Is The Quorum Legit? A Linear Regression Analysis of Their Awareness and Interest Metrics

[Eric Lasagna]

For those unaware, a new website has arrived with the link https://thequorum.com/. This website is an interesting one, because it publishes pre-release tracking data for the public. This data has been given to studios for decades, and is beneficial in showing just how much a film’s ad or marketing campaign is working. And since last year, this information is now available for the public to view, thanks in part to The Quorum’s founder David Herrin. Every week, Quorum surveys 2,000 people, asking a series of questions regarding the awareness and interest they have on upcoming films. This also includes asking them if they would prefer seeing the film in theaters or at home, as well as if they are willing to pay for the movie or watch it for free.

 

So the question of course is...how accurate are these numbers? Is there a strong correlation that comes from awareness and interest? Which is the more valuable data tool to use? And can we use this to help predict a movie’s box office? I’ve seen some saying they’re an unreliable source and that their metrics are flawed, but I think there’s definitely legitimacy in this and I really wanted to analyze it.

 

Over the past few months, I’ve been compiling the awareness and interest data for almost every wide release from A Quiet Place Part II to The Invitation. So a whole year of data and more that can definitively show how much Quorum’s tracking can be trusted and its accuracy. The methodology I used went as follows:

 

-74 different movies were tracked over a period lasting from May 2021 to August 2022.

 

- The two main metrics I looked at were Awareness and Interest, as those seemed to be the most interesting and in-depth. The other two sections could possibly be compelling too, but Quorum seldom mentions those in their blog entries, and I wanted to make things simpler.

 

- Awareness and Interest use two different metrics. Awareness is a percentage, based on a “Yes” or “No” question of “Are you aware of this film?”. Interest meanwhile is ranked on a scale of 0 to 10, with the question of “Are you interested in watching this film?”, with users asked to rank from those numbers. This means Interest will be a bit harder to interpret, but I think my methodology still shows a correlation with both numbers.

 

- For each movie, there are three different versions each for both Awareness and Interest. The final data number, a number ~30 days before release, and a number ~60 days before release. I say all around for the latter two, because Quorum publishes data points at different days depending on the movie. Some movies get a point 30 days on the dot, others are 35 or 40 days before release. 

 

- So for the 30 days, I looked at the closest date to 30 without going under it. So between a data point 27 days before release and 38 days before release, I chose 38 days before release. I did this because 30 days before release is when a movie begins to go all out on its marketing campaign, with promos, billboards, interviews, premieres, and so on. This final stretch impacts things a lot, and I think that skews things to being unfair in terms of the impact of awareness and interest of the movie. I know some will disagree with this, but that just makes the most sense to me and I feel won’t disrupt my methodology.

 

- However, for the 60 day metrics, I went with whatever day was closest. If a movie had a data point 62 days before release and 53 days before release, I chose 62. If a movie had a data point 69 days before release and 58 days before release, I chose 58. Two months before release is still when ramp ups begin to happen for a film, but not anything too extreme in my eyes. This and ~30 are the aspects that are definitely the flimsiest and flawed part of my analysis, but I hope you understand my perspective either way.

 

- The only movies here are films that opened on a Friday and did not have any day-and-date VOD release. So films that opened on a Wednesday like Encanto or House of Gucci or Sing 2 were excluded, even though all those movies had valuable data behind them. This is because I feel with a 5-day, it makes it unfair to compare it to the usual 3-day. Plus films that debuted on PVOD, Premier Access, or HBO Max/Peacock on the same day of release are excluded because there’s a significant audience for these films that watched the film at home, skewing their results.

 

- To acknowledge, it is important to recognize that 2021 is not a perfect year to track. The beginning few months of the summer included social distancing and audiences slowly returning back to the habit of moviegoing, as well as variant scares from both Delta and Omicron later on in the year. The level of impact is debatable, but I think it can be fair to say all of this depresses the numbers for at least some of these movies. So I am acknowledging this issue and that the data is imperfect.

 

- I will also acknowledge that some movies like Top Gun: Maverick did have a higher opening due to a holiday weekend. But seeing as how I am already losing a lot of data from movies like Black Widow, Sing 2, Dune, and so on, I think I’m already losing a lot if I had to remove movies boosted by a holiday and/or 4-day weekend. So I will include them, especially since they would have likely still opened around the 3-day they eventually got either way.

 

With this all out of the way, let’s continue.

 

Below are the awareness metrics for both Final, T-30, and T-60.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

With this, and almost every other chart I have, there is generally a positive correlation that the higher the awareness number, the higher the opening will be. Of course as always, correlation does not equal causation, and there are some extreme outliers pulling through the dozens of data pieces. Still, there are some key metrics we can still analyze.

