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

[Eric Prime]

On 5/14/2023 at 1:04 PM, Eric Toretto said:

The Little Mermaid Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-12 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	153	1640	28586	5.74%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 75

 

Comp - T-12

2.842x of Sonic 2 (17.76M)

0.894x of Jurassic World 3 (16.09M)

2.284x of Black Adam (17.36M)

0.813x of Avatar 2 (13.83M)

0.897x of Mario (28.44M)

The Little Mermaid Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-11 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	153	1713	28586	5.99%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 73

 

Comp - T-11

2.799x of Sonic 2 (17.49M)

0.924x of Jurassic World 3 (16.63M)

2.245x of Black Adam (17.06M)

0.810x of Avatar 2 (13.77M)

0.884x of Mario (28.02M)

[Immortal]

21 minutes ago, Eric Toretto said:

The Little Mermaid Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-11 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	153	1713	28586	5.99%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 73

 

Comp - T-11

2.799x of Sonic 2 (17.49M)

0.924x of Jurassic World 3 (16.63M)

2.245x of Black Adam (17.06M)

0.810x of Avatar 2 (13.77M)

0.884x of Mario (28.02M)

The fact that its comp against Ava2 is this well, gives me high hope for this film considering it had a tepid final week of sale, and a legit shot at 150+ 4day

[keysersoze123]

3 minutes ago, Immortal said:

The fact that its comp against Ava2 is this well, gives me high hope for this film considering it had a tepid final week of sale, and a legit shot at 150+ 4day

I would not go with just a market like Phily. It will over index big time for a movie like mermaid with Halle. I am not seeing anything so far that screams 150m. That said let us see how final week burst goes. This movie does not have an easy comp in post pandemic era. We have to see how far in the scale it is from a frontloaded sales(fan driven movies) to totally backloaded sales like what we had for Mario and Minions. 

[Eric Prime]

On 5/14/2023 at 1:20 PM, Eric Toretto said:

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-19 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	123	1435	23838	6.02%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 27

 

Comp - T-19

3.578x of Sonic 2 (22.37M)

0.163x of Doctor Strange 2 (5.86M)

0.996x of Jurassic World 3 (17.91M)

0.306x of Thor 4 (8.87M)

0.232x of Black Panther 2 (6.49M)

0.977x of Avatar 2 (16.61M)

0.382x of Ant-Man 3 (6.68M)

1.133x of Mario (35.91M)

0.485x of Guardians 3 (8.49M)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-18 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	123	1458	23838	6.12%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 23

 

Comp - T-18

3.582x of Sonic 2 (22.39M)

0.163x of Doctor Strange 2 (5.87M)

0.986x of Jurassic World 3 (17.76M)

0.304x of Thor 4 (8.81M)

0.233x of Black Panther 2 (6.52M)

0.944x of Avatar 2 (16.04M)

0.380x of Ant-Man 3 (6.64M)

1.074x of Mario (34.04M)

[Porthos]

Here's the thing about comping The Little Mermaid.  It's seeing an extremely aggressive marketing push from Disney which in turn is boosting early ticket sales above and beyond normal patterns for this type of film.

 

It had a very early (and effective for that matter) social media lift.  It's had multiple rollouts of its musical numbers on various Disney/ABC branded shows and they've been very effective (I was wondering why Sacto was running so hot this weekend, but after checking out the TLM thread I see people going gaga over Halle's musical pipes was pretty much the answer).

 

Put simply, this is more of an Event than most films in this genre.  It's following the marketing playbook of a major tentpole like an Avengers film or a Saga Star Wars film.  But because it still is an all-ages family film it doesn't have nearly the level of pre-sales that make comping against any recent MCU film make any sort of real sense. 

 

At the same time, because there is such aggressive and effective marketing it is an open question just how much of the sales that would normally be saved for the final push are being bought a little early.    That being said, it's also very possible that this is just gonna defy normal patterns and still have a very strong final push and that what all this marketing is doing is convincing fence sitters as opposed to just getting folks to buy their tickets earlier.  

 

All in all, because there are so many wildcards involved it's difficult to find a really good recent comp.  All I can say right now, emphasis on right now, is that it is showing no signs of slowing down ala, say, AM3 (which started out hot and then... didn't stay hot).

[keysersoze123]

7 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Here's the thing about comping The Little Mermaid.  It's seeing an extremely aggressive marketing push from Disney which in turn is boosting early ticket sales above and beyond normal patterns for this type of film.

