The Box Office Buzz and Tracking Thread (December 2021 - July 2023)

[charlie Jatinder]

Seems like 475-500k ($8M+) tix sale in US (not incl. CAN). Now this isn't exactly 24 hours as early access screenings have contributed roughly $2.5M+ which are on sale for 2-3 days. 

 

2nd best start for a solo superhero movie beating Black Panther, just behind No Way Home. BP however was on sale much earlier and has been 4 years since that. Roughly 3x Eternals start.

[XXR & Friends]

3 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Seems like 475-500k ($8M+) tix sale in US (not incl. CAN). Now this isn't exactly 24 hours as early access screenings have contributed roughly $2.5M+ which are on sale for 2-3 days. 

 

2nd best start for a solo superhero movie beating Black Panther, just behind No Way Home. BP however was on sale much earlier and has been 4 years since that. Roughly 3x Eternals start.

Not doing a FBW, but this will make a good comp for the MCU and DC films releasing this year. I imagine all of their presales will be closer to this than to NWH.

[Eric the Minion]

23 hours ago, Eric Poirot said:

Uncharted Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-7 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	55	385	10285	3.74%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 51

 

Comp

0.365x of F9 T-7 (2.59M)

0.928x of The Suicide Squad T-7 (3.8M)

0.371x of Venom 2 T-7 (4.3M)

0.537x of Ghostbusters: Afterlife T-7 (2.42M)

 

@MrPink maybe things aren't so hopeless after all.

Uncharted Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-6 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	55	404	10285	3.93%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 19

 

Comp

0.354x of F9 T-6 (2.51M)

0.876x of The Suicide Squad T-6 (3.59M)

0.362x of Venom 2 T-6 (4.19M)

0.532x of Ghostbusters: Afterlife T-6 (2.39M)

[Eric the Minion]

23 hours ago, Eric Poirot said:

The Batman Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-21 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	2	177	3605	35067	10.28%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 2,454

 

Comp

0.475x of Black Widow's Final Count (6.27M)

0.759x of Shang-Chi's Final Count (6.68M)

0.688x of Venom 2's Final Count (7.98M)

0.683x of Eternals' Final Count (6.49M)

0.320x of No Way Home's First Day of Sales (16M)

 

Adjusted Comp

0.279x of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker T-21 (11.14M)

 

So yeah, this is another case where a majority of comps are too small for the film and skew towards pie in the sky previews of 30M+ or 40M+. So we have to use Final Counts again, all of which should see a huge spike tomorrow night. And this kind of stuff shows that, yes, this is going to be a big deal.

The Batman Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-20 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	2	177	3998	35067	11.40%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 393

 

Comp

0.526x of Black Widow's Final Count (6.95M)

0.841x of Shang-Chi's Final Count (7.4M)

0.763x of Venom 2's Final Count (8.85M)

0.758x of Eternals' Final Count (7.2M)

 

Adjusted Comp

0.308x of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker T-20 (12.3M)

[Coneilg93]

1 hour ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Seems like 475-500k ($8M+) tix sale in US (not incl. CAN). Now this isn't exactly 24 hours as early access screenings have contributed roughly $2.5M+ which are on sale for 2-3 days. 

 

2nd best start for a solo superhero movie beating Black Panther, just behind No Way Home. BP however was on sale much earlier and has been 4 years since that. Roughly 3x Eternals start.

So, that’s good right? 

