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

[ThomasNicole]

I'm not sure they'll be way off quite frankly to make such strong statements.

 

I'm not exactly counting on it tbh, but we have no idea how the walkups will be. For previews yes it seems a bit weak (way weaker than TGM / JWD), but it starts 3PM and the sessions will be like a 4-hour thing in a thursday which probably will hurt late shows.

 

I don't think we can just apply the same logic for the entire weekend yet, and the data is very promising. 

 

If it ended up managing something like 9x, which while unlikely isn't exactly impossible, even 17M previews could be enough for them to be very close in their prediction actually.

Edited December 15, 2022 by ThomasNicole

[Legion Again]

5 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

I'm not exactly counting on tbh, but we have no idea how the walkups will be.

This is not really true any more. We have some evidence, and it points to quite bad walkups.

 

Of course not super strong evidence, could always get a z=1.2 surprise, etc

Edited December 15, 2022 by Korra Legion

[ThomasNicole]

1 minute ago, Korra Legion said:

This is not really true any more. We have some evidence, and it points to quite bad walkups.

 

Of course not super strong evidence, could always get a z=1.2 surprise, etc

That's what i meant. 

 

There's strong evidence (to me at least) about thursday having bad walkups. After that it's more of an extrapolation so there's a lot of room to surprise. 

 

And there's reasons to surprise as well, like i said thursday will take a hit since shows will start 3PM but by 8PM many people won't go to a 4 hour screening. 

 

On the weekend tho it will be another dynamic, i can see where BOP came from. I have no idea if it will happen, but i can see the logic.

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

That's what i meant. 

 

There's strong evidence (to me at least) about thursday having bad walkups. After that it's more of an extrapolation so there's a lot of room to surprise. 

 

And there's reasons to surprise as well, like i said thursday will take a hit since shows will start 3PM but by 8PM many people won't go to a 4 hour screening. 

 

On the weekend tho it will be another dynamic, i can see where BOP came from. I have no idea if it will happen, but i can see the logic.

I'd somewhat agree if we were completely flying blind on weekend sales. But while it's nowhere near as comprehensive as our Thu data, we do have trackers who post FSS -- and those comps have been going in the same direction as Thu. 

[hw64]

7 minutes ago, Korra Legion said:

If you go super naively, Fri Ps as +35% th vs -30% for some ~5x movies (ds/Thor) would lead to an IM of 1+(1.35/.7*4)~=8.7x

 

A big problem being, lower PS help higher PSm and higher presales hurt PSm, so as a very generally rule of thumb ratio in actuals will be less than ratio in PS. Say a 93% lead in PS (135 vs 70) leading to only 1.7x in actuals. Then 1+1.7*4= just 7.8x.

 

Entire analysis is predicated on the assumption that the presales disparity between Avatar 2 and the other listed movies on Friday remains the same for Saturday and Sunday. From the data I've seen in this thread, that is not the case — Avatar 2 actually increases in presales strength compared to these other movies on Saturday and Sunday relative to Friday.

 

If that is the case, then using the same methodology as above on a per-day basis rather than using the Friday disparity to project both Saturday and Sunday, the IM estimate would actually increase significantly.

[Legion Again]

7 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

That's what i meant. 

 

There's strong evidence (to me at least) about thursday having bad walkups. After that it's more of an extrapolation so there's a lot of room to surprise. 

 

And there's reasons to surprise as well, like i said thursday will take a hit since shows will start 3PM but by 8PM many people won't go to a 4 hour screening. 

 

On the weekend tho it will be another dynamic, i can see where BOP came from. I have no idea if it will happen, but i can see the logic.

I am talking FSS walkups, not th walkups. Walkups for OD proper in SK were pretty bad. It’s not a perfect indicator for DOM analogue, but decent correlation, especially if PS level is similar (it was) and ps trends similar (they were).

 

The optimist’s case is that ps finish and PSm are weak because people are being very picky about screens and all the “missing” business on ow expectations miss is simply translated to later days rather than actually being lost.

[Legion Again]

2 minutes ago, hw64 said:

 

Entire analysis is predicated on the assumption that the presales disparity between Avatar 2 and the other listed movies on Friday remains the same for Saturday and Sunday. From the data I've seen in this thread, that is not the case — Avatar 2 actually increases in presales strength compared to these other movies on Saturday and Sunday relative to Friday.

 

If that is the case, then using the same methodology as above on a per-day basis rather than using the Friday disparity to project both Saturday and Sunday, the IM estimate would actually increase significantly.

I did the naive calc (and noted it as such) for ease of writing and reading quickly. Indeed sat ps look even better, but if you do the whole long analysis I think you mostly end up with like 8-8.5x, which is where most people seem to have been for a while.

[XXR & Friends]

1 minute ago, Korra Legion said:

I did the naive calc (and noted it as such) for ease of writing and reading quickly. Indeed sat ps look even better, but if you do the whole long analysis I think you mostly end up with like 8-8.5x, which is where most people seem to have been for a while.

But if most people are in the 8-8.5x range (and it does indeed land there), then we should be going over $140M and possibly $150M. From what I can tell, ticket sales for Thursday would translate to about $16-17M before ATP adjustment which should be 8-10%.

