Weekend Thread (6/11-13) | Friday #s - ln the Flops 5M, Peter Floppit 2 4M

[grim22]

Just now, Shawn said:

Well an opening like this was bound to happen eventually after so many "over" performances since T&J. Thankfully it wasn't F9 or BW doing the under-performing.

I mean, there's still a few weeks left for them to underperform. I'm really interested to see how F9 does to see if not having any big movies can overcome the movie being really bad.

[Shawn Robbins]

1 minute ago, Blankments said:

I mean F9 still has a pretty solid shot of underperforming imo; don’t think we are out of the woods yet

I was actually mid-revising my statement there when my phone browser crashed and made me hit submit instead. 😆

[Krissykins]

Not great for In The Heights. Hopefully the clearly positive WOM will catch on over the next few weeks. 
 

That’s a good hold for Conjuring 3 and also A Quiet Place 2, nice! 

[Ezen Baklattan]

My final thought is that so many movies go on to stand the test of time and find a beloved audience despite poor box office at the time. In The Heights is a wonderful film that will find a loving, lasting, audience, and these box office numbers don't have the final say on that.

[Shawn Robbins]

1 minute ago, grim22 said:

I mean, there's still a few weeks left for them to underperform. I'm really interested to see how F9 does to see if not having any big movies can overcome the movie being really bad.

See my reply to @Blankmentsabove and my revised post. 🙂

[Blankments]

Just now, Ezen Baklattan said:

My final thought is that so many movies go on to stand the test of time and find a beloved audience despite poor box office at the time. In The Heights is a wonderful film that will find a loving, lasting, audience, and these box office numbers don't have the final say on that.

They do have the final say on keeping the larger auditoriums tho

[titanic2187]

This week the market is likely to do 65m overall, down half from the same weekend in 2019. Just when we can get 100m total box office? Do we have to wait until BW weekend? That is painfully slow and this is USA.

Edited June 12, 2021 by titanic2187

[charlie Jatinder]

11 minutes ago, Eric is Full of Pride said:

It's a Marvel movie. Marvel movies are immune to saturation.

 

I get you but I guess you know where I was coming from I guess.

[Legion Again]

1 minute ago, titanic2187 said:

Just when we can get 100m total box office? Do we have to wait until BW weekend? That is painfully slow and this is USA.

Last wknd was 65M, this weekend looking like maybe 55M, next weekend will go to perhaps 40M, so F9 would need 75+ in all likelihood to get the overall weekend over 100M.   
 

In the end, cinema can only recover so much before the first real blockbuster release.

[grim22]

 

 

This guy is so weird

 

 

 

 

 

[grim22]

 

 

 

 

[Legion Again]

Man, if only Luca was coming out next weekend. Even with PA it would be a big shot in the arm.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

18 minutes ago, Blankments said:

Taking off my meltdown hat for a second: I actually think the marketing for Heights (which has been mostly praised) didn't do any favors for it - and I've been having this feeling since last weekend. What do I mean? Basically, it has been marketed like a pre-pandemic title with a long-range marketing strategy.

 

Conjuring 3 released its first trailer a month and a half before it released. Granted, Heights obviously couldn't do that with it's first trailer releasing pre-pandemic, but even compare it to A Quiet Place 2, which didn't restart its marketing until three weeks before its release. 

 

These are franchises, but the fact is that Heights restarted its marketing post-pandemic a full three months before its release, with two trailers, along with the last real bit of footages coming from the Oscars and the MTV Movie Awards, which were a month and a half ago and a month ago respectively, means that marketing peaked quite a bit ago. They did preview showings on Mother's Day, which was literally a month ago.

 

I got a trailer for Heights regularly at Little Women through March 2020. Then I got it from Wonder Woman 1984 to now very regularly. Likewise, the marketing has been around everywhere since mid-March/April, and the general consensus I've heard around my friends - who are the target niche market, being theater people - is that they had honestly forgot it was coming out, believing it must've come out a while ago. I have seen this sentiment on social media too, with an attitude of great over-exposure of this film.