 

Final Awareness

When your film has less than 30% awareness just before release, you're as good as dead. There’s no chance for double digits, and only Ron’s Gone Wrong and Easter Sunday have gotten above 5M in that chart. Yikes. At less than 40% awareness, things are not much better. There’s a 23% chance a movie with less than 40% will earn a double digit opening. For a movie opening to more than 20M, it’s a 2.5% chance, as only Candyman was able to get above that metric despite only having an awareness of 38.6%.

 

For a movie with 40% awareness or higher, there is a 94% chance a movie will have a double digit opening. That’s a given of course, but getting above 40% also ensures an 83% chance of getting above 20M, a 69% chance above 30M (ha ha), a 54% chance above 40M, and a 40% chance above 50M.

 

At 50% awareness or higher, you’re 100% guaranteed a double digit opening, a 95% chance of at least 20M, and an 84% chance of at least 30M. Dog is the only film to get 50% awareness or higher and open sub-20, and only Jackass Forever and Super Pets hit 50, but sub-30. Two of those films also came out during the end of the Omicron peak, so there’s that factor to add in here. Who knows? They could have been bigger. Otherwise, you have a 74% chance of opening above 40M (Scream missed with an Omicron factor, Lost City as the demographic least likely to head to theaters at that time), and a 63% chance opening above 50M.

 

Then of course at 60%, you are guaranteed a 50M opening at least, with only Lightyear in the 50-70M range in fact. Everything else is a 70M opening or higher, which only makes Lightyear’s opening an even bigger headscratcher. Every movie that opened to 100M meanwhile got over 65% awareness with the exception of Top Gun 2, which only had 61.9%. So really, if a film’s final awareness point is more than 40%, you’re generally speaking in a good position. You’re in an even greater position in the 50% awareness range, and ensured a “big” opening in the 60% range. Though yes, I’m aware that just because an opening is “big”, that does not mean it is “good”.

 

T-30 Awareness

It’s here where things get a bit more interesting. At less than 30% awareness ~30 days before release, you have a 30% chance at getting a double-digit opening. 12.5% chance if you want a 20M opening. Not great stuff.

 

If your movie is at less than 40% awareness ~30 days before release, you have a 44% chance of having your film earn a double-digit opening. That’s still not great metrics, but far from the end of the world and nothing that strong reviews or a big final ad campaign can’t fix. Although the more you go up, things get a lot harder. With less than 40% awareness, you have a 24% chance to still get above 20M, and a 13% chance to get above 30M. The lucky ones in that 13% are Bullet Train, Elvis, Morbius, Nope, A Quiet Place Part II, and, surprisingly, Shang-Chi and Eternals. Goes to show for the latter two how much of an advantage MCU movies have, even at the lower side of awareness. Don’t worry, I’ll get into more detail later.

 

Anyways, when your movie is at more than 40% awareness ~30 days before release, which makes up 17 of the movies I have data for, you are 100% guaranteed a 30M+ opening. For 40M+, an 88% chance. The outliers are Scream and Lost City once again, which dealt with Omicron in the former and older women being stragglers for the latter. A film above 40% awareness has a 71% chance reaching 50M and a 59% chance above 70M. I just learned while taking part in all this research we haven’t had an opening in the 60M range since Bad Boys for Life. How weird is that?

 

Anyways, at 50% awareness or higher ~30 days before release, there’s an 89% chance you’re getting above 70M in your opening. Again, Lightyear is a weird outlier.

 

T-60 Awareness

I found this interesting blog post from The Quorum that mentions that a film with less than 30% awareness ~60 days out had an 8% chance opening above 20M. Likewise, a movie over that mark has an 80% chance to open above 20M. And with more movies available, that metric has changed somewhat. At less than 30% awareness ~60 days, you likely have a 42% chance of a double-digit opening. As for that 20M metric, you now have a 21% chance to open above 20M. Not good of course, but clearly things are different and better than 2021. Of course, this is likely due to outside circumstances with increased moviegoing this past summer and a lack of COVID restrictions/variant scares. But yes, above 30% ~60 days, you now have an 84% chance above 20M. So about the same logistics as before. And below 40%, 52% chance of double digits, 28% chance above 20M, 18% chance above 30M.

 

At above 40% (14 movies got to this ~60 days), you have a 100% chance above 30M. Though take out the one movie in the 30M range, Scream, and that means a movie with a 40% awareness or higher gets at least 40M 100% of the time. Frankly, any movie above 40% this far out is on the right track (yes, “big” does not equal “good”). But for consistency’s sake, a film above 50% or higher ~60 days before release is almost guaranteed a 100M opening...except when you’re Lightyear. Ouch.

 

What Does this All Mean?

