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

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1 minute ago, TommyA10 said:

Multiplier isn't about WOM exclusively, though. CW had amazing WOM and had a pathetic multiplier, even for summer standards. TFA multiplier was more a product of its insane event status, than some amazing WOM, IMO. It got people who don't even go to the movies, to see it, which softened the drops and gave it amazing legs. I'm not arguing TFA WOM here. All I'm saying is, maybe it's unreasonable to expect 3.0x minimum multiplier for December releases just because it's december. Sort of like, it's no longer reasonable to expect soft openings in December, just because...

Well, yeah, I mean we go around and around this merry-go-round every day :P

 

That being said, it's true, though. Just understand people will cherry pick the data that fits their narrative. It's also human nature. I think there are such things as stronger and weaker arguments, however. I don't want to get into an off topic argument, but the whole "If TPM was a better movie, it would have beat Titanic." That's a fairly weak argument because Titanic is the most impressive box office performance in the modern era. In fact, as much as I am not a Titanic fan, I would argue that Titanic's box office performance may be the greatest single run in the history of cinema. I believe it sold somewhere around 125 to 130 million tickets, and basically no other movie has sold more than 100 million in a single release. TPM's adjusted total is one of the best runs in history, too, but simply put nothing at least in the modern era has touched Titanic. It's a nice talking point, I guess, but it falls apart fast right? Because you'd have to argue that TFA is also not a very good movie, since if you believe TFA is better than TPM, and it sold a fairly similar number of tickets, why couldn't TFA beat Titanic's adjusted total? That's what I mean by weak arguments, they fall apart on any examination.

 

Deathly Hallows 2 comes to mind as well, are we supposed to believe it had some piss poor word of mouth because its previews were more than half its opening day, and its opening day was more than half its opening weekend, and its opening weekend was such a substantial portion of its total? Or is it honestly just far more reasonable to conclude it was the 8th movie in a series and everyone who really wanted to see it *REALLY* wanted to see it, and a lot of other people were left behind. I bring up this example because I personally did not see DH2 in theaters as I wasn't caught up on Harry Potter. I was busy at the time and just didn't get around to seeing the movies I missed, so I felt like it was pointless to see the last movie. I later saw it, and I loved it, so it's not like word of mouth made me not see the last Harry Potter. The greatest word of mouth in history (and, to be fair, I DID hear absolutely fantastic things about it!) could not have convinced me to see it in theaters as I wasn't caught up on the franchise.

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50 minutes ago, JonathanLB said:

$22M is a monster number, not an "ok number." Anywhere above $20M is excellent. I know that people get hung up on nerdy box office stuff, but look, you post a $22M WEDNESDAY in your second week and theaters are packed. As I said, my theater sold out multiple 7 p.m. showings including an IMAX full of $20 tickets. 

 

You can nerd out over multiples all you want and that's just fantastic but the movie will make $400 million after opening weekend when all is said and done, and I suspect quite a bit higher than that as these numbers prove it has a very good chance to sink Titanic (again). There are only 27 other movies in history that have made $400 million total, let alone after the 2nd biggest opening weekend in history. We can all dick around with nerdy multiples all we want, but a 6x multiple off a $10M opening weekend is still a piece of shit. It's still an amount of money so pathetic that TLJ nearly doubled that on opening day alone. It just has made me shake my head and laugh a bit, in a "not seeing the forest for the trees" kind of way. But yeah let's just yawn our way through one of the biggest box office runs ever, because "legs lol." Alright. 

 

In real news, TLJ is on course to have difficulty finishing worse than 3rd on the all time best third weekend charts. So while it only ranked 13th on second weekends, despite an unfavorable calendar also impeding its third weekend, it should easily take 3rd best on the all time chart for its third weekend. THAT is real. And it is impressive. 

Sadly, due to higher expectations, a lot of people are overlooking the fact TLJ's run is really spectacular. It seems to be heading towards the 3rd best domestic gross of all-time. All we hear is negative talk for a special run. Marvel, DC, JP series could only pray that their IW and JW2 end up with the disappointing $670M gross of TLJ. 

 

Due to some hardcore fans having genuine issues with the arcs of some characters, there has been an impact on its potential gross. I would think it may be around $50M. I for one expected around $710M. Let's not compare it to TFA and lose our perspective. TFA is a once in a generation hit. It would be hard to match it for a long time. 

 

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Just now, narniadis said:

And I think you are an arrogant fanboy but it doesn't change the fact that this is a Domestic focused forum and Avatar is a 2nd class citizen here. 

erm.. I didn't mean to rub you the wrong way so sorry for that I guess.

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17 minutes ago, Christmas baumer said:

 

You're forgetting that TLJ will have the first week of January with schools still out where as TFA didn't have that.  The calendar is different this time around.  So the same legs as TFA is not realistic as TLJ will have a much bigger January 1st week.  610 is way too low, if it follows my theory correctly.  I think 650 is the floor.

