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

[Dragoncaine]

Sounds like a slower start for The Batman than a lot of us were expecting, but a solid start nonetheless. WB has been marketing the hell out of this movie, so I wonder if it's a timing thing where they should've waited until Friday evening or something, or if it's just that presales are being consumed by Tues/Wed showings. Either way, I expect ticket sales and tracking to increase as we get closer, social media reactions and reviews drop, and the TV spots keep coming.

[XXR & Friends]

9 minutes ago, Dragoncaine said:

Sounds like a slower start for The Batman than a lot of us were expecting, but a solid start nonetheless. WB has been marketing the hell out of this movie, so I wonder if it's a timing thing where they should've waited until Friday evening or something, or if it's just that presales are being consumed by Tues/Wed showings. Either way, I expect ticket sales and tracking to increase as we get closer, social media reactions and reviews drop, and the TV spots keep coming.

It’s still early and we will see how it goes, but truthfully the start of pre-sales has been closer to what I originally expected than the hype that has built up on this forum in the last month. Even I fell into it. I should have stuck to my gut reaction that this would open in the $120-140M range.

Edited February 10, 2022 by PenguinXXR

[Dragoncaine]

Forbes put out an article saying that The Batman is tracking for an $80m opening, which seems hilariously premature.

 

 

[XXR & Friends]

3 minutes ago, Dragoncaine said:

Forbes put out an article saying that The Batman is tracking for an $80m opening, which seems hilariously premature.

 

Just dumb is more like it. 24HR numbers will likely be 50-100% higher than BW and that opened to $80M. There’s nothing at this juncture that would indicate an $80 million opening.

[21C]

I kinda immediately shut off any argument that uses Batman Begins as a legitimate point of reference for this movie.
1. The market as a whole has changed CONSIDERABLY since Batman Begins came out. 
2. Batman is way more popular now than he was back when Batman Begins came out.
3. The franchise is nowhere in as bad of an state as Batman was after Batman and Robin. 

These three points alone make any prediction that bases itself on Batman Begins absolutely pointless; you could very clearly see the gigantic change in the market just 3 years after Begins with TDK and the change has only become more drastic towards the decade.

[Old Spice]

Bats is doing fine. The early screenings are taking away the exact demo that would normally be snatching up preview night tix. I just looked at the giant Cinemark Jordan Landing XD in the south part of Salt Lake County for Wednesday night and it's almost completely sold out now, even though tickets have only been on sale for a few hours.

 

Nice pop at my theater since lunchtime as well, from 17 tix sold this morning to 45 currently.

 

 

[grim22]

Haven't tracked tickets in a long time and will likely not do it closely here either, but based on my experience looking at the current ticketing app versions

 

- AMC has an amazing app. Easy to navigate, easy to book, very intuitive, shows seating charts

- Regal on the other hand, is downright garbage. Not intuitive in the least, can't look at seating charts, WTF is up with the way the movies are listed

- Atom tickets has a really good app but a distinct lack of theater tie-ups

- Fandango app has the bare minimum required to call it a functioning app. Doesn't do much more than it needs to but I guess that is fine when there's no competition for #1

 

[Grebacio]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

Just finished up setting up my sheets.  Little over 1,200 tickets sold this morning locally (1,218 to be precise) for a total of 1,693, which is a very solid start.  I'd give a BW comparison, but I didn't realize until later in the day that some of the theaters at the time were marking socially distanced seats as sold.

 

Can say though that just those sales from this morning (and NOT counting the sales from Tue/Wed) have already passed Black Widow's entire first day of sales.

 

(no, there is absolutely no point in comparing this to NWH — thanks for asking)

((fine — total sales so far are about 12.7% of NWH's entire first day))

 

A little more than 70% of total sales so far are on Tue/Wed [513 | 425], so yes, Tuesday and Wednesday showings are burning off a lot of demand at the moment.

 

Would Eternals be a good comp?

[Porthos]

5 minutes ago, Grebacio said:

Would Eternals be a good comp?

 

In a way.  I'll give formal comps tonight when I track the full day's worth of sales, but Eternals sold 874 tickets region wide on it's first day of sales, so it's already nearly double that.

 

The (1)64 million dollar question really is: How close to this is one day of sales, since there were two spikes of activity (Tue and today).  Probably close enough for government work (and this board).  But the double-dipping is still something to consider in the back of the mind.

 

Either way, sales have been good.  I'll form more of an opinion on just how good later tonight.

[WittyUsername]

What I gather is that the movie is selling good based purely off the sales for today, but the pre-sales for the Tuesday and Wednesday screenings are diluting it somewhat? 