[Legion Again]

3 minutes ago, XXR Tulkun Rider said:

But if most people are in the 8-8.5x range (and it does indeed land there), then we should be going over $140M and possibly $150M. From what I can tell, ticket sales for Thursday would translate to about $16-17M before ATP adjustment which should be 8-10%.

Most diehards here seem to be in like 16*8 (128)-18*8.5 (153) zone is my impression, quite reasonably in my opinion — I think atp weighted suggests that sort of previews after atp adjustment.

[hw64]

26 minutes ago, Korra Legion said:

I did the naive calc (and noted it as such) for ease of writing and reading quickly. Indeed sat ps look even better, but if you do the whole long analysis I think you mostly end up with like 8-8.5x, which is where most people seem to have been for a while.

 

Do you? Let's take Inceptionzq's data here:

  

1 hour ago, Inceptionzq said:

Avatar The Way of Water Megaplex

T-1 Thursday(188 showings): 6031(+626)/37740

0.595x Thor L&T T-1 (17.26M)

 

T-2 Friday(269 showings): 7599(+857)/60089

1.10x Thor L&T T-2 (44.41M)

 

T-3 Saturday(288 showings): 7351(+817)/63242

1.86x Thor L&T T-3

 

T-4 Sunday(299 showings): 3808(+403)/67716

2.81x Thor L&T T-4

 

Relative to Thursday presales, Avatar 2's Friday presales compared to Thor 4's are 1.10/0.595 - 1 = ~84% stronger, which is slightly lower than BOP's "35% more than vs. 30% less than" data which works out at +93% stronger presales on Friday relative to Thursday for Avatar 2 as compared to Thor 4. So this seems like good data to use — it agrees relatively well with BOP's data.

 

For Saturday, using the data above, that increases to +213% for Avatar 2, and for Sunday it increases further to +372%.

 

Now let's weight these properly for each day. Thor 4's Friday contributed about 1.4x to its IM, its Saturday contributed about 1.45x, and its Sunday contributed about 1.12x.

 

Putting that all together, that's 1 + 1.4*1.84 + 1.45*3.13 + 1.12*4.72 = a 13.4x multiplier. Obviously you have to adjust down quite heavily here for the higher presales = lower "PSm" — as you call it — effect, but I have a hard time seeing it adjust down to the 8-8.5x range.

 

In fact, to get that 13.4x multiplier down to an 8x, you'd need to make that assumption that Avatar 2 is going to have 56% of the overall Friday to Sunday PSm as Thor 4.

Edited December 15, 2022 by hw64

[Menor the Destroyer]

11 minutes ago, hw64 said:

 

 

Putting that all together, that's 1 + 1.4*1.84 + 1.45*3.13 + 1.12*4.72 = a 13.4x multiplier. Obviously you have to adjust down quite heavily here for the higher presales = lower "PSm" — as you call it — effect, but I have a hard time seeing it adjust down to the 8-8.5x range.

You're correct about what this method of extrapolation implies, but the bolded is why I don't think this is a particularly useful method to use on its own. Generally speaking for days after Fri I prefer to use historical data on Sat bumps/Sun drops and let the PS inform what end of the range the film may fall into.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[cooldude97]

eh, i'm choosing to go with the gold account guy's assessment 

[XXR & Friends]

Basically, we know that those doing presales care about the format in which they watch the film (at least a large % of them do). This is why PLF is skewing so heavy. The question is, will walkups also care as much and defer/deter from seeing the film because of it OR will they fill out the available 2D/regular 3D and boom rush the IM to 9x 😅

[IronJimbo]

8 minutes ago, cooldude97 said:

eh, i'm choosing to go with the gold account guy's assessment 

is this response bias or apeal to authority fallacy?

[hw64]

7 minutes ago, cooldude97 said:

eh, i'm choosing to go with the gold account guy's assessment 

 

Damn, If only I'd have bought that $15/month gold account subscription to BOT, then my opinions would be so much more credible to the masses!

[hw64]

13 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

You're correct about what this method of extrapolation implies, but the bolded is why I don't think this is a particularly useful method to use on its own. Generally speaking for days after Fri I prefer to use historical data on Sat bumps/Sun drops and let the PS inform what end of the range the film may fall into.

 

You can't rely on this sort of analysis on its own, no, but I do think it's useful, and I was particularly pushing back on the idea that the analysis supports or even paints a worse picture than the BOT "8-8.5x multiplier" narrative, which is what Legion suggested here:

  

1 hour ago, Korra Legion said:

Then 1+1.7*4= just 7.8x. You can draw similar conclusions by similar computation vs JWD or tgm instead (similar fri/th advantage but not even sniffing 9x). So the data nibbles there are almost bearish for IM relative to consensus among bot ps analysis diehards even as they are very bullish vs stuff like DS and Thor.

 

I do actually think that this kind of analysis may credibly suggest an IM quite a bit higher than the standard 8-8.5x that's been pushed here as of late.

[XXR & Friends]

13 minutes ago, hw64 said:

 

Damn, If only I'd have bought that $15/month gold account subscription to BOT, then my opinions would be so much more credible to the masses!