 

It had a very early (and effective for that matter) social media lift.  It's had multiple rollouts of its musical numbers on various Disney/ABC branded shows and they've been very effective (I was wondering why Sacto was running so hot this weekend, but after checking out the TLM thread I see people going gaga over Halle's musical pipes was pretty much the answer).

 

Put simply, this is more of an Event than most films in this genre.  It's following the marketing playbook of a major tentpole like an Avengers film or a Saga Star Wars film.  But because it still is an all-ages family film it doesn't have nearly the level of pre-sales that make comping against any recent MCU film make any sort of real sense. 

 

At the same time, because there is such aggressive and effective marketing it is an open question just how much of the sales that would normally be saved for the final push are being bought a little early.    That being said, it's also very possible that this is just gonna defy normal patterns and still have a very strong final push and that what all this marketing is doing is convincing fence sitters as opposed to just getting folks to buy their tickets earlier.  

 

All in all, because there are so many wildcards involved it's difficult to find a really good recent comp.  All I can say right now, emphasis on right now, is that it is showing no signs of slowing down ala, say, AM3 (which started out hot and then... didn't stay hot).

But its not at SH level presales as well. Its maintaining certain levels in big urban markets after starting good but not at blockbuster level. Just comp it with Spiderverse which is 60% higher at MTC1 despite starting a week earlier. I would not say 150m even for Spiderverse if it pulls a MCU level final week. Only time will tell based on reviews and final week push. 

[el sid]

Fast X counted today for Thursday:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 259 (4 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 226 (9 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 23 (2 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 23 (5 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 72 (4 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 325 (6 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 614 (20 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 1.542.
Comps (all films counted on Monday of the release week for Thursday): Angel Has Fallen (1.5M from previews) had 199 sold tickets,
BT (4.6M) had 879 sold tickets,
Uncharted (3.7M) had 868 sold tickets
and Hobbs & Shaw (5.8M) had 1.194 sold tickets = x1.29 = 7.5M for Fast X.

So at the moment slightly above the preview number of F9 which is not bad but the jump till today was smaller than expected. If this continues I also start to worry (a bit).

[Tinalera]

29 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Here's the thing about comping The Little Mermaid.  It's seeing an extremely aggressive marketing push from Disney which in turn is boosting early ticket sales above and beyond normal patterns for this type of film.

 

It had a very early (and effective for that matter) social media lift.  It's had multiple rollouts of its musical numbers on various Disney/ABC branded shows and they've been very effective (I was wondering why Sacto was running so hot this weekend, but after checking out the TLM thread I see people going gaga over Halle's musical pipes was pretty much the answer).

 

Put simply, this is more of an Event than most films in this genre.  It's following the marketing playbook of a major tentpole like an Avengers film or a Saga Star Wars film.  But because it still is an all-ages family film it doesn't have nearly the level of pre-sales that make comping against any recent MCU film make any sort of real sense. 

 

At the same time, because there is such aggressive and effective marketing it is an open question just how much of the sales that would normally be saved for the final push are being bought a little early.    That being said, it's also very possible that this is just gonna defy normal patterns and still have a very strong final push and that what all this marketing is doing is convincing fence sitters as opposed to just getting folks to buy their tickets earlier.  

 

All in all, because there are so many wildcards involved it's difficult to find a really good recent comp.  All I can say right now, emphasis on right now, is that it is showing no signs of slowing down ala, say, AM3 (which started out hot and then... didn't stay hot).

As far as Canada, at least ones Im tracking, it's doing "okay", but it hasn't (yet) started really bursting out, but then Family films Ive found vary up here. Now, Im suspecting when schools let out up here that might get more sales. It might just be taking a kind of slow/steady pace up here. Also (again) because of Cineplex "rationing out" of available seating, there isn't a lot of the IMAX/AVX type seating available yet. Majority of my seat counts tend to be "Regular"-so perhaps might be something as simple as the theatres deciding when they want to have that Imax and similar type availablity. So it's hard on this end. Have to see if more seats drop on Wednesday, but I suspect we might have to get up to T-9 ish area before we see that. 

 

Again, reiterating, seat sales aren't "bad", they're just "okay" so far up here.

[el sid]

Fast X counted today for Friday:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 372 (8 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 122 (11 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 69 (still only 1 showtime)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 14 (2 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 38 (3 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 286 (8 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 533 (15 showtimes)

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 1.434.
Comps (all counted on Monday of the release week for Friday): GotG3 (118.4M OW) had 2.151 sold tickets,
Angel Has Fallen (21.4M) had 136 sold tickets,
BT (30M) had 655 sold tickets,
TG:M (126.7M) had 2.743 sold tickets.
Hobbs & Shaw (17.9M true Friday/60M OW) had 1.234 sold tickets = x1.16 = 20.8M true Friday for Fast X
and F9 (22.9M true Friday/70M OW) had 1.656 sold tickets = 87% = 19.9M.

