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

[Eric Burnett]

13 hours ago, I Am Eric said:

Fast X Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-11 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	95	815	20135	4.05%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 18

 

Comp - T-11

0.942x of F9 (6.69M)

0.439x of Jurassic World: Dominion (7.91M)

2.270x of Nope (14.53M)

 

Thought I posted this last night, but apparently not lol. Here you go y'all.

Fast X Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-10 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	95	845	20135	4.20%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 30

 

Comp - T-10

0.948x of F9 (6.73M)

0.434x of Jurassic World: Dominion (7.82M)

2.161x of Nope (13.83M)

[Porthos]

22 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

Fast X Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-12 days and counting

 

	Capped	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	0	178	26494	27710	1216	4.39%

 

Total Seats Sold Today

48

 

T-11 Unadjusted Comps:

	%		Sold T-11	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
NTTD	138.81		64	876		0/134	20340/21216	4.13%		3737	32.54%		8.61m
Bats	27.22		130	4468		0/285	30994/35462	12.60%		11757	10.34%		5.88m
TG:M	25.08		235	4848		0/259	31085/35933	13.49%		11474	10.60%		4.96m
JWD	40.61		182	2994		0/191	22380/25374	11.80%		10966	11.09%		7.31m
BA	113.22		44	1074		0/146	20993/22067	4.87%		4494	27.06%		8.60m
Wick 4	91.22		49	1333		0/95	12458/13791	9.67%		5448	22.32%		8.12m

FINAL SOLD NOTES: "Final sold" is the number of tickets sold for the movie in question at stop of tracking while "% of final" is the percentage of Fast X's current tickets sold versus that final number.

 

T-11 Adjusted Comp:

	%		Sold T-11	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
F9	108.61		59	1080		0/79	11335/12415	8.70%		4407	27.59%		8.85m
Fast X (adj)			48	1173		0/160	23174/24347	4.82%

ADJUSTMENT NOTE:  Fast X (adj) is the seats sold that does not include theaters that had unreliable data in their seat maps that that point in F9's track.

F9 COMP NOTE:  The F9 comp has been given an ad-hoc adjustment to reflect the lack of Ontario and the ATP differences between now and then, as explained in this post.

 

Regal:     197/10115  [1.95% sold]
Matinee:    47/3516  [1.34% | 3.87% of all tickets sold]

 

Fast X Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-10 days and counting

 

	Capped	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	0	178	26412	27710	1298	4.68%

 

Total Seats Sold Today

82

 

T-10 Unadjusted Comps:

	%		Sold T-10	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
NTTD	136.63		74	950		0/135	20309/21259	4.47%		3737	34.73%		8.47m
Bats	28.02		165	4633		0/288	30971/35604	13.01%		11757	11.04%		6.05m
TG:M	25.76		190	5038		0/259	30895/35933	14.02%		11474	11.31%		5.09m
JWD	40.74		192	3186		0/191	22186/25372	12.56%		10966	11.84%		7.33m
BA	115.79		47	1121		0/148	21302/22423	5.00%		4494	28.88%		8.80m
Wick 4	93.25		59	1392		0/95	12399/13791	10.09%		5448	23.83%		8.30m

FINAL SOLD NOTES: "Final sold" is the number of tickets sold for the movie in question at stop of tracking while "% of final" is the percentage of Fast X's current tickets sold versus that final number.

 

T-10 Adjusted Comp:

F9	109.72		62	1142		0/79	11275/12417	9.20%		4407	29.45%		8.94m
Fast X (adj)			80	1253		0/160	23094/24347	5.15%

ADJUSTMENT NOTE:  Fast X (adj) is the seats sold that does not include theaters that had unreliable data in their seat maps that that point in F9's track.

F9 COMP NOTE:  The F9 comp has been given an ad-hoc adjustment to reflect the lack of Ontario and the ATP differences between now and then, as explained in this post.

 

Regal:     219/10115  [2.17% sold]
Matinee:    47/3516  [1.34% | 3.62% of all tickets sold]

[Porthos]

22 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

The Little Mermaid Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-18 days and counting

 

	Capped	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	0	153	21416	22576	1160	5.14%

 

Total Seats Sold Today

55

 

T-18 Comps:

	%		Sold T-18	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
Sonic 2	310.16		34	374		0/74	11074/11448	3.27%		3951	29.36%		19.39m
JWD	53.55		99	2166		0/184	22643/24809	8.73%		10966	10.58%		9.64m
BA	192.37		53	603		0/146	21460/22063	2.73%		4494	25.81%		14.62m
Wick 4	132.42		104	876		0/88	12454/13330	6.57%		5448	21.29%		11.79m

FINAL SOLD NOTES: "Final sold" is the number of tickets sold for the movie in question at stop of tracking while "% of final" is the percentage of TLM's current tickets sold versus that final number.

