The Box Office Buzz and Tracking Thread: Electric Boogaloo

[famicommander]

It's possible they just saw the Deadline report about the 300M target, figured it would reach that, and then decided to put out a story "confirming" what they've simply deduced to be highly likely so it looks like they broke a story. That's pretty much how WGTC operates.

[von Kenni]

I've been out of analyzing box offices about 15 years. I feel that I know Dune and its generational impact that spans beyond the novels into Lynch's version, its computer games in the 90s and early 2000s including the 90s Dune II that pioneered real-time strategy games and gave birth to Command & Conquer and began the whole genre. The unit sold amounts weren't huge in today's standards but we're talking about a time when we copied all the games ten-fold. That said, I might be too close to Dune...

 

Long story short, what's your thoughts on these about Dune:

 

1. Dune's demographics are older for sure than MCU but younger than NTTD, so expecting more walk-ins and curious eyes to see it than with NTTD.

2. Timmy, Zendaya, and the misleading trailers lure in more young people but WOM is probably weaker among them than with the older viewers due to pacing and storytelling style being different than in MCU, and what was expected.

3. Overall WOM is better than with NTTD or other comps.

4. Some, although minority, who view it first time on HBO Max go to cinema to see it a second time, but even if they watch it just on HBO Max they add to the positive WOM, and lure more people to cinema.

 

Overall I'm expecting good legs and WOM that might mitigate HBO Max's downward pull somewhat, and expect a preview multiplier on bar with NTTD or better.

 

What am I missing or where am I going astray?

[Last Man Standing]

1 minute ago, von Kenni said:

I've been out of analyzing box offices about 15 years. I feel that I know Dune and its generational impact that spans beyond the novels into Lynch's version, its computer games in the 90s and early 2000s including the 90s Dune II that pioneered real-time strategy games and gave birth to Command & Conquer and began the whole genre. The unit sold amounts weren't huge in today's standards but we're talking about a time when we copied all the games ten-fold. That said, I might be too close to Dune...

 

Long story short, what's your thoughts on these about Dune:

 

1. Dune's demographics are older for sure than MCU but younger than NTTD, so expecting more walk-ins and curious eyes to see it than with NTTD.

2. Timmy, Zendaya, and the misleading trailers lure in more young people but WOM is probably weaker among them than with the older viewers due to pacing and storytelling style being different than in MCU, and what was expected.

3. Overall WOM is better than with NTTD or other comps.

4. Some, although minority, who view it first time on HBO Max go to cinema to see it a second time, but even if they watch it just on HBO Max they add to the positive WOM, and lure more people to cinema.

 

Overall I'm expecting good legs and WOM that might mitigate HBO Max's downward pull somewhat, and expect a preview multiplier on bar with NTTD or better.

 

What am I missing or where am I going astray?

I think you're missing that nearly every HBO Max movie has had poor legs this year.

[eridani]

Hm, but is it nearly every movie during the last 12 months? And what constitutes poor legs? Less than x3 mulitplier? Less than x2.5?

WW1984 2.8 multiplier

GvK had 3.2 multiplier

Mortal Kombat had just 1.8

Space Jam 2.3

Suicide Squad 2.1

Cry Macho 2.3

Malignant 2.5

 

Which movie/s out of these should be best compared to Dune?

 

[von Kenni]

5 minutes ago, eridani said:

Hm, but is it nearly every movie during the last 12 months? And what constitutes poor legs? Less than x3 mulitplier? Less than x2.5?

WW1984 2.8 multiplier

GvK had 3.2 multiplier

Mortal Kombat had just 1.8

Space Jam 2.3

Suicide Squad 2.1

Cry Macho 2.3

Malignant 2.5

 

Which movie/s out of these should be best compared to Dune?

 

For me good legs here would be 3 or more and I'm thinking with what I wrote that Dune could still make 3 or slightly more even with HBO Max. Without it more of course. Looking that list I can't but to think that the WOM is much better with Dune than with any on the list but wasn't the competition easier with GvK and WW1984 at the time compared to what is out there now?

[charlie Jatinder]

Many new users in here. Just wanna say that please take the discussion of legs and stuff in the respective movie thread or in current case to may be HBO Max thread. This thread is for "tracking".

I am right, right? @Porthos

[MCKillswitch123]

39 minutes ago, eridani said:

Hm, but is it nearly every movie during the last 12 months? And what constitutes poor legs? Less than x3 mulitplier? Less than x2.5?

WW1984 2.8 multiplier

GvK had 3.2 multiplier

Mortal Kombat had just 1.8

Space Jam 2.3

Suicide Squad 2.1

Cry Macho 2.3

Malignant 2.5

 

Which movie/s out of these should be best compared to Dune?

