Weekend thread - Sep 11 to 13 | Tenet and Broken Hearts Club grosses are shielded from everyone. Is this the end of box office reporting?

[doublejack]

25 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

If Tenet can make over $250 mil OS (which is more likely than not), Bond should do $400 mil+ OS. Add round $60-70 mil domestic and that should allow it to breakeven. 

Those are some big assumptions and it is a huge risk.... just to break even? Sony is going to be smart and not do that. It is just as likely that we see big spikes in COVID due to colder weather and Bond does smaller numbers than Tenet.

 

2020 is just done, that's the reality and it has been the reality since this all spiraled out of control in Feb and March. Onward was the initial indicator of the challenge a pandemic poses, and there has been nothing to indicate business is returning to close to normal levels since then.

 

-edit

 

I keep saying Sony in reference to the Bond film. I forget that UA has the US rights to the new one. Old habits.

Edited September 13, 2020 by doublejack

[Rebeccas]

The challenge now is different countries are going to be in very different places with the virus. Right now China's more or less back to normal but the U.S. absolutely is not. In the next few months, a lot of countries could be yo-yo situations. You'll never find the perfect release date where all the countries you want to open in will be totally ready. 

[Maggie]

Tenet held good, but there were new locations opened, right?

[vafrow]

12 minutes ago, filmlover said:

If the drops continue to hold great the next few weeks with so little set to come out (Death on the Nile is now the next major release now that Wonder Woman and Candyman moved) it won't be too bad. But with the numbers already so low it remains to be seen if theaters will start to just close again.

I'm wondering how many screens it will hold. For most multiplexes, I assume it's on close to half the screens right now. At these numbers, there's going to be frequent empty showings. 

 

Problem is, you need to replace it with something. Do we see more classic film showings again? 

 

There's really not a lot of good options our there right now. 

[Legion Again]

On 9/12/2020 at 1:03 PM, Arendelle Legion said:

Mon cume 20.2 (WB est)  

Tues-Th ~2-2.5M (keyser/Jat ests)  
Th cume ~22.5

Last FSS ~9.4M (holiday boosted Sun, otherwise high 8s)   
 

30 on Sun would be a 7.5 FSS, maybe ~15% drop post holiday adjustment.   
 

I expect Sun about 29, ~6.5FSS, ~26% drop post holiday adjustment

 

With WB reporting 29% drop, last FSS is revealed to be 9.4.   
 

This weekend 3 of top 5 locs were LA locs not open last weekend, so same locs hold is a bit worse but hard to say just how much.
 

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Arendelle Legion

[tree]

10 minutes ago, Maggie said:

Tenet held good, but there were new locations opened, right?

nope only 100 theaters added in domestic.

[lorddemaxus]

30 minutes ago, doublejack said:

Those are some big assumptions and it is a huge risk.... just to break even? Sony is going to be smart and not do that. It is just as likely that we see big spikes in COVID due to colder weather and Bond does smaller numbers than Tenet.

 

2020 is just done, that's the reality and it has been the reality since this all spiraled out of control in Feb and March. Onward was the initial indicator of the challenge a pandemic poses, and there has been nothing to indicate business is returning to close to normal levels since then.

Tenet's OS performance does indicate that business is returning close to normal levels outside of America. I don't know how you can say that the situation is still as bad as it was when Onward released. And studios will probably know if a huge spike that will cause cinemas to close down again will happens before Bond opens anyways. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by lorddemaxus

[imbruglia]

so tenet will end with around 350m and warner will get around 165m.

[Legion Again]

Here’s a crude little calculation —  

new locs this weekend are about 1/28 of last weekend. *If* the PTA among them matched last weekend’s among the rest, that’s 300-350k or so. But new areas are probably disproportionately from areas that pull a lot of weight, so maybe the new ones did 500k or so.   
 

Then same locs are ~6.2-6.3, is... an exactly 29% drop from a holiday adjusted 8.8 last wknd. -34% without the correction.

[Barnack]

43 minutes ago, doublejack said:

I keep saying Sony in reference to the Bond film. I forget that UA has the US rights to the new one. Old habits.

And Universal for international.

 

Under the Sony deal/model into which Sony didn't saw any of the post theatrical revenues, the release would not made sense from their point of view I would have imagined.

 

Under the Universal deal they are rumored to be in charge of HomeEnt has well, but I would imagine that like for Sony it was a low margin affair for the distributor, Bond 24 needed to make 524.5M WW for Sony to break even, 1.546B WW to make have gross margin of 10.2%.

 

Considering the different force in place 2 distributor vs the producers and their relative power (say if all the hit of a bad domestic release goes purely on Annapurna-MGM, maybe Universal could push for something that make no sense overall for the movie but do for them), maybe it could surprise us, more players can make it harder to predict.

[MrPink]

20 minutes ago, imbruglia said:

so tenet will end with around 350m and warner will get around 165m.

 

Really curious what kind of cut Nolan is taking. 

[Krissykins]

There’s a success story:

 

After We Collided

 

https://deadline.com/2020/09/after-we-collided-international-box-office-social-media-voltage-pictures-1234575942/

[Hangman]

58 minutes ago, Arendelle Legion said:

With WB reporting 29% drop, last FSS is revealed to be 9.4.   
 

 

 

Did WB "adjust" last week's FSS, so the drop wouldn't look as bad?

[CJohn]

3 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

There’s a success story:

 

After We Collided

 

https://deadline.com/2020/09/after-we-collided-international-box-office-social-media-voltage-pictures-1234575942/

The real savior of European theaters. Step aside Nolan, the Kings of Europe have arrived.

 

 

[FilmFincher]

5 minutes ago, MrPink said:

 

Really curious what kind of cut Nolan is taking. 

Reportedly same as Dunkirk $20M upfront salary and 20% of box office gross. Which is a record tied with Peter Jackson who got the same deal for King Kong. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the deal was changed to convince Warner to release during COVID and try giving a lifeline to theatres, could even be agreeing to a smaller payday on his next film. 

[Legion Again]

Just now, Hangman said:

 

Did WB "adjust" last week's FSS, so the drop wouldn't look as bad?

No evidence of that, 9-10 was about what we estimated for the FSS as soon as the 20.2 cume was dropped. 

[MrPink]

5 minutes ago, FilmFincher said:

Reportedly same as Dunkirk $20M upfront salary and 20% of box office gross. Which is a record tied with Peter Jackson who got the same deal for King Kong. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the deal was changed to convince Warner to release during COVID and try giving a lifeline to theatres, could even be agreeing to a smaller payday on his next film. 

 

This is what I meant. I'm sure the discussion was at least had.

[tree]

No one will know what cut the director takes. Its all speculation.

 

Personally I doubt that "Warner Bros deliberately tried to lose money with Tenet because they gained money back from Nolans cut", that seems unlikely.

 

WB have various reasons / incentives to release Tenet at the time that they did.

 

Just speaking my mind here but if Tenet ends up with $350M then that's pretty good and not much less than I thought it was gonna gross pre-COVID.

As many others have speculated, IMO its likely that WB expected that Tenet would underperform at the box office so it got released now and can take the hit under the label of "Covid caused it to lose money".

[Barnack]

15 minutes ago, tree said:

"Warner Bros deliberately tried to lose money with Tenet because they gained money back from Nolans cut"

Not sure what gained money back mean here ?, did anyone advanced something of that sort ?

[Eric Duncan]