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

[PrinceRico]

3 minutes ago, OceanBlvd said:

Half of Mario? 30%??? Bomb me fears. Didn’t Mario start slow? As it is not a fan rushed movie.

 

The fact that Mario is used as a comp now, wow.

Mario started off huge

[YM!]

9 minutes ago, PrinceRico said:

Mario started off huge

Different demographics. Mario while a family film skewed male so it should be more frontloaded ticket sales wise compared to Mermaid. 

[TwoMisfits]

55 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

Little Mermaid MTC1 previews - 8749/893641 156325.99 5433 shows

 

Good start. Blockbuster show allocation at MTC1. MTC2 just has 2864 shows. Thinking this does about half of Mario OD. 

 

Edit: I thought Mario did 33K. That was after couple of days. I am thinking this can come close to Mario OD. But Mario had weird start. Initial check looked meh and then after a trailer it started going up huge and kept going in day 2. 

 

MTC 2 and Disney - it seems like the chain has firmly decided that it's not just MCU that's now gonna need to "prove" Disney presale sales before getting more.  That's interesting.

[Menor the Destroyer]

17 minutes ago, YM! said:

Different demographics. Mario while a family film skewed male so it should be more frontloaded ticket sales wise compared to Mermaid. 

I'm not convinced about that at all. Mario had a great ramp-up especially considering the size. Plus female-skewing films are more presale-heavy from what I've seen.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Menor Reborn

[keysersoze123]

24 minutes ago, YM! said:

Different demographics. Mario while a family film skewed male so it should be more frontloaded ticket sales wise compared to Mermaid. 

Mario is the opposite of frontloaded if you look at how it ended. Just look at our OD predictions as it kept going up day on day. It was absolute nuts. 

 

That said Mermaid could be its own thing. Its not MCU where we have clear comps to make quick judgement. I want to wait at least a week to see where it is and how the pace goes. Even then I dont think we can say for sure. 

[Porthos]

3 hours ago, Menor Reborn said:

I forget exactly when it started, is the F9 comp coming soon?

 

I really really really rather not use an F9 comp thanks to ATP differences plus lack of Ontario, but if I must I might try to sit down and see if the number I came up for Marvel films is reasonably predictive for genres like F9.

 

FWIW, it came online at T-23.  But thanks to the insane length of pre-sales, the difference between the two is huge:

 

F9 T-23: 393

FX T-23: 764

 

Comp [using informal adjuster I have for BW]:  16.23m

 

 

Daily pace isn't gonna be remotely the same, either.  But, I dunno, I'll think about it.

 

(also at T-13, I'd have to switch to an even more adjusted comp as that's when a local chain's seat maps became unreliable and I had to stop using them for the rest of F9's run)

 

[Porthos]

Here's how I would put it for Mario's pre-sales.

 

Mario started out very strong and somehow finished even stronger.

 

It was the ultra-rare family film with both a huge upfront amount of sales and a typically backloaded family surge.

 

As for comparisons for TLM?  Why don't we wait until most of the US has been up for — oh, I dunno... at least 12 hours? — before we make any sweeping judgements one way or the other?

 

NB:  Just woke up and haven't looked at TLM mk2 locally since I set up my sheets last night.

[Menor the Destroyer]

25 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

I really really really rather not use an F9 comp thanks to ATP differences plus lack of Ontario, but if I must I might try to sit down and see if the number I came up for Marvel films is reasonably predictive for genres like F9.

 

FWIW, it came online at T-23.  But thanks to the insane length of pre-sales, the difference between the two is huge:

 

F9 T-23: 393

FX T-23: 764

 

Comp [using informal adjuster I have for BW]:  16.23m

 

 

Daily pace isn't gonna be remotely the same, either.  But, I dunno, I'll think about it.

 

(also at T-13, I'd have to switch to an even more adjusted comp as that's when a local chain's seat maps became unreliable and I had to stop using them for the rest of F9's run)

 

Yeah I'm not looking for the actual value, just the pace. The pace is so far below JWD rn that it's hard to make sense of the trajectory.

 

[jedijake]

Shouldn't either Aladdin or BatB be logical comparisons for Little Mermaid? Or maybe even Jungle Book?

[Grebacio]

Just now, jedijake said:

Shouldn't either Aladdin or BatB be logical comparisons for Little Mermaid? Or maybe even Jungle Book?

Presales trends have changed since 2021

[TwoMisfits]

6 minutes ago, jedijake said:

Shouldn't either Aladdin or BatB be logical comparisons for Little Mermaid? Or maybe even Jungle Book?

Pre-covid comps tend to be almost worthless at this point...

 

If Women King had done better, I almost might suggest that comp...but it's too small an open (and it might have had too small a presale period).

 

Barring that, Fantastic Beasts 3 was a known brand and was female heavy (54-46), so it might be okay.  

 

Minions 2 was 51% female, and was suitably a big movie and brand, so it might also give some idea  (but that had the last minute teen invasion, so it may only be so helpful).

Edited April 26, 2023 by TwoMisfits

[el sid]

Big George Foreman (it slightly improved) and Are You There, God? tomorrow again.
Today for some variety I counted Fast X.

Fast X counted today for Thursday, May 18. 22 days to go:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 167 (2 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 115 (9 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): ? (1 showtime, it says Sell Out, I doubt it)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 5 (5 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 21 (5 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 237 (6 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 312 (4 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 857+.

