TOP GUN MAVERICK/MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND THREAD | 126.7M 3-Day, 160.5M 4-Day. The biggest Memorial Day opening ever! | Doctor Strange 20.5M 4-Day, Bob's Burgers 14.8M

[charlie Jatinder]

I am looking forward to some really shitty internal multis this summer. FRI jumps from THU previews (almost OD) shall be anemic.

[Tokugennumataka]

Won't be long before Thu 'previews' are higher than true Friday. 

[Brainbug]

5 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

I am looking forward to some really shitty internal multis this summer. FRI jumps from THU previews (almost OD) shall be anemic.

 

Could be funny if we someday see a movie where the biggest "true day" of its OW is Thursday previews lol.

[Warmaster506]

Sub $100 million was not that long ago for Top Gun.  Honestly don't remember anyone I know being this excited and happy about a film. 

 

I was too young for Titanic sadly.

[grim22]

17 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

Could be funny if we someday see a movie where the biggest "true day" of its OW is Thursday previews lol.

 

Deathly Hallows Part 2 came close, and that was with only midnights.

[SnokesLegs]

1 hour ago, SchumacherFTW said:

We still have midnights here in the UK, way better vibes at midnight, the people that are there are the people most excited for the movie as they've had to make some form of sacrifice for the next day

I liked what Fox did with Logan’s first 10:23pm showing (for “X23”), that kind of “late, but not too late” time felt like a decent compromise between midnights and a regular screening. Trailers/ads started at 10pm, film at 10:23pm.

 

I used to love midnight showings, the recent Star Wars ones were fantastic experiences, but then I started getting older and after a day at work I just can’t handle them anymore. Forcing myself to stay awake until 3:30am for Endgame nearly killed me.

[The Dark Rock]

Kudos to @EmpireCity @keysersoze123 (and few others?) for believing and predicting such kind of opening for TG:M

[Brandon Gray]

Glad that Top Gun: Maverick pushed the grosses even further, just like Maverick would... 

 

But the issue is far from moot:

- Preview grosses should be separated from the weekend grosses for every movie.

- Words have meaning: The weekend is defined as Friday, Saturday, Sunday... You don't get to fake reality and pretend that money made on a different day was made on Friday... It is a total joke that we have to have such a term as "True Friday."

- The place for those preview grosses is in the Total Gross.

- You want to count Thursday previews as Day 0 and let it rank on the Thursday chart? That's fine... These preview movies take showtimes from holdovers and are often No. 1 on their preview days, so they should chart to better reflect reality.

- All charts that fold in preview grosses should have those preview grosses sifted out to reflect reality, thus enabling better apples-to-apples comparisons.

 

Absent a true commitment to accuracy/reality, at least pick a side and be consistent... If new movies get to count preview grosses, then all older movies get to as well.

 

If Top Gun: Maverick gets to sit on top listed as $160.5 million (instead of ~$141.2 million), then Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End should be listed as $153 million below it, not $139.8 million.

 

(Then, of course, there's the issue of ticket-price inflation. Estimating tickets sold, etc. is not precise, but it gives a better sense of a movie's popularity. Charts should have that feature as well, because it's not accurate to say Top Gun: Maverick had the "Best" or "Biggest" Memorial weekend ever either... Just saying things like "Top" or "Best" or "Biggest" without qualification implies that a movie was the most popular, when it usually wasn't: in this case, At World's End had much higher attendance out-of-the-gate than Maverick did.) 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Brandon Gray

[Deep Wang]

1 hour ago, EmpireCity said:

 

Thursday previews, as far as theater owners and employees go, are a billion times better than midnights. 

 

1 hour ago, M37 said:

Wait, you're telling me babysitting $20-$43.5M worth of Potter/Twilight teens to see a midnight only screening in 2009-2012 wasn't "fun"?

 

I worked the completely sold out all 14 screens midnights of DH1/2 and Breaking Dawn 1 and I will earnestly say that those are some of my fondest memories of working at the theater.  The atmosphere and excitement of everyone there was electric and awesome and it was really fun.

 

Until we closed.  

 

After midnight.

 

A normal night you starting closing what you don't need early, right?  On these crazy midnights, it's literally every register open until about 15 minutes after midnight and THEN you can start closing.  So kids wouldn't really get out until about 1am after cleaning and restocking. Managers though, we also had to do all the manager stuff and this particular chain I was working at also had special things we had to do at the end of the week and when was the end of our week?  Thursday!   It was a big mess, so basically me and my boss wouldn't get done until about 7am.

 

So yeah, I'm sure other chains did weird things too, but that was ours and it sucked.  Although when Alpha bought us out and we found out that extra Thursday stuff didn't exist anymore, we were like 

 

[Maggie]

8 minutes ago, Brandon Gray said:

At World's End had much higher attendance out-of-the-gate than Maverick did.) 

You can't really compare attendance today with what was years ago. Should we compare number of seats sold today to what Gone with the Wind sold? The reality of box office is vastly different these days. Streaming is at a high, it's a miracle movies are still playing in theaters these days. They have to compete with streaming which movies even several years ago didn't have to. People's habits of going to theaters have changed so much the last several years

Edited May 31, 2022 by Maggie

[BruiseCruise]

I mean he's right tho, TG2 is not a bigger event or movie than Pirates 3 was, 37% of TG2 gross is from premium formats which weren't even around in 2007. Pirates with today's ticket prices and screens opens to > $200m

[Maggie]

6 minutes ago, BruiseCruise said:

 37% of TG2 gross is from premium formats which weren't even around in 2007.