For starters, 40% awareness, no matter how early or far back a movie is from release, is the main goal. It’s a good goal for smaller movies who want to open to 20M+ or higher when they near the end of their pre-release run, and a great goal for tentpoles who want that strong opening. 50% awareness is of course a necessary goal for big movies, but a strong stretch goal for smaller “original” movies that want to get that much higher. Either way, there’s legitimacy to The Quorum, even two months before release, that gives us a good sign on how a movie is shaping up and its potential gross. Of course it’s not something to believe in 100%, but what tracking services are 100% perfect?

 

Next up, let’s tackle Interest for Final, T-30, and T-60.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Again, largely speaking, there’s a positive correlation here. The higher the interest score, the better the movie does. But this can be a hard one to interpret. Awareness is “yes” or “no”, while Interest is on a scale. Is a 5/10 good? 6/10? What’s the threshold? Well...

 

Final Interest

Finishing with less than a 5.0, simply put, is a disaster. Only 23% of movies below that open to double digits. For over 20M, only one movie, Candyman. Not great. If you’re above a 5.0, you’re at a 67% chance at the double digits, 51% chance over 20M, 42% chance over 30M, 33% chance over 40M. Which...well, it’s better, but doesn’t really ignore that it is fairly easy to screw up with a poor opening, even if you get above a 5.

 

A minimum of 5.5 however is a bit more interesting. 88% chance to go double digits, 76% over 20M, 67% over 30M, 54% over 40M, 39% over 50M. At a 5.75 or higher interest score, you are getting a double digit opening no matter what. Then going down the list, 91% chance to open above 20M, 83% above 30M, 69% over 40M, 54% over 50M.

 

6.0 and higher is an interesting case. Even on the final data point, only 14 movies have gotten above that threshold. For 7.0, only two (Dominion and No Way Home). But as is usually the case, a 6.0 guarantees a 30M opening, but excluding the two 30M openers, The Lost City and Bullet Train, you get an opening of at least 40M. But what is most unique are the 100M openers. Top Gun 2 Minions, Thor, Strange, Spidey, Jurassic, and Batman are all right next to each other, one after another, in Final Interest. Different from Awareness, where Top Gun was below Lightyear and Sonic 2. And the interest score minimum of that camp is Top Gun at 6.37. So basically, if you get near 6.4 out of 10 with interest at least, you have a near-perfect chance of reaching 100M. Of note, Lightyear’s final Interest score was just 6.3, barely missing the threshold of those other films despite near identical Awareness stats. Interesting.

 

T-30 Interest

For sub-5.0, second verse, same as the first. 25% of movies get to double digits, only Candyman got above 20M. I guess that shows sampling bias against Candyman? Above a 5.0, 72% chance at the double digits, 57% over 20M, 47% above 30M, 37% over 40M.

 

Going into 5.5 or higher, 83% of all movies get a double digit opening. 79% over 20M, 75% over 30M, 62% over 40M, and 50% over 50M. 5.75 brings us to 87% chance of 20M. Likewise, 80% chance to get above 30M and 73% chance above 40M. Then when we get to 50M, a 5.75 interest score gives you a 60% chance above 50M. The weird thing is Moonfall with a 5.8 Interest score (Awareness at this time was 26.7%) and Stillwater with an absurd 5.95 Interest score, yet only 26.25%. I guess in those instances, most people didn’t know about those movies, but the ones who did really wanted to see them. Maybe they should have bolstered the ad campaigns a bit? Who knows?

 

Anyways, only 7 movies got to a 6.0+ Interest score ~30 days before release. Lowest of that was Lightyear with 6.02 and a 50.6M opening. The others are F9 and Sonic 2, as well as all the 100M openers except Top Gun and Minions. They had sub-6.0 interest at this time, but pulled through in the end, showing how the last stage of the ad campaign is very crucial for a film’s interest and can change a lot.

 

T-60 Interest

Sub-5.0, once again, is bad. 29% get to double digits, but surprisingly Candyman was at 5.04 at this time. Still not a good thing, but it shows that interest can actually decline a lot easier than awareness, showing how it’s way more volatile and complicated. Candyman went from 5.04 to 4.72 to 4.67 by the time of release. Elvis meanwhile was at 4.91 ~T-60, but then increased from 5.14 and ended with a whopping 5.9. So yeah, a good campaign goes a long way.

 

Anyways, 5.0 or higher, 79% chance of a double-digit opening, 68% over 20M, 52% over 30M, 43% over 40M. 5.5 or higher, it’s 78% chance of double digits, 74% over 20M, 65% over 30M, 61% over 40M, and a 48% chance over 50M. At 6.0, every 100M opener outside of Minions and Top Gun is above this mark, with the sole exception of Lightyear. So yeah, about the same.

 

What Does This All Mean?