 

 

I mean, Godzilla vs. Kong had a 5-day opening, so of course its 3-day multiplier was going to be higher. And WW84 was a Christmas movie, where legs are historically greater, and the first to put the day-and-date strategy to work, meaning when less people had HBO Max. Context is key.

 

Even if Dune opens to 40m, it might not still be enough for 100m DOM. I see it at maybe 2.1-2.2x legs as I suspect it'll be fan-driven (plus the Max situation).

Edited October 21, 2021 by MCKillswitch123

[Eric Atreides]

Moderation

 

I appreciate the active discussion, but the talk about legs, sequel potential, etc. feels out of place and distracting for a thread specifically on OW, tracking, ticket sales, etc.

 

For anything that's not about the following mentioned, please take it to the proper Dune thread

 

 

[Tinalera]

8 hours ago, Eric Atreides said:

Dune Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-1 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	52	1760	9307	18.91%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 242

 

Comp

0.697x of F9 T-1 (4.95M)

0.342x of Black Widow T-1 (4.52M)

1.609x of The Suicide Squad T-1 (6.59M)

0.543x of Shang-Chi T-1 (4.78M)

0.591x of Venom 2 T-1 (6.85M)

0.763x of No Time to Die T-1 (4.81M)

 

You know...maybe the marketing campaign pushing for everybody to see this on the biggest screen possible wasn't the smartest idea in the world.

Ive observed with my Toronto numbers that the bigger screen capacities are selling pretty well, but anything that isn't a Imax (or Imax type big screen) the numbers for those screens there isn't a lot of movement. Now granted those are for Thursday showings, Ill do a friday count today just to see how those seats are doing by comparison.

[Old Spice]

32 minutes ago, Tinalera said:

Ive observed with my Toronto numbers that the bigger screen capacities are selling pretty well, but anything that isn't a Imax (or Imax type big screen) the numbers for those screens there isn't a lot of movement. Now granted those are for Thursday showings, Ill do a friday count today just to see how those seats are doing by comparison.

 

Yesterday, Salt Lake City Friday sales in my non PLF were much stronger in absolute (3.3x) and percentage terms than for tonight. Today, it's running about even so far.

[Tinalera]

Dune

Toronto Ontario

take Oct 21 for FRIDAY Oct 22

 

11 Theatres

109 shows 

 

Total sold 3115

Total Available remaining 26009  (29214 sold + remaining)

Percentage 10.7 percent

 

Just wanted to clarify for future I will put remaining and Sold plus remaining just so no confusion over what "Available" is

 

 

 

[katnisscinnaplex]

23 hours ago, katnisscinnaplex said:

 

Day	Movie	Area	Theaters	Shows	Total Seats	Total Sold	New Sales	% Sold
T-1	Dune	Jacksonville	7	46	6,891	600	97	8.71%
		Phoenix	7	32	4,336	664	99	15.31%
		Raleigh	8	24	3,137	499	60	15.91%
	Dune Total		22	102	14,364	1,763	256	12.27%
	Ron's Gone Wrong	Jacksonville	6	10	1,224	1	0	0.08%
		Phoenix	6	11	1,426	8	5	0.56%
		Raleigh	7	13	1,281	17	3	1.33%
	Ron's Gone Wrong Total		19	34	3,931	26	8	0.66%

 

No time for Eternals today.  

 

Dune comps

Venom 2 - .667x (7.73m)

F9 - .808x (5.74m)

TSS - 1.84x (7.55m)

 

Fell back a little today, but I still think it'll go above 5m that others are saying.  I'd put it around 6m currently

 

Day	Movie	Area	Theaters	Shows	Total Seats	Total Sold	New Sales	% Sold
T-0	Dune	Jacksonville	7	47	6,928	748	148	10.80%
		Phoenix	7	34	4,463	830	166	18.60%
		Raleigh	8	24	3,137	634	135	20.21%
	Dune Total		22	105	14,528	2,212	449	15.23%
	Ron's Gone Wrong	Jacksonville	6	10	1,224	5	4	0.41%
		Phoenix	6	11	1,426	8	0	0.56%
		Raleigh	7	13	1,281	17	0	1.33%
	Ron's Gone Wrong Total		19	34	3,931	30	4	0.76%
T-14	Eternals*	Jacksonville	6	47	7,996	453	39	5.67%
		Phoenix	6	35	5,949	443	50	7.45%
		Raleigh	7	26	3,094	480	65	15.51%
	Eternals Total		19	108	17,039	1,376	154	8.08%
T-6	Last Night in Soho (Wed)	Jacksonville	2	2	395	23	23	5.82%
		Phoenix	1	1	208	2	2	0.96%
	Soho (Wed) Total		3	3	603	25	25	4.15%
T-7	Antlers	Jacksonville	5	9	1,326	1	1	0.08%
		Phoenix	7	14	1,341	6	6	0.45%
		Raleigh	6	7	613	4	4	0.65%
	Antlers Total		18	30	3,280	11	11	0.34%
T-7	Last Night in Soho	Jacksonville	7	13	1,708	12	12	0.70%
		Phoenix	7	12	1,324	20	20	1.51%
		Raleigh	7	8	807	8	8	0.99%
	Last Night in Soho Total		21	33	3,839	40	40	1.04%

