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

[Dale Cooper]

I also think that the length of the film shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to what it means for previews. I would gather it takes a lot for people to go see 192 minute film >10pm on a weekday. From what I can see in locally is that it has sold very well across all formats for screenings between 5pm and 9pm on OD, but there isn't exactly enough rush to see the movie later in the night (except for IMAX, which has sold very well for pretty much all screenings). This should lead to a potentially very high IM.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Dale Cooper

[stuart360]

People having meltdowns already. I dont think even the most blinded AVATAR fan on here expected dome kind of opening weekend record, or even a giant comic book movie style opening. They expected a good opening and very good legs.

 

For example, a loooong time ago on here i was predicitng around 150mil OW and people were thinking i was silly for going so low, getting a lot of smilies on my post etc. Well i just felt the time between both films would mean it performed more like a orig film in the sense of smaller opening and longer legs. Also with the runtime meaning around a 4 hour slot per showing, well thats also going to have an effect compared to a 90-120min film.

 

Itrs also not a 'i must see this openeing weekend' fanboy driven film like a Maarvel film etc.. Its Christams with tons of holiday days. People will see it when they want to over this holiday period, dont worry about that.

[JustLurking]

2 minutes ago, stuart360 said:

People having meltdowns already. I dont think even the most blinded AVATAR fan on here expected dome kind of opening weekend record, or even a giant comic book movie style opening. They expected a good opening and very good legs.

 

For example, a loooong time ago on here i was predicitng around 150mil OW and people were thinking i was silly for going so low, getting a lot of smilies on my post etc. Well i just felt the time between both films would mean it performed more like a orig film in the sense of smaller opening and longer legs. Also with the runtime meaning around a 4 hour slot per showing, well thats also going to have an effect compared to a 90-120min film.

 

Itrs also not a 'i must see this openeing weekend' fanboy driven film like a Maarvel film etc.. Its Christams with tons of holiday days. People will see it when they want to over this holiday period, dont worry about that.

...Who exactly is having a meltdown here? Some people (me included) are revising their OW expectations downwards based on a seemingly meh PS final push but that's about it, and that seems fair to me.

[Legion Again]

When you downgrade from 160 to 155, that’s a meltdown. It is known

[stuart360]

19 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

...Who exactly is having a meltdown here? Some people (me included) are revising their OW expectations downwards based on a seemingly meh PS final push but that's about it, and that seems fair to me.

Sorry it was just reminding me of that annoying thing people do on here, that actually made me stop posting for years.

Where a film will have say a big opening weekend and people are like 'wow if we get a 20mil Monday then 500mil is locked!, the monday comes in at 19mil or something and its 'damn only 19mil, this film isnt hitting 300mil now is it?.

 

This is a legs film, always has been, always was going to be.

[XXR vs XXR]

3 minutes ago, stuart360 said:

This is a legs film, always has been, always was going to be.

Sure, but we are talking about OW and not legs/total. If final week PS don’t match certain expectations, then it stands to reason that one should adjust their OW predictions to match the new reality. 

[Fanboy]

1 hour ago, Dale Cooper said:

I also think that the length of the film shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to what it means for previews. I would gather it takes a lot for people to go see 192 minute film >10pm on a weekday. From what I can see in locally is that it has sold very well across all formats for screenings between 5pm and 9pm on OD, but there isn't exactly enough rush to see the movie later in the night (except for IMAX, which has sold very well for pretty much all screenings). This should lead to a potentially very high IM.

Perhaps you have a point when it comes to previews. I know Star Wars is more frontloaded than the MCU but Endgame "Only" having 60M previews and opening more than 100M higher than TFA I think was in part due to its 3 hour runtime. 10x IM wouldn't surprise me for that reason, it's probably the most backloaded presales we've seen for a major blockbuster on here even with the World Cup, but the Sunday being close to Christmas should offset that somewhat. 

