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

[keysersoze123]

5 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

Oh come on nobody predicted how much of a bomb Lightyear would be. Even days before its release, there were enough 250-300M+ predictions for it floating around while for Minions 2, most predictions were in the 200-250M region. So if this should open to 100M+, i would consider it a breakout and a surprising one at that.

if anyone were predicting 300m days before release, they were living in the la la land for sure. The presales were not screaming that big a opening weekend. Plus when do loonie predictions are the benchmark of a movie surprise or not !!!! its like me being surprised by JWD opening below FK when it was obvious while you had it opening above JW. 

[titanic2187]

4 hours ago, M37 said:

No, those titles were showing their weakness well before those last few days; there's a reason I was lower than most here on Elvis in that last week and have been banging the drum for Minions since the weekend sales tracking numbers were posted. The phrase I keep using is growth rate, that is the % increase in total sales, because it projects how much those final days will increase

 

Using data from @Porthos in Sacto, but its the same pattern/math to look for in all tracking samples. Here's some select films, and their growth rate over the last 10 days (using a 3-day growth because of the smaller sample size, single day numbers are kinda bouncy).

 

 

• Strange - Had high volume of pre-sales, so a smaller % increase, but still solid volume of sales in last week
• Fast 9/Shang-Chi/JWD - All strong finishers, lots of walk-ups (and you can see how JWD flattens out a bit from T-3 on, after reviews came out - those look to have limited sales)
• Venom - an extreme outlier in terms of late growth (due to some weirdness in sales and release date)
• Lightyear - tickets didn't go on sale until 9 days before opening, so were playing catch-up into the last week, creating very high growth
• Minions - has been crushing all of them since T-7, including known outliers Venom and LY

Growth rate almost never goes down in the last week, at worst it flattens out up to T-1, but still increases from T-1 to T-0. Even the low end pessimistic projections from here still clear $7M for Thursday, a reasonable projection can get you to $8M, and because this is uncharted territory for growth, the true ceiling may even pushing up to $9M

Maybe I can finally put my guard down and scream a breakout for M2.

 

Australia number if it is any signal, show that the box office number will still be roughly in line with DM3.

[katnisscinnaplex]

2 hours ago, katnisscinnaplex said:

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Malcolm List	T-1	Jax	5	8	0	2	859	0.23%
		Phx	4	7	1	4	574	0.70%
		Ral	4	6	3	7	292	2.40%
	Total		13	21	4	13	1,725	0.75%
Minions 2	T-1	Jax	7	108	172	511	17,667	2.89%
		Phx	7	79	180	564	13,089	4.31%
		Ral	8	67	207	646	8,475	7.62%
ATP: 13.9	Total		22	254	559	1,721	39,231	4.39%
Nope	T-22	Jax	7	51	0	60	8,591	0.70%
		Phx	6	20	0	93	4,344	2.14%
		Ral	8	25	16	81	3,411	2.37%
	Total		21	96	16	234	16,346	1.43%
Thor 4	T-8	Jax	7	112	105	1,992	17,265	11.54%
		Phx	6	114	128	2,496	18,369	13.59%
		Ral	8	83	92	2,250	10,995	20.46%
ATP: 14.57	Total		21	309	325	6,738	46,629	14.45%

 

Minions 2 T-1 comps

 - Sonic 2 - 1.23x (6.12m)

 - Encanto - 5.55x (8.33m)

 - Lightyear Thu - 1.46x (7.15m)*

 - Jungle Cruise - 3.73x (10.06m)

*assuming 4.9m true Thu for Lightyear

 

Just keeps chugging along.   Wouldn't be surprised with 8m or higher if it keeps up the pace.  I'll try to get a chart up if I have time today

 

Nope T-22 comps

 - JW-D - .115x (2.07m)

 - Eternals - .264x (2.51m)

 - Black Widow - .18x (2.39m)

 

Thor 4 T-7 comps

 - Dr. Strange 2 - .585x (21.06m)

 - Batman (Thu) - missed

 - No Way Home - .34x (16.77m)

 - Black Widow - 2.57x (33.97m)

 - JW3 - 2.005x (36.1m)

Alright, had a chance to look at some growth rates.  The ranges are not even as I was trying to look at days where I polled all charted movies, but it works for trend purposes.  If trend continues, I'd expect my regions to be around 3,012 (+75%) tomorrow morning.  That would move the comps to 8.56m (for Sonic and Lightyear). I don't have a T-1 hr update for Sonic or Space Jam.  F9 was +25%, JC was +61.6% and Lightyear +44%

 

[Cmasterclay]

Minions brand stronger than Despicable Me in general these days

[lorddemaxus]

Minions > Thor?