What was that? A few days ago I was sure that it will reach the presales number of F9. But it's the same problem as on Thursday, the jump was just too small for that kind of movie.
Let's see how it goes over the next few days before I „panic“ but its performance since last Wednesday could have been better.

Edited May 15, 2023 by el sid

[jedijake]

29 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

But its not at SH level presales as well. Its maintaining certain levels in big urban markets after starting good but not at blockbuster level. Just comp it with Spiderverse which is 60% higher at MTC1 despite starting a week earlier. I would not say 150m even for Spiderverse if it pulls a MCU level final week. Only time will tell based on reviews and final week push. 

It almost feels most like Toy Story 4. Different time of the year, but that may not be a bad comp to use.

 

I'm not sure if we should be kicking out comps due to pre or post covid. There's no real post covid precedent for TLM. I think the combination of various post covid comps that have been used along with the pre covid comps (Aladdin, BatB, Froz2, and I'd throw in TS4) can give us good insight on where TLM may be heading.

[GOGODanca]

I don't think reviews matter for TLM, it's got such a massive baked in fanbase that will come out regardless (The Lion King and Mario) and families with little girls will not care either 

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, jedijake said:

It almost feels most like Toy Story 4. Different time of the year, but that may not be a bad comp to use.

 

I'm not sure if we should be kicking out comps due to pre or post covid. There's no real post covid precedent for TLM. I think the combination of various post covid comps that have been used along with the pre covid comps (Aladdin, BatB, Froz2, and I'd throw in TS4) can give us good insight on where TLM may be heading.

 

ATP hikes alone make any pre-'rona comps difficult.  Still, that's why I'm including the 2019 ones, if with a massive pulled-out-of-my-rear-end ad-hoc adjustment.

 

But I wouldn't readily dismiss keysersoze's point as even before the pandemic, pre-sales were growing and becoming more frontloaded every year.  Enough so that even a two year gap would make old comps obsolete.

 

Either way, my biggest concern with using any pre-'rona comps is that I'm not convinced that Sacto:DOM Market in 2023 is the same as Sacto:DOM Market in 2019.  That is, is the Sacto market typically taking a larger share of the DOM market now than it was in 2019?  I am fairly confident it was in 2021.  Had enough recent comps not to care in 2022.  But has the rest of the market "caught up" with Sacramento by 2023?  Has the growth here still been enough to outpace the rest of the DOM landscape as we're one of the faster growing areas of California?  Or do we just like movies more here than the rest of the DOM market?

 

I don't have easy answers to any of those questions.  And all of that doesn't get into local specific problems like new theaters/replaced theaters/theaters shifting to reserved seating.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Porthos

[keysersoze123]

I hope @Inceptionzq can give input on Denver/Drafthouse. 

[TheFlatLannister]

22 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

  

GREATER ORLANDO REGION

 

FAST X

 

THURSDAY

 

T-4

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
143	2015	28556	7.1%

^{*Numbers taken as of 6:00pm EST}

 

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

92

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

ATP - $13.62

 

 

COMPS

T-4

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 

(0.264x) ~$4.6M THUR

If it follows F9 IM (~$45.5M OW)

 

JOHN WICK 4

(1.14x) ~$10.1M THUR

If it follows F9 IM (~$99M OW)

 

So if it falls in between the two comps ; $71M-$72M OW as of rn

GREATER ORLANDO REGION

 

FAST X

 

THURSDAY

 

T-3

 

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
154	2208	30031	7.4%

^{*Numbers taken as of 5:00pm EST}

 

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

193

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

11

 

SELLOUTS

0

ATP - $13.71

 

NOTE: These numbers are bad (outright dreadful). The pace is abysmal (It should be selling well over 400 seats per a day this close to T-0) and its even falling behind Shazam's final push! 