[Legion Again]

I do think it’s an interesting theoretical question about what to adjust conditional on other variables changing. Concretely, let’s say you expect a movie to do: 30M OW, 150M, 5x legs

 

and then you get some information suggesting it will do 20M OW. You could say:

well I was confident this movie would do 5x, guess now we’re looking at 20*5=100

well I was confident this movie would do 150M, guess now we’re looking at 20*7.5=150

Probably most reasonable is a compromise option — “well, my priors of “5x” and “150 total” are incompatible with this new OW, so I’ll adjust both. 20*6.12=122.5 (this is about half change to legs expectations and half to finish expectations).”  
 

Or you might say, well actually I feel pretty good about 150m, and about 5x, this new 20M OW data is bupkis and I reject it, still on 30*5=150.
 

Or again, a compromise option — adjust to 22.9*5.72=131M (this too is essentially an equal balancing of changes to the 3 variables).   
 

Most realistically, all 3 will change (ow down, legs up, total down) with relative weight depending on the strength of the prior belief in each. I would say that *generally* there tends to be stronger fundamentals reasons to expect a certain multi than a certain OW or total, which leads to a state of affairs where a 10% smaller OW is absorbed into forecasts as nearly a 10% drop in total, and 10% higher OW as 10% higher total. But that is more strongly the case for something like the mcu where there is a lot of historical data on legs (especially conditioned on reception).

[Flamengo81]

I feel that final presales push is not going to be too spetacular, but the walkups will surprisingly (?) be.
Just a gut feeling though...

[Deep Wang]

1 hour ago, stuart360 said:

People having meltdowns already. I dont think even the most blinded AVATAR fan on here expected dome kind of opening weekend record, or even a giant comic book movie style opening. They expected a good opening and very good legs.

 

Itrs also not a 'i must see this openeing weekend' fanboy driven film like a Maarvel film etc.. 

 

$181,543,126 OW would place it smack in the middle of Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange 2, Incredibles 2, BP:WF, and CA:CW!!

 

That is the very definition of 'giant comic book movie style opening' lol!

[IronJimbo]

Just now, Deep Wang said:

 

$181,543,126 OW would place it smack in the middle of Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange 2, Incredibles 2, BP:WF, and CA:CW!!

 

That is the very definition of 'giant comic book movie style opening' lol!

 

Isn't Incrediblies 2 a sequel to an original movie approx 13 years after the first?

[Deep Wang]

1 minute ago, IronJimbo said:

 

Isn't Incrediblies 2 a sequel to an original movie approx 13 years after the first?

 

Yes it was!  The big difference between Incredibles and Avatar, was that people never shut up about wanting Incredibles 2 for the 13 years.

[IronJimbo]

Just now, Deep Wang said:

 

Yes it was!  The big difference between Incredibles and Avatar, was that people never shut up about wanting Incredibles 2 for the 13 years.

am i not a person to you? 😞

Edited December 12, 2022 by IronJimbo

[stuart360]

6 minutes ago, Deep Wang said:

 

$181,543,126 OW would place it smack in the middle of Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange 2, Incredibles 2, BP:WF, and CA:CW!!

 

That is the very definition of 'giant comic book movie style opening' lol!

Yes but its also a sequel to the 'biggest movie of all time' at a time when some films are making 200+mil, and even 300+mil OW.

Thts what i meant.

 

181mil is big obviously but not close to TFA or Endgame, even though AVATAR is the current box office king.

[Legion Again]

11 minutes ago, Deep Wang said:

 

$181,543,126 OW would place it smack in the middle of Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange 2, Incredibles 2, BP:WF, and CA:CW!!

 

That is the very definition of 'giant comic book movie style opening' lol!

I mean, nominally. AoU’s opening is comfy 250+ modern equivalent, I2 200+, CW 220+
 

 

181.5M is more gotg2/CM/IM1 level — still pretty big, but perhaps not what people think of as “giant comic book style opening?” This is the same token by which DS2/BP2 were pretty big but not really in that A+ tier of openings (let alone s tier record breaker stuff).