[Eric Loves Rey]

2 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Minions brand stronger than Despicable Me in general these days

Truth! I took my mom to see Elvis, and the Regal I was at showed a video of the Minions on that stupid roller coaster pre-show thing. My mom turned to me while it was playing and asked “what was the first movie the Minions were in called?” She doesn’t even remember the name Despicable Me. It’s so weird.

[THUNDER BIRD]

53 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

if anyone were predicting 300m days before release, they were living in the la la land for sure. The presales were not screaming that big a opening weekend. Plus when do loonie predictions are the benchmark of a movie surprise or not !!!! its like me being surprised by JWD opening below FK when it was obvious while you had it opening above JW. 

Dominion opening less than FK was obvious.

 

I don't think so, it opened 3 million less with absolutely pathetic reviews and not good WOM.

 

Reverse the reception and not so obvious Afterall.

[THUNDER BIRD]

1 hour ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

Oh come on nobody predicted how much of a bomb Lightyear would be. Even days before its release, there were enough 250-300M+ predictions for it floating around while for Minions 2, most predictions were in the 200-250M region. So if this should open to 100M+, i would consider it a breakout and a surprising one at that.

I knew that Lightyear won't work as well as people are expecting months before.

 

This isn't the Buzz Lightyear which audiences fell in love with, this is some generic space Ranger in an animated sci fi movie.

 

Our Buzz Lightyear is a toy within Toy Story universe..... A Buzz Lightyear of Star Command movie would've had better chance.

 

Minnions on the other hand is a brand, popular, likeable characters which are hit with kids. It was always going to be bigger than Lightyear. Obviously internet would think otherwise, because it is internet.

 

Only thing i didn't envisioned is the absolute disaster that Lightyear would be, i thought it would still do decentish. 

[abra]

After a two year delay due to the pandemic, Illumination/Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, the fifth movie in the Despicable Me/Minions universe, arrives looking to lead the Independence Day domestic box office with $70M-$80M over 4-days, and another $70M abroad for a potential $150M global launch. There are no other major studio wide entries over July 4th weekend.

 

https://deadline.com/2022/06/minions-the-rise-of-gru-box-office-1235054142/

Edited June 29, 2022 by abra

[WrathOfHan]

[YM!]

1 hour ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

Oh come on nobody predicted how much of a bomb Lightyear would be. Even days before its release, there were enough 250-300M+ predictions for it floating around while for Minions 2, most predictions were in the 200-250M region. So if this should open to 100M+, i would consider it a breakout and a surprising one at that.

I mean yes but I also felt signs of clear underperformance around April-ish. I said I wouldn’t be surprised at under 200m.

[Alex SciChannel]

20 minutes ago, abra said:

After a two year delay due to the pandemic, Illumination/Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, the fifth movie in the Despicable Me/Minions universe, arrives looking to lead the Independence Day domestic box office with $70M-$80M over 4-days, and another $70M abroad for a potential $150M global launch. There are no other major studio wide entries over July 4th weekend.

 

https://deadline.com/2022/06/minions-the-rise-of-gru-box-office-1235054142/

Another lowball huh. That would be better as a 3-day prediction imo. That would make Deadline's 3-day around $60M - $68M

Edited June 29, 2022 by Alex SciChannel

[keysersoze123]

32 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Dominion opening less than FK was obvious.

 

I don't think so, it opened 3 million less with absolutely pathetic reviews and not good WOM.

 

Reverse the reception and not so obvious Afterall.

threequels drop and its PS did indicate its not going to be that big. Its previews started early. I predicted 140m OW like 2 weeks to release. It was not a surprise at all. 