*Didn't pull Eternals yesterday - new sales are since Tuesday morning

 

Dune comps

Venom 2 - .591x (6.86m)

F9 - .724x (5.14m)

TSS - 1.75x (7.16m)

 

Ron's Gone Wrong

Addams Family - .17x (91k)

 

Eternals

Black Widow - .726x (9.58m)

 

I'm tired of using Old as a comp for everything, but here we go again.

 

Soho Thurs comp

Old - 1.11x (1.67m)

[Menor the Destroyer]

Sorry, had to step out last night, so posting the #s from last night now. These are 24-hour paces though, just posted late. 

 

Dune MTC2

 

Thursday:

Showtimes: 1814 (+105)

Seats Sold: 28837/257650 (+5262)

Total $ Sales: 400990 (+70846)

 

NTTD Comp: 4.7 million

 

Not too bad of a jump here. It kept pace with Bond's jump for today. Hopefully it can at least have slightly better walkups (Bond's were not good at all). 

 

Friday:

Showtimes: 3540 (+130)

Seats Sold: 36896/532456 (+7350)

Total $ Sales: 476207 (+90566)

 

NTTD Comp: 12.3 million

 

Not a great jump here. I am dropping my 14 million prediction for Friday to 11.5 million. OW in the 35-37 million range. 

 

 

Eternals MTC2

 

Thursday:

Showtimes: 1966

Seats Sold: 25542/320507 (+1879)

Total $ Sales: 364671 (+26480)

 

Black Widow Comp (Ontario adjusted, no ATP adjustment): 9.2 million

 

Friday:

Showtimes: 3713

Seats Sold: 17453/620366 (+1288)
Total $ Sales: 234432 (+17520)

 

Black Widow Comp (Ontario adjusted, no ATP adjustment): 20.7 million

 

Keeping a good pace after the social bump. Hopefully it continues. 

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

9 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

Eternals Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-15 Days and Counting

 

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	96	13658	15541*	1883	12.12%

* One theater re-adjusted its seat maps, resulting in a additon of 11 seats available in the region.

 

Total Seats Sold Today

127

 

T-14 Adjusted Comp

	%		Sold T-14	Total Sold		Sellouts/Shows	Seats Left/Total Seats	Perct Sold		Comp
BW	72.83		108	2381		0/117	16753/19134	12.44%		10.07m
Eternals (adj)	---		113	1734		0/87	12474/14208	12.20%		---

COMP NOTE: The Eternals comp have been adjusted to reflect the return of Ontario theaters to the DOM market (what would be normally be the comp/0.955).

ADJUSTMENT NOTE: DUNE (adj) is the amount of seats sold that does not include the theaters which had unreliable data polluting their seat maps in this point in BW's track.

PRE-SALE NOTE: Black Widow's tickets have been on sale for three more days than Eternals' tickets have been on sale.

 

Regal: 393/4570 [8.60% sold] [+59 tickets]

 

===

 

Another great day of post-social media embargo boost.

 

Think I'll bring back Shang-Chi comp tomorrow, even though it'll still be pretty out of whack (though, to be far, so is the Black Widow comp atm).

The BW comp is ok I think, it's been 10 days vs 13 so things will have normalized. But for SC if you bring it back it'll have 4 days vs 11, still seems a bit too skewed. 

[keysersoze123]

12 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

Dune MTC1

Previews(T-1) - 68917/324093 1217446.89 1785 shows

Friday(T-2) - 84455/718161 1455649.59 3922 shows

 

On to final day. Nothing more to add beyond what I said yesterday.

 

 

Previews are at 73307/325025 1287916.89 1795 shows. Start is not bad. I think it will go above 100K I think by EOD. Should be sufficient for low 5's previews. Let us see how the day goes. 

[Porthos]

15 hours ago, Menor said:

The BW comp is ok I think, it's been 10 days vs 13 so things will have normalized. But for SC if you bring it back it'll have 4 days vs 11, still seems a bit too skewed. 