At a 6.0, you are golden no matter how far or how close you are. And an Interest score above 5.5 is the safe benchmark, but things are still very volatile and unlikely. A film can have high interest and low awareness and vice versa. Typically the former is more common, so I think awareness is a better metric in terms of how likely a movie will open above a certain benchmark, but Interest is valuable just if you want to be certain on how high a movie can go or solidify your judgments. Or perhaps if the movie has a chance to overperform or underperform what Awareness indicates. Interest isn’t something I would use as a prediction on its own (if that were the case, Stillwater or Ambulance would have done way better than they did), but it’s a nice supplement.

 

That’s a lot of data, but there’s still some outliers here. Why did Stillwater have such high interest but a low open? Why was Shang-Chi’s awareness and interest so low, but it still got over 70M? Well, The Quorum also places each movie into a certain group, which organizes each movie and helps manage folks and their expectations. These are the following groups:

 

Animation/Family

DC/MCU

Horror

Tentpole

Sequel

Known IP
Original - High

Original - Low

 

The first three? Self-explanatory. But what Quorum identifies for the rest need more clarification.

 

Tentpole: A sequel with a budget above 100M that is not part of the DC/Marvel universe. This includes films like No Time to Die, F9, Fantastic Beasts 3, Top Gun 2, and Jurassic World 3.

 

Sequel: A sequel to a film with a budget under 100M. This includes Jackass Forever and Death on the Nile.

 

Known IP: Non-sequel films based on super popular IP (Uncharted) or sequels more than 10 years after the previous film (Ghostbusters: Afterlife). This also includes Morbius, which...okay, it’s not an MCU movie, but Venom 2 is in the DC/MCU category. Yeah, these movies can cross over and are placed into a certain hierarchy that Quorum decides fits them best. I dunno, it’s weird.

 

Original - High: Movies that are “original” or not based on a popular, well-known IP, and carry a budget over 50M. This includes movies like Free Guy, The Last Duel, Elvis, Bullet Train, and The Lost City. Yes, some of these movies are still based on IP, but if the IP isn’t considered super popular or iconic, even though for something like Elvis it is, then it’s lumped into here.

 

Original - Low: Movies that are “original” or not based on a popular, well-known IP, and carry a budget under 50M. This includes Dear Evan Hansen, Last Night in Soho, Dog, Ambulance, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. Yes, some of these are still based on IP, but Quorum felt the IP wasn’t super popular or iconic, so they are lumped here. I know a lot of this is very flimsy, but yell at them, not me.

 

Either way, using these groups helps make these graphs easier to read and shows how much a certain movie may need in terms of awareness or interest to find success. For example, comparing Dog to Jurassic World: Dominion is unfair. Comparing Dog to Where the Crawdads Sing is more manageable and makes more sense. All these groups are interesting, but for our purposes, I’m only looking at the groups “Animation/Family”, “DC/MCU”, “Horror”, “Tentpole”, “Original - High”, and “Original - Low”. These are the largest groups with the most data points between them, so this will make things easier for everybody. Going down the list...

 

Animation/Family Awareness

Spoiler

 

The lowest Final Awareness is Ron’s Gone Wrong at 26.4%, while the highest is Minions 2 at 65%. Of the 10 movies listed, everything above 60% made at least 50M. Below that metric, the highest awareness is Super Pets with a 58 awareness and 23M opening. So in that regard, an animated/family title has to get above 60% by the end of its run if it wants big numbers, though obviously it’s kind of unfair to compare since there’s nothing in the 30M/40M range, and I also don’t have Encanto nor Sing 2 in this, since they were Wednesday openers. At T-30, again, a clear haves and have nots, though with Minions at 45% awareness, it does make things a little easier. Super Pets also just barely missed 40% at T-30, so that shows being in the 40s a month before release is a very good goal to have. T-60 is second verse, same as the first. If you’re more than 40%, you’re in a good spot.

 

So what does that mean for the upcoming movies in Animation/Family? For starters, Lyle Lyle Crocodile is in a terrible, terrible spot. At 16.7% Awareness about a month before release, on par with Ron’s Gone Wrong at the same time, Sony has to figure out how to sell this picture and fast, or else face a sub-10M opening. And while this is a weekday opener, Strange World is also having issues at this point with just 22.2%. However, we’re still far enough away from the ~60 day mark where things can change. Still needs to pick up a lot of momentum or else just be yet another Disney title where people will instead wait for it to be at home in a few weeks. And honestly, you can argue Disney doesn’t care about the theatrical market anymore for these movies.