This. weird calendar, that cannot be dismissed cause it does mess up with numbers one way or the other, didn't favor the boxoffice in the beginning, but it will favor it later in the run (aka schools out first week of Jan which will soften drops that would have been much harsher otherwise). So the system balances itself out. 

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3 hours ago, TommyA10 said:

Multiplier isn't about WOM exclusively, though. CW had amazing WOM and had a pathetic multiplier, even for summer standards. TFA multiplier was more a product of its insane event status, than some amazing WOM, IMO. It got people who don't even go to the movies, to see it, which softened the drops and gave it amazing legs. I'm not arguing TFA WOM here. All I'm saying is, maybe it's unreasonable to expect 3.0x minimum multiplier for December releases just because it's december. Sort of like, it's no longer reasonable to expect soft openings in December, just because...

 

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.  Films in December, especially ones released just before Christmas, typically have a multiplier of 3.5 or higher.  This isn't a theory, it's a fact.  December weekdays act like a weekend, for two weeks straight, so the multipliers are usually higher.  Now, the wild card in all of this is that schools are still out until January the 8th, so the multiplier could very well pick up significantly.  If this finishes with 725, then I will admit that I am wrong and that the word of mouth was good enough to get it to a 3.3.  But right now, it looks like it's on pace to finish with either just under or just over a 3 and that indicates the kind of wom that has people divided.  

 

Here's just a few examples for you (multipliers for big tentpoles in December)

 

Avatar:  Forget Jake, it's Avatar

Sherlock Holmes:  3.37 (and this opened CD)

Tron Legacy: 3.9

Narnia 3:  4.3

Hobbit 1:  3.6

Hobbit 2:  3.5

Hobbit 3:  5.1 (if you take its first three days)

TFA:  3.78

Rogue 1:  3.43

 

So as you can see, if it really does miss a 3X, it will be the first big movie released just before Christmas, to not have a three X, in almost a decade.  And I just went back to 2009, I'm sure I could go further and the numbers would support me every year.

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6 minutes ago, narniadis said:

And I think you are an arrogant fanboy but it doesn't change the fact that this is a Domestic focused forum and Avatar is a 2nd class citizen here. 

Avatar is 2nd. It is definitely not 2nd class.

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3 hours ago, narniadis said:

No rubbing the wrong way, but expecting an entire board to view things from your one sided perspective is arrogant. 

 

He's right of course, 

 

geg5R5NTYjcMlKq_SGM1WEop3CwUIiJxvrk0f14q

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10 minutes ago, Christmas baumer said:

 

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.  Films in December, especially ones released just before Christmas, typically have a multiplier of 3.5 or higher.  This isn't a theory, it's a fact.  December weekdays act like a weekend, for two weeks straight, so the multipliers are usually higher.  Now, the wild card in all of this is that schools are still out until January the 8th, so the multiplier could very well pick up significantly.  If this finishes with 725, then I will admit that I am wrong and that the word of mouth was good enough to get it to a 3.3.  But right now, it looks like it's on pace to finish with either just under or just over a 3 and that indicates the kind of wom that has people divided.  

 

Here's just a few examples for you (multipliers for big tentpoles in December)

 

Avatar:  Forget Jake, it's Avatar

Sherlock Holmes:  3.37 (and this opened CD)

Tron Legacy: 3.9

Narnia 3:  4.3

Hobbit 1:  3.6

Hobbit 2:  3.5

Hobbit 3:  5.1 (if you take its first three days)

TFA:  3.78

Rogue 1:  3.43

 

So as you can see, if it really does miss a 3X, it will be the first big movie released just before Christmas, to not have a three X, in almost a decade.  And I just went back to 2009, I'm sure I could go further and the numbers would support me every year.

 

I think the LOTR (which you didnt mention) openings in 2001,2002,2003 (all on Wednesday) and Hobbit 3's Wednesday opening skew their multipliers a lot. If they all had openened on Fridays, they would be signifanctly lower, though obviosly all well above a 3 multi.

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It is the domestic forum, so I think it's not wrong to call TFA the box office champion because the context is set by the forum I made the post. I mean, there are a lot of forums here, and people who cover the various international markets. Given this is a thread on the daily domestic grosses, it seemed a snarky remark to mention that Avatar is the worldwide champion as it didn't relate to the argument / comparison / discussion at hand. Not that I take offense, honestly I like the rivalry between various franchises. 

 

This may sound funny, but I take your presence @IronJimbo and enthusiasm commenting on Star Wars to be a real compliment :P It means you know where your competition lies. You wouldn't be here following so closely if this was Star Trek, because that franchise is zero threat to Avatar or its sequels.