 

I know it's weird thing for me to posit that an over-marketing led to a lackluster performance, but the marketing strategy for this was excessive to the point that it forgot that most of the films that have been successful in the pandemic era - including those from WB - did so by restarting their marketing much later than films did pre-pandemic. It'll be interesting to see if F9 also behaves this way (and I'm also willing to say that obviously we let excitement get the better of us - that said, I do think 15M - which it might not even hit - is disappointing even considering all the factors). 

Even before the pandemic the trend was going towards a shorter marketing window - the first trailer for Us dropped at Christmas for a March release, Hustlers had its first trailer in July and came out in September. The social media embargo for ITH lifted what feels like months ago, all the "Movie theaters are back!" reactions from critics seem to come from a time before big showy movies were getting released again.

 

I think there was a feeling this would be a Crazy Rich Asians for Latinos, especially with the same director and all, but the storyline of CRA was pretty clear from the trailers. Asian-Americans aren't a monolith either but the storyline there spoke to a broader issue (East-West culture clash) relatable to people of different backgrounds. And the mother-in-law hating her son's girlfriend is a very common plot for rom-coms the world over.

 

From the trailer a couple months ago, In the Heights is a musical about dreams and...gentrification? And some couples get together, maybe. Haha, we really should have seen an underperformance coming...

[lorddemaxus]

Just now, Legion of Lokis said:

Man, if only Luca was coming out next weekend. Even with PA it would be a big shot in the arm.

Really? Seemed like it would've opened around $20 mil with PA. Really don't see an opening higher than Creulla for that.

[lorddemaxus]

1 minute ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

From the trailer a couple months ago, In the Heights is a musical about dreams and...gentrification? And some couples get together, maybe. Haha, we really should have seen an underperformance coming...

This pretty much encapsulates it:

 

[Legion Again]

2 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

Really? Seemed like it would've opened around $20 mil with PA. Really don't see an opening higher than Creulla for that.

Hey, 30M of openers would be pretty nice compared to 10M

[WrathOfHan]

Paramount supremacy is here. Embrace the new box office gods.

 

 

[The Panda]

55 minutes ago, Eric is Full of Pride said:

Honestly I'm not fully convinced the Max release hurt it that much. I get that something like GvK or Conjuring or whatever fits the theatrical experience people want nowadays. But just looking at Charlie's Google Trends, even when the first trailer dropped pre-COVID, it didn't seem it got that much attention from people. It very well could be that the film was just not that exciting to the GA and wasn't going to be a big seller anyways. I know that might be frustrating to read, but that stuff happens sometimes.

I think where it’s hurt the most is in the legs.

 

Musicals seem to attract a lot of “marginal audiences” who’ll go see it based on word of mouth (which leads to leggier performances) and repeat viewings. Neither of those will happen as much when it’s available to view for free through streaming, as:

 

1. Marginal/On the Fence first time viewers will not have as strong of a preference to see it in theaters as compared to say a Godzilla fan, especially since the WoM won’t be based on the spectacle of the experience. So, these viewers probably opt to see it on streaming rather than go to the theater. 

 

2. Musicals seem to get quite a bit of repeat viewings from fans. After seeing a movie once in theaters, I’d suspect if it’s easily available to stream most viewers would save the money and watch the repeat viewings at home.

 

A musical like ITH priority probably had the majority of its theatrical audiences come from on the fence viewers and repeat viewers (both of which would usually help a movie develop strong legs but also both of which would be more inclined to choose a streaming option over a theater one).

 

tl;dr ITH is one of the HBO movies that probably gets screwed the most in terms of BO revenue.

[WrathOfHan]

This info from Deadline right here shows that non-fans aren't showing up. A third of the box office coming from PLFs is more than most CBMs see:

 

Quote

Also, biggest theaters I hear a bulk of In the Heights business is coming from NYC this weekend. Imax and PLF repped a third of In the Heights‘ business to date. At the end of the day, In the Heights arguably has a cult following.

 

[titanic2187]

2 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Paramount supremacy is here. Embrace the new box office gods.

 

 

The last 100m grosser was Sonic at 148m, coincidentally this is followed by AQP2 and AQP2 is now heading to Sonic's range in total