[Porthos]

23 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

The Batman Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-21 days and counting

 

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	248	29316	32197	2881	8.95%

 

Total Showings Added Today	245
Total Seats Added Today	31382
Total Seats Sold Today	2406

 

Day 1 Unadjusted Comps 

(EXCEEDINGLY LOL-TASTIC — USE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY)

	%		Sold Day 1	Total Sold		Sellouts/Shows	Seats Left/Total Seats	Perct Sold		Comp
ET	329.63		874	874		0/96	14669/15543	5.62%		31.32m
NWH	21.70		13279	13279		0/225	14920/28199	47.09%		10.85m

 

Day 1 Adjusted Comp 

(EXCEEDINGLY LOL-TASTIC — USE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY)

	%		Sold Day 1	Total Sold		Sellouts/Shows	Seats Left/Total Seats	Perct Sold		Comp
BW	251.97		1089	1089		0/99	16124/17213	6.33%		34.83m
Bats (BW adj)	---		2744	2744		0/197	23547/26291	10.44%		---

COMP NOTE: The Batman 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: Bats (BW adj) is the amount of seats sold that does not include the theaters which had unreliable data polluting their seat maps at that point in BW's track.

PRE-SALE NOTE: Bats (BW adj) "Sold Day 1" also includes the 475 tickets that were sold to Tuesday showings the previous two days.

 

Tuesday Sales:        617/815     [75.71% sold]

Wednesday Sales:   804/1301   [61.80% sold]

Thursday Sales:    1460/30081 [4.85% sold]

---

Regal: 794/10475 [7.58% sold]

Matinee: 95/4799 [1.98% | 3.30% of all tickets sold]

 

=====

 

Very very solid day locally.  None of the comps are very good, so I think I'll wait a spell (and until I get to T-x day comps) to really say, but pretty sure we're looking good for 20m+ in previews.  Could be wrong though as we haven't had a film in this range and in this genre with this length of pre-sales in quite a while (probs since 2018, really, since Captain Marvel had an insanely long pre-sale window).

 

The Thursday sales, while still PLF heavy were pretty decent as well.  Speaking of which, the PLF+DBOX penetration currently sits at 79.94% of all tickets sold [2303/2881].  Goes to show just how much those Tue/Wed showings are currently tipping the scales.

 

Anyway, enjoy those 30m+ comps while they last, coz they ain't gonna be around for very long.

 

NB:

 

If folks care, the T-21 comps would be:

 

BW: 20.34m and ET: 20.47m.  Perhaps a bit more realistic.   We'll see if they're too low in the fullness of time as Bats pre-sale run takes off for real.

 

The Batman Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-20 days and counting

 

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	248	29063	32298	3235	10.02%

 

Total Net Showings Added Today	0*
Total Seats Added Today	101
Total Seats Sold Today	354

* NOTE:  A non-reserved seating theater removed a late night showing, but a different theater added a late night PLF showing, resulting in a net zero addition of showings, but 101 more seats tracked.

 

Day 2 Unadjusted Comps 

(EXCEEDINGLY LOL-TASTIC — USE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY)

	%		Sold Day 2	Total Sold		Sellouts/Shows	Seats Left/Total Seats	Perct Sold		Comp
ET	301.49		199	1073		0/96	14470/15543	6.90%		28.64m
NWH	22.10		1361	14640		0/273	19521/34161	42.86%		11.05m

 

Day 2 Adjusted Comp 

(EXCEEDINGLY LOL-TASTIC — USE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY)

	%		Sold Day 2	Total Sold		Sellouts/Shows	Seats Left/Total Seats	Perct Sold		Comp
BW	234.96		224	1313		0/104	16873/18186	7.22%		32.46m
Bats (BW adj)	---		341	3085		0/197	23307/26392	11.69%		---

COMP NOTE: The Batman 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: Bats (BW adj) is the amount of seats sold that does not include the theaters which had unreliable data polluting their seat maps at that point in BW's track.

PRE-SALE NOTE: Bats (BW adj) "Sold Day 1" also includes the 475 tickets that were sold to Tuesday showings the previous two days.

 

Tuesday Sales:        637/815     [78.16% sold] [+20 tickets]

Wednesday Sales:   858/1301   [61.80% sold] [+54 tickets]

Thursday Sales:    1470/30182 [4.85% sold] [+280 tickets]

---

Regal:  893/10475  [8.53% sold] [+99 tickets]

Matinee: 126/4799 [2.63% | 3.89% of all tickets sold]

 

===

 

T-x comps will start on either Sunday or Monday.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Porthos

[Dragoncaine]

Not very surprising, but looks like the U.K. is gearing up to support as many showtimes for The Batman as possible.