 

I mainly come around to post with Star Wars releases, and I'm suddenly realizing the annoyance the forum regulars feel with franchise fanboys. That being said, I personally enjoy watching a number of movies succeed, like it was a joy seeing Wonder Woman's run and I have quite a few rooting interests. My girlfriend asked me if there's a popular franchise I don't like, and I couldn't really think of one. I mean, Twilight if you count that as "popular," but it's rather niche. I'm a blockbuster nut, I mostly enjoy blockbuster franchises, even though I'll make fun of the latest Transformers or Pirates as empty cash grabs. I still watch 'em, and get some level of enjoyment out of them, depending. 

 

I've followed the box office for 20 years now, it has always been just something fun to me, I guess it goes along with being a movie fan. 

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3 hours ago, Brainbug said:

 

Im in no way saying that you are wrong, but i think the LOTR (which you didnt mention) openings in 2001,2002,2003 (all on Wednesday) and Hobbit 3's Wednesday opening skew their multipliers a lot. If they all had openened on Fridays, they would be signifanctly lower, though obviosly all well above a 3 multi.

 

How am I wrong?  You just said yourself that all the multipliers would still be well over a three multiplier.  :WHATanabe:

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1 minute ago, Christmas baumer said:

 

How am I wrong?  You just said yourself that all the multipliers would still be well over a three multiplier.  :WHATanabe:

 

Misleading/bad choice of words on my part :lol: i edited my post.

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I'm certainly not trying to ruffle any feathers, but given the enormously small sample size of $150M+ openers in the holiday season, literally only the 3 Star Wars movies from Disney, I'm not sure that it's fair to assume the sky high multiples will always still apply. I guess what I'm saying is that it's certainly easier to achieve a 3.5 to 4.0 multiplier off a smaller weekend, that's all. The higher the OW, the more difficult it becomes, to the point where you can put up some still very nice numbers thereafter and fall short. 
 

Another way to put it is if TFA had opened to $295M and managed just a 2.9 multiple, plenty enough to beat Avatar easily, I would have been no less pleased with the result. I wouldn't have known any better, and it would have established the precedent that perhaps an enormous holiday opener cannot have those legs. TFA instead somehow managed what I assumed to be impossible before -- summer blockbuster opening (and a record one) with December legs. It's a fanboy's wet dream. It's like a Genie asked me, "What's your wish?" and I said, "For everyone to be as excited to see the new Star Wars as I am!" and wam, it happened. That's basically how the TFA box office run felt like. It was so good that if I had a dream about that box office run, I'd wake up blushing because of the greed of the dream. But it came true, in reality. 

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5 minutes ago, Christmas baumer said:

 

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.  Films in December, especially ones released just before Christmas, typically have a multiplier of 3.5 or higher.  This isn't a theory, it's a fact.  December weekdays act like a weekend, for two weeks straight, so the multipliers are usually higher.  Now, the wild card in all of this is that schools are still out until January the 8th, so the multiplier could very well pick up significantly.  If this finishes with 725, then I will admit that I am wrong and that the word of mouth was good enough to get it to a 3.3.  But right now, it looks like it's on pace to finish with either just under or just over a 3 and that indicates the kind of wom that has people divided.  

 

Here's just a few examples for you (multipliers for big tentpoles in December)

 

Avatar:  Forget Jake, it's Avatar

Sherlock Holmes:  3.37 (and this opened CD)

Tron Legacy: 3.9

Narnia 3:  4.3

Hobbit 1:  3.6

Hobbit 2:  3.5

Hobbit 3:  5.1 (if you take its first three days)

TFA:  3.78

Rogue 1:  3.43

 

So as you can see, if it really does miss a 3X, it will be the first big movie released just before Christmas, to not have a three X, in almost a decade.  And I just went back to 2009, I'm sure I could go further and the numbers would support me every year.

How many of these movies opened to 220m though? Could it simply be that more demand was burned off in the OW, leading to worse legs overall (plus the fact TLJ ain't getting your "once in a lifetime moviegoer" to see it in theater)...

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6 minutes ago, JonathanLB said:

This may sound funny, but I take your presence @IronJimbo and enthusiasm commenting on Star Wars to be a real compliment :P It means you know where your competition lies. You wouldn't be here following so closely if this was Star Trek, because that franchise is zero threat to Avatar or its sequels.

That's no secret, Star Wars was the final threat to worry about. If TLJ had made close to TFA I would maybe have to be worried about sws9.

 

The Last Jedi is actually still interesting to me without Avatar though, just because I've now invested 2 weeks following it.

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If certain people are going to talk about Avatar over and over, then at least put it in full context when talking about those numbers and acknowledge that those international numbers count for about 25% of what the domestic numbers do.  

 

The nearly $200m in domestic extra for The Force Awakens translates out to about $800m in international gross. 

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