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

Just finished up setting up my sheets.  Little over 1,200 tickets sold this morning locally (1,218 to be precise) for a total of 1,693, which is a very solid start.  I'd give a BW comparison, but I didn't realize until later in the day that some of the theaters at the time were marking socially distanced seats as sold.

 

Can say though that just those sales from this morning (and NOT counting the sales from Tue/Wed) have already passed Black Widow's entire first day of sales.

 

(no, there is absolutely no point in comparing this to NWH — thanks for asking)

((fine — total sales so far are about 12.7% of NWH's entire first day))

 

A little more than 70% of total sales so far are on Tue/Wed [513 | 425], so yes, Tuesday and Wednesday showings are burning off a lot of demand at the moment.

 

 

Was a little curious.

 

As of the quoted post...

 

85.65% of all sales (1450/1693)  were for some sort of PLF (including DBOX). 

 

Yeah, that percentage is gonna come down, and in a hurry.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Porthos
revised number upward as a theater chain which doesn't always enforce PLF upcharging is actually enforcing it this time.

[Eric is Quiet]

17 hours ago, Eric Poirot said:

Death on the Nile Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-1 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	51	262	9063	2.89%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 83

 

Comp

0.114x of No Time to Die T-1 (716K)

4.295x of The Last Duel T-1 (1.5M)

0.992x of West Side Story T-1 (794K)

Death on the Nile Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report Final Count

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	51	383	9063	4.23%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 121

 

Comp

0.132x of No Time to Die (829K)

3.908x of The Last Duel (1.37M)

0.992x of West Side Story (794K)

 

I still don't think it'll reach the mid-teens tracking, and might even hit sub-10M. But TBH, this felt like a sequel that was going to drop hard even in the best circumstances.

[Eric is Quiet]

17 hours ago, Eric Poirot said:

Marry Me Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-1 and Counting

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	38	105	6146	1.71%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 24

 

Comp

0.131x of Cruella Thu+Fri T-1 (1.01M)

0.398x of West Side Story T-1 (318K)

Marry Me Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report Final Count

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	38	152	6146	2.47%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 47

 

Comp

0.372x of Cruella Thursday (520K)

0.119x of Cruella Thu+Fri (920K)

0.394x of West Side Story (315K)

 

Yeah, another adult-oriented dud in the 4-10M range. Uncharted, please don't bomb and make this month even more horrible.

[Napoleon]

2 minutes ago, Eric Poirot said:

Marry Me Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report Final Count

	Sellouts	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Perct Sold
TOTALS	0	38	152	6146	2.47%

 

Total Seats Sold Today: 47

 

Comp

0.372x of Cruella Thursday (520K)

0.119x of Cruella Thu+Fri (920K)

0.394x of West Side Story (315K)

 

Yeah, another adult-oriented dud in the 4-10M range. Uncharted, please don't bomb and make this month even more horrible.

There should be good walk-ups on Valentine's Day, I still believe in over $10 million 🙏

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Batman is underwhelming here. Very scattered

[XXR & Friends]

5 hours ago, PenguinXXR said:

After 1 hour my theater is at 88 tickets sold for The Batman (not including the 146 sold for the Tuesday screening.)

 

I was curious to see the initial rush but won’t be checking every hour. I’ll look again in about 7 hours.

After 6 hours of presales, The Batman is at 166 tickets sold for Thursday and still at 146 for Tuesday. All but 6 Thursday tickets are in the Dolby or IMAX.

[filmlover]

The theater I'm taking my mom to see Death on the Nile at tomorrow is doing well enough given that it's a multiplex popular with the older crowd. Still thinking it barely hits double digits (or slightly less depending on how bad the drop is on Super Bowl Sunday).

[WittyUsername]

@PorthosAny updates?

[Inceptionzq]

The Batman Denver Preview Showings

AMC Westminster 24

Total

237

3112

7.62%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

156

3405

4.58%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD 6+ HOURS	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
851	851	29007	2.93%	14	187

 

AMCs sold	718
Cinemarks sold	30
Regals sold	58
Harkins sold	45

 

Tuesday: 

Total

951

1428

Wednesday:

Total

216

917

Overall:

Grand Total

2018

31352

 

On 2/8/2022 at 4:21 PM, Inceptionzq said:

The Batman Tuesday Showings(6 hours)

 

Denver: 659 tickets sold in 4 theaters

 

The overall preview sales in the first 6ish hours were 1726 tickets sold.

2.93x Eternals' first 10 hours (27.84M)

2.88x Black Widow's first 7 hours (38.02M)

0.267x NWH’s first 11 hours

Edited February 10, 2022 by Inceptionzq

[DAJK]

Maybe it’s just because my region has a lot of seniors, but Nile is still selling reasonably well here. Still expecting a teens opening.