[Deep Wang]

7 minutes ago, stuart360 said:

Yes but its also a sequel to the 'biggest movie of all time' at a time when some films are making 200+mil, and even 300+mil OW.

Thts what i meant.

 

181mil is big obviously but not close to TFA or Endgame, even though AVATAR is the current box office king.

 

Exactly ONE movie has made $300m+ and that's so far above and beyond it's not worth talking about to be honest lol.  

 

Only 5 movies ever have opened to 180-200m, that is still incredibly rarified air we are talking about and you don't get that high without some hype and anticipation and fan rush on opening weekend.  Will it be more than SW/MCU?  Of course not, but that's still frontloading it a bit.

[Deep Wang]

5 minutes ago, Legion By Night said:

I mean, nominally. AoU’s opening is comfy 250+ modern equivalent, I2 200+, CW 220+
 

 

181.5M is more gotg2/CM/IM1 level — still pretty big, but perhaps not what people think of as “giant comic book style opening?” This is the same token by which DS2/BP2 were pretty big but not really in that A+ tier of openings (let alone s tier record breaker stuff).

 

Only if you want to get all logical about it! 

 

I guess part of the problem is that $150-200m is getting more and more commonplace and it also doesn't rate as much as the bigger ones do lol.

[narniadis]

I know I am pulling back from yesterday's conversation, but if you weren't on BOM (or WOKJ/Filmgasm) back in 2009, its hard to emphasize just how big Avatar's OW was in context. We can get into the xyz aspects of Decembers lack of big openings due to the legs instead, but you have to remember that at the time it was the #2 December 3day (and arguably, I Am Legends was also just as massive in comparison.) And only the 3rd film to ever top 70m in December. 

 

It wasnt till 3 years later with Hobbit 1 that another film did the same and then the consensus finally shifted that bigger openings with ok legs were possible. We are used to it now, but back then, it was amazing and that aspect I think has only gotten forgotten due to the crazy legs and weekends that followed. 

[ZackM]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:56 AM, ZackM said:

 

 

Definitely some interesting behavior as we hit the final stretch.

 

Avatar: The Way of Water Alpha Chain Premiere Night Seat Report: T-5 days
	Last Day	2 Days Ago	3 Days Ago	4 Days Ago	5 Days Ago
Showings Added	46	17	33	48	244
Seats Added	5,853	2,343	6,327	7,096	27,498
Seats Sold	6,678	5,570	6,345	6,657	5,248
12/10/2022	Theaters	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Pct. Sold
Total	436	4,965	120,531	807,700	14.92%
% of Seats Sold	Sellouts	90%+	80%+	70%+	60%+
# of Showings	0	6	33	105	232
ATP
$18.51

 

 

Avatar: The Way of Water Comps
	Thor: Love & Thunder		Black Panther: Wakanda Forever		Jurassic World: Dominion		The Batman		Top Gun: Maverick
	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted
D0
T-0
T-1
T-2
T-3
T-4
T-5	$13.1	$14.4	$13.4	$14.9	$22.2	$23.5	$13.9	$15.3	$20.3	$21.8
T-6	$12.8	$14.1	$13.3	$14.7	$22.6	$23.9	$13.7	$15.1	$20.8	$22.3
T-7	$12.7	$14.0	$13.2	$14.6	$23.1	$24.4	$13.7	$15.0	$21.3	$22.9
T-8	$12.4	$13.6	$12.9	$14.3	$22.9	$24.1	$13.3	$14.6	$21.5	$23.1
T-9	$11.9	$13.2	$12.6	$14.0	$22.6	$23.9	$12.8	$14.1	$21.2	$22.8
T-10	$11.6	$12.8	$12.3	$13.7	$22.4	$23.6	$12.6	$13.9	$21.2	$22.8
T-11	$11.3	$12.5	$12.0	$13.3	$22.0	$23.2	$12.2	$13.5	$21.0	$22.5
T-12	$11.1	$12.2	$11.6	$12.9	$21.6	$22.9	$11.9	$13.1	$20.7	$22.3
T-13	$10.9	$12.1	$11.4	$12.7	$21.4	$22.7	$11.7	$13.0	$20.9	$22.5
T-14	$10.8	$12.0	$11.3	$12.6	$21.2	$22.5	$11.5	$12.8	$21.6	$23.3
T-15	$10.6	$11.8	$11.1	$12.4	$21.0	$22.3
T-16	$10.4	$11.6	$10.9	$12.2	$20.7	$22.0
T-17	$10.3	$11.5	$10.7	$12.0	$20.6	$21.9
T-18	$10.2	$11.4	$10.5	$11.8	$20.5	$21.8