[ZackM]

Couple notes for yesterday's run...Still doesn't include fan event shows (I might try to add them for my run tonight), and the run stopped and started a few times, so there is definitely some inflation from the delays.

 

The Batman Alpha Chain Premiere Night Seat Report: T-20 days
	Last Day	2 Days Ago
Showings Added	39	5,126
Seats Added	3,506	900,107
Seats Sold	19,131	65,150
2/11/2022	Theaters	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Pct. Sold
Total	425	5,165	84,281	903,613	9.33%

 

 

ATP

$17.56

[WrathOfHan]

So Batman might hit 200M? Good.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

The 2 days of previews just makes Batman tricky to perfectly calculate IMO. Here the Thursday shows are underwhelming but the previews are either sold out or near capacity

[Coneilg93]

I don’t know about $200 million but if it gets rave reviews and reactions will be huge for the folks who are still on the fence about seeing another Batman movie. 

[Porthos]

15 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

The 2 days of previews just makes Batman tricky to perfectly calculate IMO. Here the Thursday shows are underwhelming but the previews are either sold out or near capacity

 

I think part/most of it is just that there are SO MANY PLF seats available.  And with many theaters upcharging for regular seats the psychological difference between a regular seat and a PLF one gets lessened, even if PLF prices also go up.

 

Take the Sacto market.  Counting Tue/Wed, I've got 10 more Prime Time PLF screens.  That's not just the equivalent of most of the market adding a PLF screen for a preview day (I say most coz Cinema West was shut out).  It's the equivalent of most of the market having a second 7pm PLF showing (or thereabouts as Cinemark is having 6:30pm showings on Wed), which is the most sought after time for screens.

 

So instead of each theater having two or three PLF showings, all have (again except for Cinema West) three or four.  Two of which are in the best viewing windows possible.

 

That's just sucking up demand as far as the eye can see.

 

The real test will be what happens after the 6pm-8pm Thursday PLF screenings get filled/only undesirable seats are left.  Usually it's then the 6pm-8pm regular screenings (in order of various market preferences) start getting sold, and I am seeing that to a decent degree locally.  Then it's just a matter of how long it takes to filter out to other showtimes.

 

But I have to say, after looking at the patterns locally, I'm not surprised at all that an extra 2000+ prime time valuable seats is tilting the scales here.

 

===

 

Relatedly I now low-key think that when it comes to final comps Dune might legitimately be a better comp than most 2021 CBMs, slight demographic differences be damned, simply because of the PLF-heavy nature of this pre-sale. 

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Porthos

[XXR & Friends]

As of today the comps will be wonky, but by the week of release there should be fine clarity in things. IMO the best bet is just to comp Thursday vs Thursday and add in $3-4M to the comp. I wouldn’t try to mess with actually factoring the Tues/Weds numbers into Thursday. 

[Porthos]

16 minutes ago, PenguinXXR said:

As of today the comps will be wonky, but by the week of release there should be fine clarity in things. IMO the best bet is just to comp Thursday vs Thursday and add in $3-4M to the comp. I wouldn’t try to mess with actually factoring the Tues/Weds numbers into Thursday. 

 

That would put Sacto at around 18m-22m, for what it's worth depending on which movie one wants to use (BW: 21.3m-22.3m | ET: 18.5-19.5m).  Seems too large of a swing in the opposite direction.

 

I'm just gonna roll with the punches, provide the raw data, and let folks make their own adjustments if they want.

[XXR & Friends]

8 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

That would put Sacto at around 18m-22m, for what it's worth depending on which movie one wants to use (BW: 21.3m-22.3m | ET: 18.5-19.5m).  Seems too large of a swing in the opposite direction.