 

Regal:         154/5713  [2.70% sold]
Matinee:        24/621  [3.86% | 2.07% of all tickets sold]
3D:            178/4329  [4.11% | 15.34% of all tickets sold]
———    
***EXTREMELY UNOFFICIAL COMPS***    
TLM = 1.69256x Aladdin at the same sources of tracking at T-18 [13.63m]    
TLM = 0.78891x TS4 at the same sources of tracking at T-18 [10.89m]    
TLM = 0.51822x TLK at the same sources of tracking at T-18 [13.71m]   

 

The Little Mermaid Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-17 days and counting

 

	Capped	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	0	153	21353	22579	1226	5.43%

 

Total Seats Sold Today

66

 

T-17 Comps:

	%		Sold T-17	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
Sonic 2	316.80		13	387		0/76	11279/11666	3.32%		3951	31.03%		19.80m
JWD	55.37		48	2214		0/188	22929/25143	8.81%		10966	11.18%		9.97m
BA	168.18		126	729		0/146	21338/22067	3.30%		4494	27.28%		12.78m
Wick 4	126.52		93	969		0/88	12361/13330	7.27%		5448	22.50%		11.26m

FINAL SOLD NOTES: "Final sold" is the number of tickets sold for the movie in question at stop of tracking while "% of final" is the percentage of TLM's current tickets sold versus that final number.

 

Regal:         157/5713  [2.75% sold]
Matinee:        28/621  [4.51% | 2.28% of all tickets sold]
3D:            180/4329  [4.16% | 14.68% of all tickets sold]
———    
***EXTREMELY UNOFFICIAL COMPS***    
TLM = 1.71226x Aladdin at the same sources of tracking at T-17 [13.78m]    
TLM = 0.80132x TS4 at the same sources of tracking at T-17 [11.06m]    
TLM = 0.52457x TLK at the same sources of tracking at T-17 [13.87m]   

NOTE:  All of the above comps have been adjusted upward by 15% to account for differences in ATP from 2019 and 2023.

==========

 

T-18: 55

T-17: 66

(T- 18 + T-17 )/ 2 = 60.5

 

...

 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Porthos

[Porthos]

Across the Spider-Verse Greater Sacramento Area Premiere Night Seat Report: T-24 days and counting

 

	Capped	Sellouts	Showings	Seats left	Total Seats	Seats Sold	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	0	123	17397	18416	1019	5.53%

 

Total Seats Sold Today

1019

 

Day 1 Comps:

	%		Sold Day 1	Total Sold		Sellouts Shows	Seats Left Total Seats	Perct Sold		Final Sold	% of Final		Comp
JWD	142.52		715	715		0/158	21618/22333	3.20%		10966	9.29%		25.65m
BA	239.20		426	426		0/142	21387/21813	1.95%		4494	22.67%		18.18m
A2	77.20		1320	1320		0/138	19300/20620	6.40%		8986	11.34%		13.12m
Wick 4	211.85		481	481		0/82	11915/12396	3.88%		5448	18.70%		18.85m
GOTG3	53.86		1892	1892		0/205	27676/29568	6.40%		8363	12.18%		9.43m
TLM	224.45		454	454		0/153	21451/21905	1.08%		????	????		???

FINAL SOLD NOTES: "Final sold" is the number of tickets sold for the movie in question at stop of tracking while "% of final" is the percentage of AtSV's current tickets sold versus that final number.

 

Regal:     116/5583  [2.08% sold]
Matinee:    51/2373  [2.15% | 5.00% of all tickets sold]

----

***EXTREMELY UNOFFICIAL COMPS***    
AtSV = 1.42090x TS4 at the same sources of tracking after one day of sales [19.61m]    
AtSV = 0.85130x TLK at the same sources of tracking after one day of sales [22.52m]    
AtSV = 1.08657x F2 at the same sources of tracking after one day of sales [10.62m]   

NOTE:  All of the above comps have been adjusted upward by 15% to account for differences in ATP from 2019 and 2023.

 

===

 

Even moreso than TLM, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA  what films to use as a comp. MCU films are too frontloaded.  Family films, not enough (5.6x Sonic 2 [34.99m] ftr).