 

 

Spoiler

Join us....

 

Spoiler

You know you want to....

 

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

7 minutes ago, hw64 said:

 

You can't rely on this sort of analysis on its own, no, but I do think it's useful, and I was particularly pushing back on the idea that the analysis supports or even paints a worse picture than the BOT "8-8.5x multiplier" narrative, which is what Legion suggested here:

  

 

I do actually think that this kind of analysis may credibly suggest an IM quite a bit higher than the standard 8-8.5x that's been pushed here as of late.

 

 

Gonna elaborate a bit:

1 hour ago, Menor Reborn said:

A big issue I see with the interpretation there is that if a movie is more frontloaded in PS, that's gonna affect FSS proportionately more, since those days are more determined by walkups. I think that significantly weakens the conclusions being drawn from current FSS percentage of sales compared to JWD/TGM (especially the former). 

This is my main issue here. Looking at the Megaplex data:

1 hour ago, Inceptionzq said:

Avatar The Way of Water Megaplex

 

T-1 Thursday(188 showings): 6031(+626)/37740

1.09x Jurassic World Dominion T-1 (19.56M)

 

T-2 Friday(269 showings): 7599(+857)/60089

1.07x Jurassic World Dominion T-2 (44.59M)

 

T-3 Saturday(288 showings): 7351(+817)/63242

1.48x Jurassic World Dominion T-3

 

T-4 Sunday(299 showings): 3808(+403)/67716

2.18x Jurassic World Dominion T-4

 

Estimating from ratio change (too lazy to check back for exact numbers)

JWD Thu +708 (pace 1.13x Avatar Thu, vs current ratio 0.92x)

JWD Fri +1359 (pace 1.59x Avatar Fri, vs current ratio 0.93x)

JWD Sat +724 (pace 0.89x Avatar Sat, vs current ratio 0.68x)

JWD Sun +384 (pace 0.94x Avatar Sun, vs current ratio 0.46x)

 

Key point here is that each successive day has less % of sales already decided (due to both buying trends and just having more days left to sell). So its very much not a good idea to just look at the current ratios of weekend sales to determine IM (even with adjustment). The best, most thorough way to do this would be to look at current FSS pace ratios (and how they've been changing over the past couple of days), try to estimate pace for the successive days, try to come up with proper ratios of presales to final total, estimate walkups, and then finally estimate daily numbers based on that. That takes more time than I'm able to put in right now, but I think it would give a much more sensible estimate than this extrapolation if anyone does have the time. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[JustLurking]

I can't in all honesty agree with BOP, but rooting for them to be right in their prediction lol.

[Legion Again]

40 minutes ago, hw64 said:

Do you? Let's take Inceptionzq's data here:

Yea, you do.

 

40 minutes ago, hw64 said:

Relative to Thursday presales, Avatar 2's Friday presales compared to Thor 4's are 1.10/0.595 - 1 = ~84% stronger, which is slightly lower than BOP's "35% more than vs. 30% less than" data which works out at +93% stronger presales on Friday relative to Thursday for Avatar 2 as compared to Thor 4. So this seems like good data to use — it agrees relatively well with BOP's data.

 

For Saturday, using the data above, that increases to +213% for Avatar 2, and for Sunday it increases further to +372%.

 

Now let's weight these properly for each day. Thor 4's Friday contributed about 1.4x to its IM, its Saturday contributed about 1.45x, and its Sunday contributed about 1.12x.

 

Putting that all together, that's 1 + 1.4*1.84 + 1.45*3.13 + 1.12*4.72 = a 13.4x multiplier. Obviously you have to adjust down quite heavily here for the higher presales = lower "PSm" — as you call it — effect, but I have a hard time seeing it adjust down to the 8-8.5x range.

Firstly, what I would recommend for thinking about getting an IM from that inception mega Thor data is:

Fri/Th relative — 1.85x

Sat/Fri relative — 1.69x

Sun/Sat relative — 1.51x

 

Thor was:

Fri/th 1.4x

sat/fri 1.04x

sun/sat 0.77x

 

For IM=1+1.4(1+1.04(1+.77))~=4.98x

adjusting by pure ps ratio -> 1+1.85*1.4(1+1.69*1.04(1+.77*1.51))=13.4x, as you say. But this corresponds to a 72% sat increase and a 16% sun increase, so clearly there is a lot more work to be done accounting for how much the ratios will converge by t-0 and then differences in PSm.

 

We do not have much historical data to reference in that regard as we’ve gotten into some pretty in the weeds variables that don’t tend to get explicitly noted down anywhere. I can only tell you that based on expertise/experience, that relative fri/th edge will probably narrow to ~1.6x, whereas the sat and sun nums just aren’t that significant at this point with Thor’s sales being so low and the relative edge in actuals will probably tighten to about 1.2x and 1.1x respectively, for ~1+1.6*1.4(1+1.2*1.04(1+.77*1.1))=8.4x. If the Sat advantage remains very chonky you could hit 9-10x, but it’s a big ask.
 

Another wrench here is the summer vs almost xmas difference in positioning.