Wednesday Numbers(27/12/17):TLJ $22m

[Blaze Heatnix]

Tne Force Awakens performed really well in China...I mean, 124 million in China, is a great number. 

 

It seems The Last Jedi might end up making half of that number or perhaps, a little less. 

[George Parr]

Just now, FantasticBeasts said:

And yet this changes nothing of what i said.

It is a bad number for a blockbuster of any type.

And to be honest no franchise has really history in China so....

The difference being that a new franchise (or a new story that doesn't depend on old movies of a franchise, like Nolan's Batman for example) is far easier to understand for audiences than if they suddenly start with the 7th or 8th movie of a series that tells one heavily connected story. Something that is even more true when you consider that the origins of the story are done in a way that really doesn't appeal to China's audience today.

 

Which doesn't change that SW does indeed only deliver 3rd rate numbers in China at best.

[James]

Are we really doing the DOM vs OS thing again? I think a lot of people forget that OS is the only reason why we are getting 200m budgeted movies at all. SW aside (and not even that every time), there is no franchise capable of living based on DOM profits alone. In fact, most franchises nowadays get made with a WW audience in mind. Fact is that TLJ's drop OS is nothing to be proud about. The gross is still good, at least for now. But you simply can't feed audiences who don't like smth the same thing again and again and expect different results (and I am talking here about markets where SW basically died since TFA).   

[estebanJ]

1 hour ago, EmpireCity said:

 

Adjusted grosses only work on a very basic level and you can't extrapolate them out over time.  

 

Adjusted numbers have their vagaries, but they are mostly technical, related to how precisely to calculate inflation rates.  

 

But big picture? Extrapolating over time is exactly what they are most useful for. To side with nominal dollars over adjusted dollars, you have to believe that during their original runs ...

 

Attack of the Clones  was a bigger film than Star Wars.

 

The Hangover was bigger than Jaws.

 

The Secret Life of Pets was bigger than ET.

 

Having been around for the original runs of all six of these films, i can assure you that none of the former films were even 1/2 as "big" financially as the latter films. Not even in the same galaxy or ocean. Adjusted dollars captures that reality.

 

In contrast, there are no counter-examples where relying on adjusted dollars results in equally absurd outcomes.

 

So whatever the flaws of adjusted dollars, in toto they come far closer to capturing the reality of the "bigness" of films from different times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by estebanJ

[TommyA10]

3 minutes ago, FantasticBeasts said:

And yet this changes nothing of what i said.

It is a bad number for a blockbuster of any type.

And to be honest no franchise has really history in China so....

So what, different countries react differently to various genres. Here in Croatia, the Avengers ended its run with 61k admissions. TFA has 245k. TLJ is at 96k as of this weekend. Is the Avengers number bad/embarrassing? You tell me...

[baumer]

42 minutes ago, JonathanLB said:

You’re not wrong, but my goalposts with Star Wars are always high. I always expect a lot more than other people. TFA was the first time ever even I underestimated SW. I was at $575M on Rogue One, not a bad prediction but it was high. Does that mean I moved the goalposts later to be happy with the run? I mean, not really, because what I really want out of each film is #1 for the year. That’s my highest true expectation. I know Solo won’t get there by a long shot so I have to set my bar lower but with Last Jedi I did believe all of the past 2 years until irrational exuberance before release that it would make $685M total. If it gets fairly close to that or beats Titanic to take 3rd it’s a fantastic run. 

 

Do I wish it could have 3.5x legs? Well yeah for sure. But in the end what happened is it opened way bigger than I had initially expected and will finish around the same total I expected. The latter is the more important of the two.

 

Great post.

[WrathOfHan]

1 hour ago, EmpireCity said:

 

Not your fault, most of us don't really count the prequels as Star Wars movies.  

[MrPink]

21 minutes ago, FantasticBeasts said:

And yet this changes nothing of what i said.

It is a bad number for a blockbuster of any type.

And to be honest no franchise has really history in China so....

 

The problem with Star Wars in China is that it has 40 years of history that many developed markets have grown up with and has defined pop culture and dictated blockbuster tropes as we know it. To a market like China, they see something that isn’t any different overall than plenty of other franchises but is heavily dependent on your knowledge and feelings of the past 40 years of films they don’t have. With others, they have been able to grow alongside those franchises and have been able to generally see them from the start. The problem isn’t that Star Wars has no history in China so much as it has no history but seemingly requires you on a creative level to have a history with the franchise.

 

Its the same for any emerging market, it’s not a coincidence that Asia and South America are the two weakest markets for Star Wars and why Marvel for example absolutely dominates these territories

Edited December 28, 2017 by MrPink

[That One Girl]

22 minutes ago, Ethan Hunt said:

Today is the day I see the sequel to a 2015 movie that I greatly enjoyed 

 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

Daddy’s Home 2?