 

It's losing ground to John Wick and its going to fall far behind GOTG comps tomorrow. By T-0 comps will probably point to $6M previews and low-mid $60Ms OW 

 

 

COMPS

T-3

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 

(0.273x) ~$4.8M THUR

If it follows F9 IM (~$47.5M OW)

 

 

JOHN WICK 4

(1.079x) ~$9.6M THUR

If it follows F9 IM (~$95M OW)

 

If it falls between the two comps: $71M OW ; $7.2M THUR 

[TheFlatLannister]

23 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

GREATER ORLANDO REGION

 

The Little Mermaid

 

THURSDAY

 

T-11

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
170	2697	32751	8.2%

 

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

48

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

ATP: $14.38

 

 

COMPS

T-11

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 

(0.489x) ~$8.6M THUR

 

If it follows Aladdin IM (~$110M OW)

GREATER ORLANDO REGION

 

The Little Mermaid

 

THURSDAY

 

T-10

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
170	2802	32751	8.6%

 

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

105

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

ATP: $14.38

 

 

COMPS

T-10

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 

(0.479x) ~$8.4M THUR

 

If it follows Aladdin IM (~$107M OW)

[Inceptionzq]

Fast X Denver Previews

AMC Westminster 24

Total

215

2019

10.64%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

185

1266

14.61%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST DAY	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
1088	N/A	20127	5.41%	13	113

 

0.837x Black Adam T-3 (6.36M)

0.284x Jurassic World Dominion T-3 (5.12M)

1.32x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-3 (5.95M)

0.872x No Time to Die T-3 (4.97M)

1.03x Fast 9 T-3 (7.32M)

[Inceptionzq]

Fast X Alamo Drafthouse

 

T-3 Thursday(172 showings): 2947/25916 ATP: $16.19

0.891x Black Adam T-3 (6.77M)

0.346x JW Dominion T-3 (6.23M)

0.854x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-3 (3.84M)

 

T-4 Friday(228 showings): 3051/33988 ATP: $16.40

0.946x Black Adam T-4 (18.07M)

0.329x JW Dominion T-4 (13.68M)

0.915x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-4 (11.12M)

 

T-5 Saturday(230 showings): 2128/33742 ATP: $16.11

0.707x Black Adam T-5 (16.77M)

0.232x JW Dominion T-5 (10.88M)

0.614x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-5 (9.88M)

 

T-6 Sunday(198 showings): 804/29596 ATP: $15.93

0.722x Black Adam T-6 (11.99M)

0.157x JW Dominion T-6 (6.07M)

0.465x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-6 (5.07M)

[Inceptionzq]

The Little Mermaid Denver Previews

AMC Westminster 24

Total

138

2943

4.68%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

114

2409

4.73%

 

Wednesday: 253 sold

Thursday:

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST DAY	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
711	N/A	23716	3.75%	12	160

 

2.28x Ghostbusters Afterlife T-10 (10.23M)

1.08x Shang-Chi T-10 (9.48M)

0.325x Avatar 2 T-10 (5.53M)

[Inceptionzq]

The Little Mermaid Alamo Drafthouse

 

T-9 Wednesday(3 showings): 275/321

T-10 Thursday(139 showings): 3645/21037 ATP: $16.58

1.90x Ghostbusters T-10 (8.57M)

0.841x Avatar 2 T-10 (14.29M)

 

T-11 Friday(198 showings): 5405/30889 ATP: $15.87

3.03x Ghostbusters T-11 (36.82M)

0.913x Avatar 2 T-11 (33.05M)

 

T-12 Saturday(207 showings): 5564/31816

3.10x Ghostbusters T-12 (50.96M)

0.787x Avatar 2 T-12 (34.89M)

 

T-13 Sunday(194 showings): 3624/29848

4.40x Ghostbusters T-13 (48.02M)

0.857x Avatar 2 T-13 (31.34M)

[vafrow]

3 hours ago, Tinalera said:

As far as Canada, at least ones Im tracking, it's doing "okay", but it hasn't (yet) started really bursting out, but then Family films Ive found vary up here. Now, Im suspecting when schools let out up here that might get more sales. It might just be taking a kind of slow/steady pace up here. Also (again) because of Cineplex "rationing out" of available seating, there isn't a lot of the IMAX/AVX type seating available yet. Majority of my seat counts tend to be "Regular"-so perhaps might be something as simple as the theatres deciding when they want to have that Imax and similar type availablity. So it's hard on this end. Have to see if more seats drop on Wednesday, but I suspect we might have to get up to T-9 ish area before we see that. 

 

Again, reiterating, seat sales aren't "bad", they're just "okay" so far up here.

 Looking at my area, I'm seeing the same as you through Cineplex. Sales lag Spiderverse by a fairly big margin.

 

Not having the holiday likely adds to the difference, but, it does seem noticeable. We'll see as we get closer.