I have no clue what these numbers point to. I will admit that of the three theaters now open for sales, all of them did hit double digits, which I think is admirable even if only a handful of showtimes sold anything. We'll see what momentum this has in the future.

 

BTW, this is looking at opening day Friday, so again don't try and compare this with any other numbers I've done before. If Unhinged gets Thursday night previews at the last minute, I will scrap this data and restart from scratch.

[charlie Jatinder]

The customary

[TwoMisfits]

I think numbers may surprise for new movies coming soon...

 

I mean, the 1st day AMC puts out 15 cent tickets and the Sonic and Goonies 7pm showings are already sold out a week ahead...put the price of the tickets at a sweet spot, and movie going could take off, even domestically (15 cents was a crazy right price...but even a little more would work).

 

It's even more surprising b/c people said parents would not take kids...and Bloodshot, Black Panther, and Beauty and the Beast 7pms still have seats, but the 2 obvious family movies are gone...now families are the most price-sensitive folks, but I think studios should keep this in mind.  The right price will move even families to their theaters.  Maybe Spongebob or Scoob should try a discount price release...

[filmlover]

*obligatory Laura Dern "we are back in business" gif*

 

Gotta admit it's gonna feel great getting some box office numbers again, even if they aren't even close to breaking any records. Five months ago might as well be five years with everything that's happened since.

[Porthos]

5 hours ago, Eric Sparrow said:

@lorddemaxus and Tracking Team peeps:

 

I'm in a conundrum mah bois. I saw some AMC theaters got showtimes up, and despite Unhinged not having Thursday previews as of yet, I wanted to check things out of morbid curiosity. And the issue comes from that the way things are considered "unavailable" is not good.

 

On Fandango, Atom, and AMC's website, seats that are unavailable, signified with a little "X" include both seats that were sold, and seats that will be unsold because of social distancing. So that makes things kind of hard for yah boi. For showings that only have one or two "Xs", that might not be so hard to grasp what's a real seat and what isn't. But if we see a lot of tickets sold, that's a conundrum. I'm already not gonna bother looking at my old data, so do I just count all the "Xs" until social distancing ends or movie theaters go kaput (whichever comes first)? Or do I just do some weird math with how many "Xs" there are? This shit is so annoying and kind of counter-productive. Wouldn't you want different markers for both sold seats and social distancing seats so people can see they're not gonna be near anybody? It's just stupid!

FWIW, in the brief window Cinemark was available locally, we had something like this on Fandango:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Studio Movie Grill had the same dynamic seating where a / would automatically box out seats after the 'x' seats were chosen.

 

I guess AMC is being lame when it comes to how they're handing social distance.  Dunno.  Tried to poke around a couple of AMCs in Philly but didn't see much rhyme or reason to what the heck was being blocked off.  I was able to click on a seat right next to an "x", so who knows.

 

Uncharted waters, as you said.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Porthos

[Inceptionzq]

5 hours ago, Eric Sparrow said:

@lorddemaxus and Tracking Team peeps:

 

I'm in a conundrum mah bois. I saw some AMC theaters got showtimes up, and despite Unhinged not having Thursday previews as of yet, I wanted to check things out of morbid curiosity. And the issue comes from that the way things are considered "unavailable" is not good.

 

On Fandango, Atom, and AMC's website, seats that are unavailable, signified with a little "X" include both seats that were sold, and seats that will be unsold because of social distancing. So that makes things kind of hard for yah boi. For showings that only have one or two "Xs", that might not be so hard to grasp what's a real seat and what isn't. But if we see a lot of tickets sold, that's a conundrum. I'm already not gonna bother looking at my old data, so do I just count all the "Xs" until social distancing ends or movie theaters go kaput (whichever comes first)? Or do I just do some weird math with how many "Xs" there are? This shit is so annoying and kind of counter-productive. Wouldn't you want different markers for both sold seats and social distancing seats so people can see they're not gonna be near anybody? It's just stupid!

AMC actually isn't using seat blocking technology yet. They just ask you to "please leave an empty seat between you and an occupied seat." Also this: 

 

Phase 1 will commence first, when AMC will make available a maximum of 30% of the seating capacity in every showtime, at all its theatres nationwide.

Phase 2 will begin when AMC deems it to be acceptable given local and regional health conditions, and capacity limitations will rise to 40%. Seat blocking technology will be deployed during this second phase,and AMC’s ticketing engine will automatically block out one seat on either side of every party. In non-recliner auditoriums, AMC will automatically block out every other row of seats for every showtime.

 

https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/amc-safe--clean-reopening/amc-safe--clean/what-steps-is-amc-taking-to-protect-moviegoers

[Blaze Heatnix]

Seeing this topic active again, makes me emotional.

 

Seriously, I was fully prepared to see theaters closed until mid 2021. There were several articles talking about that. 

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, Inceptionzq said:

AMC actually isn't using seat blocking technology yet. They just ask you to "please leave an empty seat between you and an occupied seat."

That would explain why I was able to select a seat right next to an "x" then.  Thanks for the info. 👍

 

Looks like they're all actually sold then.

 

Also good to know the sellout cap.  Might be over or under one or two seats for any individual showing, but I doubt it really matters all that much.

[XXR vs XXR]

IMO, there's no point tracking anything until theaters are fully back open. The whole purpose of tracking is to have comparisons between genres and types to better prognosticate on future films. None of that can be done right now. Any data that comes out right now is so highly skewed it would be laughable. 

Just my 2 cents. 

[charlie Jatinder]

3 hours ago, VenomXXR said:

IMO, there's no point tracking anything until theaters are fully back open. The whole purpose of tracking is to have comparisons between genres and types to better prognosticate on future films. None of that can be done right now. Any data that comes out right now is so highly skewed it would be laughable. 

Just my 2 cents. 

 

 

[filmlover]

Saw a spot earlier for New Mutants saying "August 28." It's finally happening for real this time folks!

 

(watch it get pulled again that Friday morning)

[TwoMisfits]

13 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Saw a spot earlier for New Mutants saying "August 28." It's finally happening for real this time folks!

 

(watch it get pulled again that Friday morning)

One of my tracking theaters opened a week EARLIER that planned.  I was out tonight, and saw it selling its 1st day tickets.  Needless to say, my spouse now wants to do another movie (he wants Goonies) tomorrow, but I said we'd ask the kids...

 

In fact, with the theater open and live music in the square and all the restaurants on waits, it was almost completely normal...about the only thing different than March was masks, some blocked off streets, and way more people eating outside everywhere:)...