 

More of the same.

 

Avatar: The Way of Water Alpha Chain Premiere Night Seat Report: T-4 days
	Last Day	2 Days Ago	3 Days Ago	4 Days Ago	5 Days Ago
Showings Added	7	46	17	33	48
Seats Added	1,025	5,853	2,343	6,327	7,096
Seats Sold	9,482	6,678	5,570	6,345	6,657
12/11/2022	Theaters	Showings	Seats Sold	Total Seats	Pct. Sold
Total	436	4,972	130,013	808,725	16.08%
% of Seats Sold	Sellouts	90%+	80%+	70%+	60%+
# of Showings	0	6	41	123	263
ATP
$18.40

 

 

Avatar: The Way of Water Comps
	Thor: Love & Thunder		Black Panther: Wakanda Forever		Jurassic World: Dominion		The Batman		Top Gun: Maverick
	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted	Unweighted	Weighted
D0
T-0
T-1
T-2
T-3
T-4	$13.6	$14.9	$13.7	$15.2	$22.0	$23.2	$14.1	$15.5	$20.2	$21.7
T-5	$13.1	$14.4	$13.4	$14.9	$22.2	$23.5	$13.9	$15.3	$20.3	$21.8
T-6	$12.8	$14.1	$13.3	$14.7	$22.6	$23.9	$13.7	$15.1	$20.8	$22.3
T-7	$12.7	$14.0	$13.2	$14.6	$23.1	$24.4	$13.7	$15.0	$21.3	$22.9
T-8	$12.4	$13.6	$12.9	$14.3	$22.9	$24.1	$13.3	$14.6	$21.5	$23.1
T-9	$11.9	$13.2	$12.6	$14.0	$22.6	$23.9	$12.8	$14.1	$21.2	$22.8
T-10	$11.6	$12.8	$12.3	$13.7	$22.4	$23.6	$12.6	$13.9	$21.2	$22.8
T-11	$11.3	$12.5	$12.0	$13.3	$22.0	$23.2	$12.2	$13.5	$21.0	$22.5
T-12	$11.1	$12.2	$11.6	$12.9	$21.6	$22.9	$11.9	$13.1	$20.7	$22.3
T-13	$10.9	$12.1	$11.4	$12.7	$21.4	$22.7	$11.7	$13.0	$20.9	$22.5
T-14	$10.8	$12.0	$11.3	$12.6	$21.2	$22.5	$11.5	$12.8	$21.6	$23.3
T-15	$10.6	$11.8	$11.1	$12.4	$21.0	$22.3
T-16	$10.4	$11.6	$10.9	$12.2	$20.7	$22.0
T-17	$10.3	$11.5	$10.7	$12.0	$20.6	$21.9
T-18	$10.2	$11.4	$10.5	$11.8	$20.5	$21.8

[ThomasNicole]

Presales are still pointing to ~20M previews and 160M OW, this is SH level.

 

We had 2 major SH movies this year (DS2 and BP2) opening not much higher than that, so i don't think is such a different type of movie in this regard. The difference will be in legs, but that's another thing.

 

At this point i don't even think there's need to adjust expectations, is more of an adjustment of the range and an answer to the question "can it keep growing up and ended up being the biggest OW of the year despite the lenghty runtime, the limited amount of premium screens and the holidays right after the opening?" Apparently, the answer is no.