 

However, Puss in Boots 2 is on a very strong path. Its last awareness data point is at 48.6%, well ahead of what is needed for its December debut. Again, it’s a weekday opener, and a December one at that, so I can’t say anything about its opening. But on par with Sonic 2 and ahead of Minions around the 60 day-mark is very exciting. If you’re expecting Puss to become the second-biggest animated movie of the year, then that’s looking to be a very wise prediction. Plus that means a Shrek 5 is looking more and more likely, and that is very exciting for me.

 

Looking at 2023, Mario is at 26.4%. A bit lower than I expected, but there’s zero marketing and the movie is a long ways away, so I don’t think it’s good to predict anything this far out. Across the Spider-Verse is at 46.7% however, which is very, very good, for a movie pushed back to June.

 

DC/MCU Awareness

Spoiler

We have 7 movies here (Black Widow had Premier Access, so it is out). The lowest final awareness is Eternals with 41.7% and the highest is The Batman with 75%. Yeah, somehow No Way Home only had 72.57% awareness. Regardless, this group is skewed very positive, because not one movie here made less than 70M. However, all the movies that opened above 100M was in the 60% final awareness. Everything below 100M was below 60%. Bit easy to figure out what’s needed here.

 

Going down to T-30, Shang-Chi and Eternals moved from the 40s to the 30s, Venom 2 from the 50s to the 40s, Thor and Spidey and Strange in the 50s, Batman still in the 60s. Again, a clear difference between movies above 50% and below it. T-60 is the same. Shang-Chi barely missed 30%, Eternals still in the 30s, Venom in the 40s, everything else 50s or higher. You can tell the difference.

 

So looking at what is next, here’s something that will blow your mind. Wakanda Forever is already at 62.5% with just over two months to go. So this might seem incredulous to say, but Black Panther 2 will likely open over 100M. Isn’t that just crazy? As for Black Adam, its 46.1% 58 days before release is also not that bad two months out. I won’t say 90M a la Venom just yet however, because Marvel and Venom are bigger brands, but I feel confident saying the hyperbolic sub-100 total predictions for Black Adam don’t have much weight behind them.

 

Looking at 2023, Shazam 2 is way lower however at 36.54%, but things are still very early for the film and its ad campaign is just getting started. We’ll see what happens, though I’m sure WB is hoping there will be a good kick in the pants for this film down the road.

 

In 2023, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is already at 55.1%, which is fantastic for a film that's months away and no public trailers. It's actually third place in awarness as of this writing. The Marvels is currently at 48%, which took me by surprise, The Flash just hit 40.5%, Shazam 2 is 36.5%, and Ant-Man 3 is at 35.5%. But of course, all these movies are coming out in a long time from now, so don’t take them too seriously. Just something for posterity’s sake and something to ruminate on. Also Aquaman 2 was on The Quorum, but they removed it after it got delayed to Christmas. But last time it was there, it had 53.1% Awareness. So yeah, be safe in knowing that people know it's coming.

 

Horror Awareness

Spoiler

15 movies here, with Studio 666 at the lowest Final Awareness at 16.9%, with the highest being Scream at 55.1%. To get a double digits opening for a horror movie, a final awareness at 30% is almost a must. The only two movies to get sub-10 and above 30% is Escape Room 2 and The Invitation. And even then, at 35% or more, every movie opened above 20M. And at 40% or higher, we have The Black Phone at the minimum with 23.6M, but you also have A Quiet Place Part II, Scream, and Nope above 40%. So generally speaking, a finish in the 40s is a good thing for horror.

 

T-30, things are kind of unpredictable. A Quiet Place Part II got to nearly 40% awareness, but Nope was lingering at 27%. Still, getting above 20% of awareness even a month out seems like a good result, as everything past that number except Escape Room 2 got a double digit opening minimum. And at T-60, it’s the same thing. Awareness in the teens, your movie opened sub-10M, with the sole exception of Old. And at 20% awareness or higher, everything but The Invitation (it dipped to 19.6% T-30) is above the double digits. So 20% awareness seems like an important benchmark for a horror release when you’re a month or two away, but it needs to pick up the pace and reach 30% by the end.

 

In that regard, Pearl and Barbarian are in trouble, as they have been stuck in the teens since the very beginning and has yet to move away from that. Smile is currently at 23.06%, which is good news for a double-digits debut. Halloween Ends is already well above 44% in awareness, a la Scream and Quiet Place 2. Probably could have opened in the 30s or more, and...well, it could still happen. Maybe? Prey for the Devil is also sub-20 at the moment, 19.2% so that could also be an underperformer. For 2023, M3gan has 19.74% and Salem’s Lot has 20.9%. But yeah, it’s very early, so don’t take it too seriously.