[THUNDER BIRD]

22 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

threequels drop and its PS did indicate its not going to be that big. Its previews started early. I predicted 140m OW like 2 weeks to release. It was not a surprise at all. 

Better reception and it would've done 150+ bare minimum 

 

Even with the worse reception ever seen for a huge event movie since Batman vs Superman it did 145.

 

Easily was clearing FK with good reception. 

[M37]

49 minutes ago, abra said:

After a two year delay due to the pandemic, Illumination/Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, the fifth movie in the Despicable Me/Minions universe, arrives looking to lead the Independence Day domestic box office with $70M-$80M over 4-days, and another $70M abroad for a potential $150M global launch. There are no other major studio wide entries over July 4th weekend.

 

https://deadline.com/2022/06/minions-the-rise-of-gru-box-office-1235054142/

These estimates could have been plausible a week ago, but ignore the rapid acceleration the tracking in here has shown over the last few days, and will shortly be proven way too low.

 

I'm sitting on $80-$90M+ for the 3-day, $95-$110 for the 4-day (and I might be too cautious there, but tired of getting burned by a good preview and low TFri)

[BadOlCatSylvester]

I'm not going to harp on Deadline too much. No one expected Lightyear to tank as badly as it did. Still, the recent Minions presales seem to indicate that the streaming stigma is exclusive to Disney. ^{What drugs they were on when they renewed the contract of the main culprit for another three years are beyond me...}

[katnisscinnaplex]

1 hour ago, katnisscinnaplex said:

Alright, had a chance to look at some growth rates.  The ranges are not even as I was trying to look at days where I polled all charted movies, but it works for trend purposes.  If trend continues, I'd expect my regions to be around 3,012 (+75%) tomorrow morning.  That would move the comps to 8.56m (for Sonic and Lightyear). I don't have a T-1 hr update for Sonic or Space Jam.  F9 was +25%, JC was +61.6% and Lightyear +44%

 

One last detail to add - I took a look at child ticket prices to see how big the range is.  Here are the three different ATPs:

 

All adult: $13.89

All child: $10.74

Avg price: $12.61

 

For sales in my area, it knocks off over a dollar per ticket when assuming that 50% of sales are for children's tickets.  

[M37]

10 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Better reception and it would've done 150+ bare minimum 

 

Even with the worse reception ever seen for a huge event movie since Batman vs Superman it did 145.

 

Easily was clearing FK with good reception. 

There is decent evidence in the tracking data that the poor reviews/WOM really took the wind out of the pre-sales pace for JWD, when compared to comparable titles. I'd estimate the poor reception cost JWD ~$2M+ in previews and and $15-20M for OW as compared to what a "good" movie would have made ... like Batman, which saw sales pace bumped UP after good reviews, helping the OW

 

Audiences (at least some of them) are becoming more selective and pay attention to quality, not just blindly throwing money at known IPs on OW then seeing the WOM kick in for subsequent weeks

[keysersoze123]

37 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Better reception and it would've done 150+ bare minimum 

 

Even with the worse reception ever seen for a huge event movie since Batman vs Superman it did 145.

 

Easily was clearing FK with good reception. 

I heard from a very reliable source that its reviews would be bad. I called it out early as well. So even the bad reviews was not a shocker. 

[Tinalera]

18 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I'm not going to harp on Deadline too much. No one expected Lightyear to tank as badly as it did. Still, the recent Minions presales seem to indicate that the streaming stigma is exclusive to Disney. ^{What drugs they were on when they renewed the contract of the main culprit for another three years are beyond me...}

I was thinking about this the other day. Disney did such a great job on promoting Disney Plus that its pretty much in the same recognition as Netflix "Ill wait for it to hit Disney Plus/Netflix". Perhaps Disney did a bit too good a job if indeed thats the stigma. Minions-I honestly couldn't tell you what streaming service it would be on off top of my head (Universal-NBC-Peacock? Just checked yep Peacock). I don't hear anyone around me when talking about a Universal (or any other studio) say "ill wait for it to come on Universal/HBO/Amazon Prime"(thats not to say people don't, but I don't really hear it used). So Disney now, because of its popularity, might indeed have that "wait for Disney" that might be hurting them (at least in Animation-obviously Marvel tentpoles are still making huge bank).