Comps: Hobbs & Shaw (5.8M from previews) had on Monday of the release week (= 19 days left for Fast X to overtake which will of course happen) 1.194 sold tickets
and Uncharted (3.7M) had with 15 days to go (= 7 days left for Fast X to increase the margin) 454 sold tickets.

Fast X counted today for Thursday, May 18. 23 days to go:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 155 (3 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 32 (11 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 23 (1 showtime)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 6 (2 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 16 (3 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 139 (8 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 193 (3 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 564.

Comps: Hobbs & Shaw (17.9M true Friday) had on Monday of the release week (= 19 days left for Fast X) 1.234 sold tickets,
F9 (22.9M) had also on Monday of the release week 1.656 sold tickets
and Uncharted (11.7M) had with 16 days to go (= 7 days left for Fast X) 276 sold tickets.

I guess that till Monday of its release week Fast X will at least triple its presales. So it should reach the number(s) of F9.
Looking good so far.

[M37]

40 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

Minions 2 was 51% female, and was suitably a big movie and brand, so it might also give some idea  (but that had the last minute teen invasion, so it may only be so helpful).

Minions is at the absolute top of my LOL Do Not Comp list, because it had by far the most ridiculous last week surge: +700% !!! To put that pace in some perspective, if from this point on GOTG3 were to start behaving like Minions, its Thursday preview would top NWH and might even catch Endgame!

Others on that list include: Venom (+375%), Lightyear (+420%, only 9 days of sales), and Nope (+500%) probably Mario (high pace and Wed OD), and Sonic (+325%) only to be used sparingly for kids movies. Anything over +300% is extreme for a non-kids (or teen?) film with any kind of fanbase/early sales rush, and there's a big drop-off from Sonic to the grouping generally considered to be walk-up friendly, in the lower +200% range (JWD, Black Adam, Scream VI, Shang-Chi)

 

49 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

Barring that, Fantastic Beasts 3 was a known brand and was female heavy (54-46), so it might be okay.  

I had totally forgotten this movie came out (don't have numbers for it in my data set), but could be useful, even if serves as a baseline for the lower bound rather than give a true track, as I think the sales were fairly soft in that last week

[Menor the Destroyer]

1 hour ago, TwoMisfits said:

Pre-covid comps tend to be almost worthless at this point...

 

If Women King had done better, I almost might suggest that comp...but it's too small an open (and it might have had too small a presale period).

 

Barring that, Fantastic Beasts 3 was a known brand and was female heavy (54-46), so it might be okay.  

 

Minions 2 was 51% female, and was suitably a big movie and brand, so it might also give some idea  (but that had the last minute teen invasion, so it may only be so helpful).

FB3 will very likely be too small as well, and I think Potter has different fanbase dynamics. Minions 2 was such an outlier in late growth that I don't think it's a good comp for anything. But I don't have any good ideas for this, it's a tougher one for sure. It may be better to wait for the 24h and just throw in anything that sold a similar volume just to get a range. 

[keysersoze123]

I think @Porthos can still comp LM with Aladdin, TLK or Frozen 2. They may not all be perfect comps but these were the last big Disney non MCU openers that he has data. 

 

I looked at Frozen 2 and I only got MTC2 early on and it had a short PS cycle(17 days) and it was really backloaded towards Saturday. We wont be able to confirm as MTC2 is not easy to get data and its not possible to get entire weekend plus this is a Memorial weekend release and so pattern wont be similar. 

[Grebacio]

9 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

FB3 will very likely be too small as well

Sonic 2 maybe?

 

[Eric Prime]

Feel like Mermaid's best comps, or at least the ones I'm using, would be Sonic 2 and Mario. Those are also younger-skewing titles that played well to non-white audiences and are all established franchises with large fanbases that would buy tickets in advance. I would also say stuff like Avatar 2 and Black Adam works, even if the audiences aren't exact, since they also skewed super diverse in audience metrics and still had strong GA appeal.

[Porthos]

9 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

I think @Porthos can still comp LM with Aladdin, TLK or Frozen 2. They may not all be perfect comps but these were the last big Disney non MCU openers that he has data. 

 

I looked at Frozen 2 and I only got MTC2 early on and it had a short PS cycle(17 days) and it was really backloaded towards Saturday. We wont be able to confirm as MTC2 is not easy to get data and its not possible to get entire weekend plus this is a Memorial weekend release and so pattern wont be similar. 

 

 

=====

 

Haven't looked at them recently, but all throughout 2021 and the first half of 2022, Sacto was massively overperforming relative to the rest of the DOM market compared to 2018 and 2019.  Just think Sacto is taking a larger share now than it was then, and that's before getting into different sources of tracking AND Cinemark Roseville doing so much more business than the theater it replaced (Century Roseville) ever did.

 

Mind, I expected this request and was already probably going to provide it.  Just don't think it'll be all that predictive.

[keysersoze123]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

 GOTG3 were to start behaving like Minions, its Thursday preview would top NWH and might even catch Endgame!

Cue for someone to create a thread at Reddit, BOT thinks GOTG3 previews > Endgame previews :-)

[Wrath]

On 4/24/2023 at 6:15 AM, KeepItU25071906 said:

Soul is great btw. On the same high level as Up or Inside Out. And it's very sad it just left nothing in audience's memory.

I saw Soul on a plane flight and I remember thinking it was excellent. Might have been the one most screwed over by Covid, since it ended up getting a streaming release with minimal marketing support.