 

Tentpole Awareness

Spoiler

This one is a little bit unfair to track, because there’s only six data points. Yet they’re also very important releases and I feel it would be unfair to ignore them. And besides, there’s still interesting data here. Snake Eyes is by far the lowest at 33.7% final awareness. But everything else got above 50% for the final. Fantastic Beasts and No Time to Die finished in the 50s range, while F9, Top Gun, and Jurassic World finished in the 60s range. So if your tentpole wants to get above 70M, you have to hope it finishes with 60% awareness or higher. And due to COVID, F9 had its opening gross hindered, so who knows what it could have done in better conditions?

 

T-30 is arguably the same. Fantastic Beasts and No Time to Die, which opened sub-70, had awareness in the 40% range. F9, Top Gun, and Jurassic World, 70 or higher, had awareness in the 50% range. At T-60, No Time to Die had 34.7% awareness, leading to a 55.22M OW, and Fantastic Beasts 3 had 41.9% awareness to a 42.15M opening. F9 barely missed 50 with 49.8%, while Top Gun and Jurassic World got above 50%. So again, getting above 50% two months before release is the gold standard if a tentpole wants a big boy opening.

 

So what does this mean for the future? Well Avatar: The Way of Water’s shaping up good. As of this report, Avatar’s awareness is at 64.5%. That’s the highest awarness on the charts and is already on par with Dominion’s T-60 awareness (64.7%), and we still are pretty far away from the movie’s T-60 metric. So yeah, Avatar 2’s gonna open to 100M. What a shock!

 

The next batch of tentpoles are all 2023 movies, with Fast X the highest at 41.8%. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is at 30.5%, Indiana Jones 5 is 35.1%, and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 is 38.4%. Only one of these movies has a trailer, so none of these metrics should be something to worry about, but Fast X being so high up above the others is interesting.

 

Original - High Awareness

Spoiler

10 movies are in this category. In Final Awareness, 3000 Years of Longing by far the lowest at 16.7%, while the highest is The Lost City with 58.2%. Elvis is the biggest opening here at $31.21 million, so it’s kinda hard to talk about any big breakouts in this category. But generally speaking, finishing above 40% in this category is a good goal. Free Guy, Elvis, Bullet Train, and Lost City all got above 40%, and honestly Free Guy barely missed 45%. So perhaps that’s the goal, since Respect got to 40.3% and only opened to 8.8M...but the film was aiming towards older women, which was the hardest demo to get out to see the movies. It doesn't matter, just the 40s are good.

 

T-30, it’s clear from the graph that above 30% is the best metric, since that’s where Free Guy, Elvis, Bullet Train, and Lost City all went above. T-60 is all over the place. Elvis and Bullet Train and Moonfall were around 25%, Free Guy and Respect and Lost City were the only movies above 30%. There’s a hint of correlation, but things are more volatile and unpredictable. And again, it shows how important and crucial for these “High Originals” how the last two months of marketing can do taking your movie to that next level.

 

Amsterdam has 15%, while Ticket to Paradise is 25%. The Clooney-Roberts film is at T-60 on the dot for its last data point, so that could a sign for breakout potential, though I'm not sure why that is in "Original - High" and not "Original - Low". Is it just because of the cast? Either way, it's solid here. Babylon and Fabelmans, which are harder to track since they will have platform debuts, are pretty bad at 13.2% for the Chazelle film and a disastrous 7.7% for the Spielberg title. However, they don’t have trailers and they will get a big boost from film festivals/awards hype, so let’s just give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Oppenheimer is at 14.6% at the moment, but it’s also about a year away, so who cares?

 

Original - Low Awareness

Spoiler

It’s the big one. 15 movies are in this category and only three of them opened in the double digits. Is it a case where being in this category automatically dooms your movie’s chances? Or are there just not enough appealing movies in this category that can open to double digits? I don’t know. But there is still a good correlation to look at with all this.

 

With the sole exception of the movie Easter Sunday, every movie that has less than 30% awareness opened to less than 5M. Above 30%, you have a 78% chance at getting above 5M. Hard to really determine the upper echelon of 10M+ just yet with three options, but they also all got above 30%. Dog even got to 51.9% during the Omicron days, so maybe it could have gotten 20M? Maybe? Who knows?

 

At T-30, below 20% means 25% chance of above 5M. Above 20%, 75% chance above 5M. For the three double digit openers, two out of three (Beast and Dog) earned 29.4% awareness and 33.2% respectively. So about 30% is good for that mark, though Crawdads was at a measly 23%. Again, it’s easier to determine all this with some higher openers which we just don’t have. T-60 is about the same. Below 20% awareness, 14% chance above 5M, as only Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent got above that number. Above 20%, there’s an 87.5% chance. 25% or higher awareness seems like a good benchmark for 10M, since Beast and Dog beat it, but Crawdads was at 21.58% by then and Stillwater had 26.87% awareness, only getting to 5.2M. It's tough.