 

Oh it is.  It very much is.  As of last night, the comp would have been 17.13m 19.59m.  But I think folks might be intelligent enough to figure it out.  Don't want to wait too much longer on it anyway.  Maaaaaybe I'll wait another day or two.  But I really would like to rope something else in soon-ish.

 

Play it by ear, as usual. 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Porthos
Got the wrong number for the T-15 SC comp for some reason - fixed

[M37]

14 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

I think many didn't get my joke. I was saying that, "Deadline saying same numbers as mine i.e. 30-35M, probably mean that I will be wrong." There was no other serious commentary on any of Deadline mentions. 

 

As for @Sano's "I was saying 25M for Dune". I think its technically true. I was saying 25-35M, and earlier on Sunday I said its leaning toward lower end of that. I was thinking of 4.5-5M previews and (8.5-9.5 8.5-9.5 5-5.7 FSS) for 26.5-29.7M weekend. 

 

Even now, I am thinking of 4.5-5M previews, more likely 5 but FRI numbers and pace seems strong enough to crack 11M, which is sorta surprising considering BR2049 THU was 32% of OD, so was thinking around 35% for Dune, but seems like it will be low 30s. With 11M FRI, 35M is very likely. 

 

As for Dune needing $300M. Well that is sorta fine and reasonable with me and frankly is done like dinner. It will be around $220M in overseas without China. China may go on to gross $40-50M, that leaves US $30-40M to do.

 

$300M might as well be breakeven for Dune. The film cost only $165M to make, add another $150M to market and release. Its worldwide theatrical returns at $300M be $125M Approx (Actually can go for $330-340M for $150M), will probably make $25-50M from home media.  That leaves just $150M to recover which can be easily accounted to the traditional TV and day and date HBO Max release valuation. Its important this get good viewership on HBO Max however.

 

I see no lies here. Pre-sales are strong, but heavily skewed towards premium formats and metro markets. The GA appeal is lacking, and with HBO Max availability to satiate it, walk-ups will likely be abysmal, worse than NTTD

 

$4.5-$5 Thursday, a low $30s (if not sub) is incoming for Dune

[Menor the Destroyer]

1 hour ago, Menor said:

Last nights numbers:

 

Dune MTC2

 

Thursday:

Showtimes: 1814 (+105)

Seats Sold: 28837/257650 (+5262)

Total $ Sales: 400990 (+70846)

 

 

Morning start is 33617/259745, $463866. Decent start, it's pacing similarly to TSS. If it can keep matching TSS walkups, will finish ahead of Bond. 

[titanic2187]

2 hours ago, Menor said:

Dune MTC2

 

 

Not a great jump here. I am dropping my 14 million prediction for Friday to 11.5 million. OW in the 35-37 million range. 

 

So we potentially lose two 100m grosser (HK & Dune) to day-to-date release?

[el sid]

Dune counted today at 10am EST for today:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 211 (5 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 476 (11 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 30 (4 showtimes, new)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 14 (2 showtimes, new)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 110 (4 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 798 (8 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 880 (12 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 2.519.
 

Up 35.5% since Monday.
Comps (always counted on Thursday for Thursday): NTTD (5.2M Thursday previews) had 2.378 sold tickets = x1.05 = 5.5M,
TSS (4.1M) had 1.929 sold tickets = 1.31x = 5.4M,
SC (8.8M) had 3.617 sold tickets = 69.5% = 6.1M.
And Ad Astra (1.5M) had in 1 theater, that in NY, 160 sold tickets (can't find the rest even if I'm pretty sure that I posted it here 2019). I think that number can be ignored because the theater in NY is the weakest of all big theaters for Dune.
So averagely that would be 5.6M in previews and 5.4M in comparison with the other movie with an HBO Max co-start.
 

Dune counted today at 10am EST for tomorrow:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 300 (9 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 421 (13 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 117 (12 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 46 (4 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 107 (9 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 1.513 (17 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 1.016 (11 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 3.520.
 

Up 20.5% since Tuesday. Honestly, I never expected it to have over 3.500 tickets in the end with all the difficulties.
Comps (always counted on Thursday for Friday): NTTD (17.1M true Friday) had 2.715 sold tickets = x1.29 = 22.1M true Friday for Dune,
TSS (8.0M) had 1.560 sold tickets = 2.26x = 18.1M,
SC (20.7M) had 3.740 sold tickets = 94% = 19.5M.
Even if I take the worst comp, TSS, Dune would still get ca. 23.5M on Thursday + Friday and an OW of 45M+ would be likely then. But @Menor and @keysersoze123 have worse numbers (than mine) today and are normally right. So I hope for 40M.

Edited October 21, 2021 by el sid