I worry for the drop once Jurassic opens and it gets those premium formats. I hope legs will be good for TG2

[keysersoze123]

14 minutes ago, Maggie said:

I worry for the drop once Jurassic opens and it gets those premium formats. I hope legs will be good for TG2

Given a choice people opt for PLF. That does not mean movie business disappears when it loses those screens. With this being WOM monster, it will do well. If anything JWD will be in trouble once awful reviews roll in. Just wait and watch. 

[Taruseth]

2 hours ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

Could be funny if we someday see a movie where the biggest "true day" of its OW is Thursday previews lol.

Closest that come to my mind right now are:

HP7-2: 43.5m P and 47.6m F (+9.4 %)

TFA: 57m P and 62.1m F (+8.9%)

TLJ: 45m P 59.7m F (+32.7%)

TROS: 40m P 49.6m F (+24.0%)

Eclipse: 30m P 38.5m W (+28.3%)

Endgame was 60m P 97.5m F (so +62.5 %)

Most big franchise movies in the past were around there or even higher.

Non-superhero/SW/YA often have way better jumps.

 

I have no idea if there is any movie with a higher factor than TFA, but honestly I doubt it. 

 

So my guess would be a sw movie, but it has to have a big hype (Solo hat like a 50% jump).

 

Or maybe some YA movie.

 

But at least in the past P were almost always the smallest day of the weekend.

Only exception are HP7-2 were both Saturday and Sunday were below P and Breaking Dawn 1 and 2 were the respective Sundays were below their respective Preview numbers. (This comb doesn't really work with movies that had their Previews on Wednesday or Tuesday).

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Taruseth

[Alex SciChannel]

 

[EmpireCity]

43 minutes ago, Brandon Gray said:

Glad that Top Gun: Maverick pushed the grosses even further, just like Maverick would... 

 

But the issue is far from moot:

- Preview grosses should be separated from the weekend grosses for every movie.

- Words have meaning: The weekend is defined as Friday, Saturday, Sunday... You don't get to fake reality and pretend that money made on a different day was made on Friday... It is a total joke that we have to have such a term as "True Friday."

- The place for those preview grosses is in the Total Gross.

- You want to count Thursday previews as Day 0 and let it rank on the Thursday chart? That's fine... These preview movies take showtimes from holdovers and are often No. 1 on their preview days, so they should chart to better reflect reality.

- All charts that fold in preview grosses should have those preview grosses sifted out to reflect reality, thus enabling better apples-to-apples comparisons.

 

Absent a true commitment to accuracy/reality, at least pick a side and be consistent... If new movies get to count preview grosses, then all older movies get to as well.

 

If Top Gun: Maverick gets to sit on top listed as $160.5 million (instead of ~$141.2 million), then Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End should be listed as $153 million below it, not $139.8 million.

 

(Then, of course, there's the issue of ticket-price inflation. Estimating tickets sold, etc. is not precise, but it gives a better sense of a movie's popularity. Charts should have that feature as well, because it's not accurate to say Top Gun: Maverick had the "Best" or "Biggest" Memorial weekend ever either... Just saying things like "Top" or "Best" or "Biggest" without qualification implies that a movie was the most popular, when it usually wasn't: in this case, At World's End had much higher attendance out-of-the-gate than Maverick did.) 

 

Brandon - great to see you on here and I go back a long way with guys like you and Ray and others.  

 

I hear you on all of the above and even agree, but at the end of the day the reality is there are only a handfull of people that actually care and even less that think it matters.  The numbers are there for headlines and headlines only.  It isn't fair, but it is what it is.  

 

The only thing I would make a point on is that no matter what there is never a true apples to apples comparison.  As much as we can say that At World's End was bigger or more popular because it had a much higher attendance out of the gate than Maverick did, you also then have to say that Maverick had to deal with a completely different set of competition.  

 

There was pretty much nothing going on entertainment wise back when that POTC came out.  Streaming didn't even exist at that point.  Maverick had to contend with the release of Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi on its opening day.  It had to compete with like half a billion combined streaming subscribers and a dozen high quality platforms.  This in addition to all the traditional entertainment like sports, water recreation, etc....

 

I think it is actually far more impressive what Top Gun: Maverick pulled off despite having less people see it.  

[keysersoze123]

Did AWE sell more tickets than The lost world back in 97. That movie crushed the OW record. 

[EmpireCity]

Same thing when Gone With the Wind gets brought up.  Sure, it sold a kajillion more tickets than anything today does, but most of the country only had air conditioning if they went to the movies.  There was no television.  No cell phones.  No real commercial air travel.  Roads were barely passable in much of the country.  Little to no competiion from sporting events.  No internet.  No porn. No video games.  

 

Go back to 1936 and give everyone air conditioning, give them a smart phone, give them social media and Sirius radio and YouTubeTV and Disney+ and Netflix and a hundred sporting contests on HDTV and a next gen video game console and good roads and quick air travel and see how many people show up to Gone With the Wind over and over.  

[Menor the Destroyer]

2 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

I am looking forward to some really shitty internal multis this summer. FRI jumps from THU previews (almost OD) shall be anemic.

I don't think summer affects Fri/Thu too badly. Friday is also inflated.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Adjusted for inflation, the original Top Gun made about, what, 430m?

 

Maverick could beat that. Actually, it should