 

For the next batch of movies from now until the end of the year, The Woman King is at 26.4%, which should mean above 5M with a final final awareness above 30% or even higher. If TIFF hype goes over very well, maybe it could soar to double-digits? Again, hard to tell, but I have a fair amount of confidence, especially with BOP’s tracking recently. I'm also gunning for 20M+, but nothing in this category got above 20M, so it's just too hard to call. Don’t Worry Darling and Bros are sadly at about 16% with about a month to go, so that’s not looking so hot, although Venice/TIFF could be their saviors. And The Menu/She Said/Violent Night are at about 14-15%, but they’re far away enough where things could change. And again, TIFF/NYFF for the former two. Really, it’s just kinda hard to determine all this when all these movies opened so low, and I don’t know if it’s the fault of the category or the movies themselves.

 

The other non-wide/non-Friday movies? Till’s in a very strong spot, already above 20% in awareness, though we’ll see what happens when it opens wide or if auds want to watch a film with such a tough and harrowing subject matter. Tar and Golda are sub-10% (never even heard of Golda tbh), Bones and All is at 11.4%, though it too has festivals to boost it up. Devotion is at 18.6%, which is pretty close to the 20% threshold, while A Man Called Otto is only at 13.8% with no marketing. Meanwhile, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is at 19.86% with only a poster. Getting this close to 20% is already not that bad, and I think this has potential to really kick off when a trailer drops. And the only 2023 movie is...Kraven the Hunter at 19.8%. Yes, I know this should be in Known IP or DC/MCU. Blame The Quorum, not me.

 

And now a deep dive into Interest with these five categories.

 

Animation/Family Interest

Spoiler

For the home stretch, as is the usual case, 5.5 is a good metric to be in. Sonic 2 only gets to 5.49, but it’s still way ahead of the films around the 5.25 area like The Bad Guys and Bob’s Burgers and Paws of Fury, so it still kinda counts. Super Pets is a weird anomaly as its awareness and interest is well ahead of those aforementioned movies, but it only opened to 23M. It's weird. At T-30, Lightyear and Minions are way ahead of everything else (even Sonic 2 is only at 5.14), and that’s basically the same for T-60. Guess it shows how Interest can easily change like a dime a lot easier than Awareness.

 

Meanwhile for the upcoming releases, Lyle is at 4.47 about 60 days before release, right inbetween Peter Rabbit 2 and Ron’s Gone Wrong. Also in the 4.0 range around this point in time are Spirit Untamed and Bob’s Burgers so...yeah, not great. Strange World meanwhile is at 5.18, on par with The Bad Guys’ 5.17 at ~T-60. The current 22.2% awareness is also around Bad Guys’ 24.9%. Still not good for a big Disney release, but it is definitely interesting to see these two match so well. and Strange World still has a month to go before we get to the T-60 range. Puss is also at 5.72, the Minions/Lightyear higher end. So again, if you think it’ll be the second-biggest animated film this year like me, things are looking up.

 

DC/MCU Interest

Spoiler

 

Interest is the same across the board. Less than 6.0, sub-100. More than 6.0, above 100. And...yeah, that's about it. Nothing really interesting else to say here. For the upcoming slate, Black Adam is at 5.9 at T-60, like how it's 40% awareness is around the same mark as Venom/Shang-Chi/Eternals. Maybe it could get above 6.0 in the end, but it's easy to predict sub-100 for its opening, but not sub-100 for its gross. For 2023, Guardians and The Marvels and Aquaman are above 6.0, Shazam, The Flash and Ant-Man are not. Of course, they're all far away, so it doesn't matter. Moving on.

 

Horror Interest

Spoiler

Final, there’s a bit more correlation out there? Below 5.0, there’s a 33% chance the film opens to double digits, while above 5.0, it’s a 62% chance of double digits. Plus Nope and Quiet Place 2, 40M+ openers, got above 6.0 and are the only two films to do so. Halloween Ends is also above 6.0, and probably would have made 40M+ too. But alas...

 

T-30 is about the same story. Nothing cracks 6.0, but less than 5.0 gives you a 40% chance of a double digit opening, and more than 5.0 is 71%. And generally speaking, the biggest openings are above that 5.0/5.5 threshold a month before release. T-60 is the same story roughly. Less than 5.0, 33% chance. More than 5.0, 86% chance. Barbarian and Smile recently hit 5.0, so the former could still buck the trends and hit double digits despite low awareness...but it only just got to 5.0 recently, so don’t get your hopes up. Pearl is at 4.2 interest, which only makes its situation worse due to dismal awareness numbers. Prey for the Devil is barely below the mark at 4.98. We’ll see what happens to it.