 

This blew the hell up for animation is all I can say.  Beyond that?  We'll find out soon enough.

 

NB::::
 

I'll add in some TLK, TS4, and Frozen 2 comps in a bit just now.

 

Consider Frozen 2 the cautionary tale (it very likely isn't a great comp, but I have no good comps, so....)

Edited May 10, 2023 by Porthos
Found a duplicated showtime - had no sales so no change in comps, just total number of seats

[Eric Burnett]

14 hours ago, I Am Eric said:

The Little Mermaid Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-18 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	153	1063	28586	3.72%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 23

 

Comp - T-18

2.612x of Sonic 2 (16.32M)

0.719x of Jurassic World: Dominion (12.95M)

0.688x of Avatar 2 (11.7M)

0.783x of Mario (24.81M)

The Little Mermaid Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-17 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	153	1132	28586	3.96%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 69

 

Comp - T-17

2.544x of Sonic 2 (15.9M)

0.746x of Jurassic World: Dominion (13.42M)

0.702x of Avatar 2 (11.94M)

0.779x of Mario (24.7M)

[Eric Burnett]

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-24 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	117	987	22935	4.30%

 

Comp - T-24

5.672x of Sonic 2 (35.45M)

0.124x of Doctor Strange 2 (4.47M)

0.743x of Jurassic World Dominion (13.37M)

0.267x of Thor 4 (7.76M)

0.176x of Black Panther 2 (4.94M)

1.100x of Avatar 2 (18.71M)

0.296x of Ant-Man 3 (5.18M)

1.000x of Mario (31.7M)

0.366x of Guardians 3 (6.4M)

 

Yeah this is all over the place. Too big for the animated movies, too small for the Marvel movies, and it's up in the air for the GA movies with a nonwhite skew. But getting close to a thousand tickets in just one day...that's pretty sick bro.

[Porthos]

13 hours ago, Porthos said:

AtSV has already done 22% more than TLM's entire first day locally.  And that's with one A-tier theater yet to put up showtimes and an A- tier theater completely offline, though presumably still selling tickets on site (more on that later).

 

I'm still missing one theater locally for AtSV, for the record.  And it's one of the busier theaters in town, but it should have its sets up tomorrow, I reckon.

 

More irritatingly, at one of the not-quite-as-busy, but still-fairly-brisk-in-sales theaters ticket sales FOR ALL SHOWS have been offline since Saturday night.

 

The theater is still open, and still selling tickets.  You just can't buy them online.  Fandango is completely greyed out.  Atom will give an error when trying to purchase.  And the corp site will pull up a blank seat map for any and all showings.  Can actually technically put something in the cart at the corp site, but when it gets to the checkout stage, it says "shopping cart empty".

 

At this point in sales for both Fast X and TLM it's just an irritation that I've ignored, as I still have the previous amount of sold tickets in my spread sheets.  But it might have actually depressed AtSV's sales slightly.

 

But it's also something I can't easily adjust for, given how my history is set up.  Plus I kinda don't think I should try to adjust for it as one can only buy tickets in person.  Thus it isn't quite like a non-reserved seating theater as those are still bought online, but I can't say zero sales are going on because there's probably at least a few folks getting irritated enough and showing up in person as opposed to just going to a nearby theater.

 

In the end, I'm just going to ignore it for now and make a special note for already sold seats whenever the hell they get their act sorted out as I think trying to adjust for it will throw my comps way out of whack.

 

Mostly it's an irritation.  But one I feel obligated to note.

[charlie Jatinder]

So many comps yet not the obvious ones.

Edited May 9, 2023 by charlie Jatinder

[Porthos]

30 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

So many comps yet not the obvious ones.

 

 

WOULD YOU PREFER ANOTHER COMP?  PERHAPS A CBM COMP?
                THEN NAME THE MOVIES.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Porthos

[charlie Jatinder]

Spider-Verse 2 MiniTC2 T-24

 

Previews - 1580/66044 (263 showings) $23,406

 

Comps
1.55x Eternals first day of sales - $14.9M (adj for infl. ~$15.5M)

1.30x Black Widow first day of sales - $17.7M (adj for infl. ~$18.5M)

0.54x GoTG 3 first day of sales - $9.7M

Eternals started as a $12-13M previews & ended up around $9.5M, so that comp should be around BW as well.

Feel good for $15M+. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by charlie Jatinder

[jedijake]

So, is TLM selling 60 tickets per day in Philly good?

[Nate]

9 hours ago, M37 said:

So you’re making the case for a big early sales from a fan rush, but then tails off after as the GA appeal is just much softer? Basically another AMWQ scenario?
 