[fmpro]

1 hour ago, FantasticBeasts said:

I am surprised that you are the first one telling that and even more surprise since only the day before yesterday people were telling that this was at half of Dunkirk's presales.

Why such a sudden boom?

I never believed that this would do $25m, but after asking some experts on chinrse BO here the range I was given was $40-70m and that is what I will keep in mind, which is pathetic for a holiwood blockbuster.

 

What can i say? Belive or dont belive. My life goes on. 

 

this is the numbers from chinese tracking thread when Thor and JL was tracked daily. 

SW8 is 1.7mill + at the same point 7 days out on OD

SW8 midnights is on par with JL 7 days out

SW8 saturday(2nd day) is 10% higher than JL 7 days out

SW8 sunday (3rd day) is on par with JL 7 days

 

Thor (7 days)

OD - 1.55m

 

Justice League (7 days)

Midnight- 550k

OD - 1.5m (23844 shows)

Sat - 1.01m

Sun - 636k

 

Im not saying that SW8 will make as much in the end but predicting a 80% drop compared to the last one when presales says otherwise are just plain stupid. If this is heavily frontloaded and gets bad WOM it could gross a low number. But no where near 24 mill

[Ethan Hunt]

1 minute ago, That One Guy said:

 

Daddy’s Home 2?

The first one is alright. Don't think I greatly enjoy it

[fmpro]

21 minutes ago, Blaze Heatnix said:

Tne Force Awakens performed really well in China...I mean, 124 million in China, is a great number. 

 

It seems The Last Jedi might end up making half of that number or perhaps, a little less. 

 

I will not match that number no doubt.. But lets see what happens

[RandomCat]

It's a point made before RO, that I think is still true here. We don't have enough data to know what a good multiplier for an opening weekend this large is Dec should be. Two data points aren't enough to really judge, and when one of those is what is likely an aberattion, its even harder to judge. I say likely, because TFA was a singular event of a film and run, but we still don't have enough to accurately compare it to anything. Does that mean if TLJ multiplier will be good, I don't know. I'm not going to say anything below 3x is good. Just that I don't know what the low end multi for a movie opening this large in DEC should be, and still be good. 

 

I also full admit my naivete in these matters, and that I may just be wrong. But I still think we're in unprecedented waters with these kind of openers in DEC. 

Edited December 28, 2017 by Sand-omJC

[Agafin]

56 minutes ago, Elessar said:

That's news to me. It has been commonly accepted that studios get like 60% of the DOM gross and like 40% on average of the OS gross. Those are of course rough figures. So not nearly as high a discrepancy.

I can't find the article now but I remember reading that when anxillary profits are considered (merch, home video, streaming etc) every $1 a movie grosses domestically might be equivalent to up to $7 internationally depending on the type of movie and its biggest markets.

[heynow]

I am still learning about predicting weekend boxoffice.  Would appreciate any of you that have more experience predicting how much you think TLJ will do weekend 3 and Jumanji weekend 2.  Thanks in advance.
 

[RandomCat]

assuming 22m is the final # (give or take 500K ) My guess for today would be low 19.5-20.5 (round abouts)

[MrGlass2]

1 hour ago, grey ghost said:

Avatar is OS king.

 

Star Wars is DOM king.

 

Avatar was king of everywhere until TFA.

Avatar is king Worldwide. (OS+DOM)

[FantasticBeasts]

That's a big problem for Star Wars though. Isn't it?

In another 40 years from now, DOM may not consist of more than 30%  of the final gross of the average movie.

 

[RandomCat]

Just now, FantasticBeasts said:

That's a big problem for Star Wars though. Isn't it?

In another 40 years from now, DOM may not consist of more than 30%  of the final gross of the average movie.

 

and 40 years of exposure OS may change OS perception of SW. Who knows what 40 years will bring.

[SpiritComix]

30 minutes ago, Sand-omJC said:

Some of us don't think it'll have a bad multiplier either.

Well, if you look the Top 200 December Opening Weekends at the Box Office, you will see:

 

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=12&p=.htm

 

- More than 95% of that movies had a multiplier bigger than 3x (I found only 7 movies - 3% - with a multiplier a little smaller than 3x, and the vast majority of them was a flop: The Golden Compass, Star Trek:Nemesis, Aeon Flux, In the Heart of the Sea, Analyze That, Psycho [1998] and Krampus).

 

- But even the majority of movie flops there had a multiplier bigger than 3x.

 

I think we have enough data to analyze.