 

I'm just gonna roll with the punches, provide the raw data, and let folks make their own adjustments if they want.

 

Sure at this juncture, but come T-1 I think that'll be the best way to do the numbers. We will see how it goes. 

[Porthos]

10 minutes ago, PenguinXXR said:

 

Sure at this juncture, but come T-1 I think that'll be the best way to do the numbers. We will see how it goes. 

 

For T-1 and so, that's one reason why I started keep historical data on PLF percentages on my home sheets.  Helps me decide what movies might make the cut list when it comes to comps.  Like I said, I am gonna be real curious about the final PLF percentages of Dune and The Batman compared to more recent CBM fare.

[XXR & Friends]

4 hours ago, ZackM said:

ATP

$17.56

 

Damn that is high. Was NWH even over $16 for previews? 

 

[Caesar]

Looking at my local cinema in Australia (the only cinema in a city of 100,000 people with the next closest cinema being 30 minutes away with no nearby public transport) after 3 days of presales.

 

Wednesday night previews

 

Standard showings - 7/500 tickets sold

Premium lounge seating and dinner service - 0/50 tickets sold

 

Thursday and Friday both have no tickets sold so far, even in the usually popular night showings.

 

Even the biggest and most popular cinemas in the state are at less than 10% sold for the Wednesday night previews with almost no tickets sold for Thursday or Friday. For perspective I've never seen a big US opener not sellout the previews at these cinemas.

 

Australia's usually a pretty close comparison to the US (because almost all our popular shows and movies are imported from the US) and so based on what I usually see in my area I'd be thinking a US opening of under $100 million. Maybe Australia just isn't feeling the hype this time though.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Caesar

[21C]

Just now, Caesar said:

Looking at my local cinema in Australia (the only cinema in a city of 100,000 people with the next closest cinema being 30 minutes away with no nearby public transport) after 3 days of presales.

 

Wednesday night previews

 

Standard showing - 7/500 tickets sold

Premium lounge seating and dinner service - 0/50 tickets sold

 

Thursday and Friday both have no tickets sold so far, even in the usually popular night showings.

 

Even the biggest and most popular cinemas in the state are at less than 10% sold for the Wednesday night previews with almost no tickets sold for Thursday or Friday. For perspective I've never seen a big US opener not sellout the previews at these cinemas.

 

Australia's usually a pretty close comparison to the US (because almost all our popular shows and movies are imported from the US) and so based on what I usually see in my area I'd be thinking a US opening of under $100 million. Maybe Australia just isn't feeling the hype this time though.

Has marketing started in Australia yet? I think it hasn't for many countries, at least in terms of TV Spots and billboards.

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:07 AM, Inceptionzq said:

The Batman Denver Preview Showings

AMC Westminster 24

Total

363

3112

11.66%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

206

3405

6.05%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST 17HRS	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
1116	265	29007	3.85%	14	187

 

AMCs sold	942
Cinemarks sold	33
Regals sold	72
Harkins sold	69

 

Tuesday:

Total

966

1428

Wednesday:

Total

314

917

Overall:

Grand Total

2396

31352

 

The overall first 24ish hours of sales amount to 2262 tickets sold.

0.266x NWH's first 24 hours(13.3M)

2.91x Eternal's Day 2 sales(27.65M)

2.87x Black Widow's Day 2 sales(37.88M)

The Batman Denver Preview Showings

AMC Westminster 24

Total

415

3112

13.34%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

234

3405

6.87%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST 30 HOURS	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
1365	249	29007	4.71%	14	187

 

AMCs sold	1112
Cinemarks sold	61
Regals sold	105
Harkins sold	87

 

Tuesday:

Total

991

25

1428

Wednesday:

Total

358

44

917

Overall:

Grand Total

2714

318

31352

 

0.28x NWH Day 3 sales(13.98M)

2.68x Eternals T-19 sales(25.43M)

2.00x Black Widow T-19 sales(26.40M)

Edited February 14, 2022 by Inceptionzq