Certainly plausible, but even if it starts at like ~65% of that level but doesn’t stagnate from terrible reviews and rises to ~85%, still looking at a ~$15M Thursday and 6x = $90M+ OW, with 2 weeks before Flash and 4 before Indy (I’m not even counting Transformers). That’s kinda close to the floor outcome we’re already looking at after one day 

 

Anyway, I just did a quick count of the Tampa/St Pete market and AtSV is over 1,000 sold for first day, on pace to come close to if not exceed Avatar 2’s OD of sales there

Yes- and I wouldn’t necessarily say GA appeal will be soft overall, just soft compared to these early presale signals we’re getting.
 

Strong Thursday night, strong Friday, but looking for a pattern that more closely follows MCU/ fan driven movies than a GA family film. 
 

[Eric Burnett]

3 hours ago, jedijake said:

So, is TLM selling 60 tickets per day in Philly good?

It's actually been averaging higher than that at around 70 tickets. And yeah, it's doing good in that regard. Been holding relatively steady with almost all the comps except Mario, and all the comps indicate 100M+, arguably even 110M+. Of course this is going to be a market that will overperform, but it's doing well with other movies that overperformed, so we're golden.

[ThatWaluigiDude]

5 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

 

Even moreso than TLM, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA  what films to use as a comp. MCU films are too frontloaded.  Family films, not enough (5.6x Sonic 2 [34.99m] ftr).

 

How about Mario? That is the one recent animation with a big fanbase that might be worth comparing to it.

[Mickiland16]

1 minute ago, I Am Eric said:

It's actually been averaging higher than that at around 70 tickets. And yeah, it's doing good in that regard. Been holding relatively steady with almost all the comps except Mario, and all the comps indicate 100M+, arguably even 110M+. Of course this is going to be a market that will overperform, but it's doing well with other movies that overperformed, so we're golden.

3 days or 4 days?

[M37]

Sifting through some of the data and adding my thoughts

 

Fast X - looks fairly set for a $7-9M+ preview, wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on the higher end, as uber long sales windows can get weird. Probably IMs in the JW4 range of 8-9x

 

Spider-Verse - great first day, but means it will be difficult to comp. Sure looks like preview number in teens, if not higher, but going to have wait and see how much of this is a fan rush that dies off vs sustaining demand and sales.

 

Little Mermaid - Spend most of my time working through this one, given the apparent interest and greater uncertainty. Going to bury most of it under spoiler boxes so as not to clog up thread

Spoiler

[ @Brainbug , please take your seat! 😉]

 

There has been significant discussion about the lack of good comps for Mermaid, but wanted to put some data and visuals behind. Here is data from Sacto, showing the ratio of final sales vs the T-14 checkpoint for most films tracked. Essentially same as growth rate, only displayed as multiplier rather than % increase, also on log scale. The ratios from other markets/samples will vary, but more importantly the tiers/grouping should be basically the same

 

 

Here there a a few very clearly defined groupings, or tiers:

 

0. LOL Tier - the only film here is Minions, which is a such a high end outlier - sales increased 17 fold in last two weeks (and the final is probably an under-count) that it should never be used as a comp for anything

 

1. Family* Tier - Included here are Nope and Venom 2, titles which had unusual circumstances regarding their sales window, and should be excluded as comps. But also two family films, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Sonic, with some level of fanticipation; comps to be used sparingly or more as an upper bound, as they were earlier in the post-pandemic box office recovery, and with just ~$5M previews, are likely to overshoot when used against bigger releases

 

2. YMCA Tier (aka Young Man) - here we find the grouping of titles that usually skew towards younger men, often a diverse audience, a generally predictable pattern of sales. The likes of Fast 9, JW4, Black Adam, also JWD & Scream VI

 

3. Tentpole Tier - Where you find all of the $15M+ Thursday/$100M+ openings (except for JWD), and can be further divided into sub-tiers. The highest of those (so 3A) includes Avatar 2 and TGM, but which skewed to more mature/early buy audiences, and so took an unusual and flatter path to the the finish than most releases do or will

 

When we talk about comps and matching pace, its trying to guesstimate which of these tracks and tiers a given film's sales will follow. So which tier/grouping does Little Mermaid belong in?

Spoiler

I think its reasonable to expect that Mermaid will not pace as high as Sonic towards the end - having more early presales and so a lower growth rate/T-14 multiplier - and on the lower end probably still finishes better than the top tentpoles like TGM and Avatar 2. Those seems like good upper and lower bounds for this exercise. But where in-between it falls is really not clear - there is a HUGE gap between T1 and T2 groupings and a smaller one between T2 and T3A, and having to use comps to try to match pace with a very different audience composition, adds another layer of uncertainty when trying to get to a $ value

 

Presuming Sacto stays on its (annoying) 60 tix/day pace, would wind up at ~1400 in sales at the T-14 checkpoint. Here's how that ticket number would roughly project out to a preview value given all possible comps (with some PSM adjustments)

Title	T-14 Multi	Preview
Minions	17.08	$37.06
Nope	10.89	$23.63
Ghostbusters	9.63	$20.90
Venom	8.93	$19.38
Sonic 2	7.84	$17.01
NTTD	5.40	$11.72
Black Adam	4.93	$10.70
Scream VI	4.78	$10.37
Dune	4.76	$10.33
John Wick 4	4.73	$10.26
Fast 9	4.58	$9.94
JWD	4.23	$9.18
Eternals	3.21	$6.97
Avatar 2	3.21	$6.97
GOTG3	2.93	$6.36
Batman	2.88	$6.25
TGM	2.83	$6.14

 

 

 

Even if it finishes somewhat like a tentpole, still can see $8/$9M as the floor for Thursday. Sonic at $17M is IMO not happening, but double digits is looking more and more likely, while landing somewhere in the teens is certainly possible.

Spoiler

What about the IM and the OW?

 

Both TGM (excluding EA, 3-day) and Avatar 2 had an ~8x, while Minions, Ghostbusters and Lightyear were all around 10x. That seems to the be the approximate range, with the complicating factor of Memorial Day weekend typically producing a flatter weekend curve (bigger Thursday but also bigger Sunday).

Running some adjustments for that pattern and I came up with a range of 8-11x, with 9-10x the most likely outcome, but not having seen much data on weekend sales, don't know if that will hold up

 

Putting all of that together, come up with this Forecast Matrix

Mermaid 3-Day OW Forecast Matrix		Thursday Preview Gross Range
		$8.0	$8.9	$9.8	$10.6	$11.5	$12.4	$13.3	$14.1	$15.0
Thur / Wknd Ratio (IM)	8.00	$64.0	$71.0	$78.0	$85.0	$92.0	$99.0	$106.0	$113.0	$120.0
	8.31	$66.5	$73.8	$81.0	$88.3	$95.6	$102.9	$110.1	$117.4	$124.7
	8.63	$69.0	$76.5	$84.1	$91.6	$99.2	$106.7	$114.3	$121.8	$129.4
	8.94	$71.5	$79.3	$87.1	$95.0	$102.8	$110.6	$118.4	$126.2	$134.1
	9.25	$74.0	$82.1	$90.2	$98.3	$106.4	$114.5	$122.6	$130.7	$138.8
	9.56	$76.5	$84.9	$93.2	$101.6	$110.0	$118.3	$126.7	$135.1	$143.4
	9.88	$79.0	$87.6	$96.3	$104.9	$113.6	$122.2	$130.8	$139.5	$148.1
	10.19	$81.5	$90.4	$99.3	$108.2	$117.2	$126.1	$135.0	$143.9	$152.8
	10.50	$84.0	$93.2	$102.4	$111.6	$120.8	$129.9	$139.1	$148.3	$157.5

 

 

The values and shading shown here are probably skewed too high, in that the bigger Thursday gets, the lower the IM likely goes. But something like $85-120M OW (3-day) feels roughly right, but that range and/or midpoint can certainly be argued up, down, or even more compact.

 

Should have a much better idea of what pace to expect to the finish by maybe T-7, but certainly T-4, but until then it's just more watching and hoping for some clarity

[Menor the Destroyer]

@Porthos since you are already comping 2019 films for TLM, I think F2 may be a better comp than TS4 or TLK given it's more female skew.

[ringedmortality]

So Little Mermaid gonna make 400 dom is what I'm hearing

[Eric Burnett]

19 minutes ago, Mickiland16 said:

3 days or 4 days?

3 days. I know there's a lot of hesitancy, but I think it's gone on long enough where we can say that double digit previews are very likely, which would also make 100M+ for the 3-day very likely, unless this somehow doesn't act like a family film, which I don't see happening.

[M37]

1 minute ago, ringedmortality said:

So Little Mermaid gonna make 400 dom is what I'm hearing

Legs might be just ok depending on audience composition and strength of competition that follows, but I’d probably bet on over $350M right now