 

Tentpole Interest

Spoiler

Final Interest, the goal for a tentpole should be 6.0 or higher. Snake Eyes, NTTD, and Fantastic Beasts 3 missed it, but F9, Dominion, and Top Gun did not. At T-30, the limited data still indicates a 6.0+ is good, but Top Gun was at 5.75, same as Fantastic Beasts. Again, shows how important the final stretch is and how things can change fast. At T-60, Interest is harder to really gauge for a Tentpole movie. 5 out of the 6 movies tallied here are sub-6.0, while F9, Maverick, and Fantastic Beasts are all roughly the same interest # at this time, then moved to radically different openings.

 

Still, 6.0 should be the goal for a big-budget sequel. And Avatar 2 is already near 6.5, so...yeah, probably gonna open to 100M. What a shock! The other 6.0 films are Fast X and Indiana Jones 5. Indy’s Awareness is actually the lowest of the upcoming tentpoles, even below Rise of the Beasts, but its Interest, 6.29, is insane for a film this far away and ahead of everything not Avatar. It’s one strong teaser trailer away for awareness to explode and set the movie for high rewards.

 

Original - High Interest

Spoiler

5.75+ is where you should be in Final. Everything above there opened to 28M at minimum, while everything below that, even two films above 5.5, only languished in the single digits or teens. The two movies that got above 6.0, Lost City and Bullet Train, also got above 30M. Elvis barely missed at 5.9. Interesting.

 

T-30 and T-60 are much more all over the place. At T-30, Elvis was at 5.14, on par with The Northman. Meanwhile, you have The 355, Bullet Train, Free Guy, Moonfall and The Lost City all around the same ballpark. And T-60, the higher openers are miles apart from one another. So there’s a good correlation to look at near the end, but don’t take interest seriously for an “Original - High” when you’re far back. That makes Amsterdam, Ticket to Paradise, and Oppenheimer way too hard to predict and determined compared to the values of Awareness, even far back at T-60.

 

Original - Low Awareness

Spoiler

Above 5.0, you have a 60% chance of going above 5M, 71% chance for movies above 5.25, 80% above 5.5. And again, there’s the issue of only three movies above double digits, and even Crawdads, the highest one, is at 5.42, way below Beast (5.68) and Dog (5.88). Although it does seem like 5.0 is a good benchmark a month before release and two months before release, though still prone to sub-5M buffoonery.

 

The Woman King and The Menu are the only movies above 5.0 as of this writing, and Woman King only did it just recently. But again, things are way lower in the threshold, no 20M+ in sight, that it’s still a bit wishy-washy. But hey, maybe there’s a sign for these two to get above 5M? Oh and Kraven the Hunter is also at 5.0, even though it shouldn’t be here, but that’s a whole other story.

 

So What is the Point of All This?

 

Well I wanted to highlight The Quorum because while it’s not lambasted or hated, I’ve seen disparaging comments about its legitimacy in tracking the box office. But frankly, this seems unfounded. Do I think The Quorum is an exact science? That it can automatically predict what a movie will open to? No. Is it the only metric we should follow? Absolutely not. Reviews, competition, release date, etc. are important and vital as well. But I think there’s tons of value and a strong correlation that can be a real eye-raiser. It’s a good resource to help ensure that a film’s buzz is positive, that it can open high, and pass certain thresholds that may not seem too likely. And for movies that don’t have tickets up on sale or movies that just launched a trailer, it’s a good way to see if a movie is looking to be a big deal or not. And that’s always a good thing. So yeah, if you want to look at another resource, The Quorum is a great one to look at, provided you know what you’re looking for and what you’re getting into. Which is why looking at all these categories, no matter how flimsy, is also good. Plus, with the rest of the year full of wild cards, at least we have something easier to determine things with.

If anybody else wants to chime in or argue about my data, please feel free to do so. It's better conversation than anything going on this weekend, I can tell you that much.

Spoiler

 

[XXR vs XXR]

 

@Eric the Genie

 

[Legion Again]

These graphs are crying out for the OW to get logged. Your % of explained variance would probably improve a lot (though hard to eyeball the small OW dots with the current linear scale).    
 

It’s cool that you kept all of this though and yeah they definitely seem to have a decent correlation.

[Legion Again]

WF 60 days isn’t for another 2 weeks, but it’s at 62.5/6.75 atm which is comfortably the 2nd strongest behind NWH in both. Avatwo also has very good metrics (64.5/6.5 t-121) but the shocking one imo is Gotg3 — 55/6.92(!) on a trailerless t-256.

[Eric Lasagna]

34 minutes ago, Legion By Night said:

These graphs are crying out for the OW to get logged. Your % of explained variance would probably improve a lot (though hard to eyeball the small OW dots with the current linear scale).    

I tried to figure out how to put the OW to each dot, but Google Sheets wasn't giving me any clues. That's part of the reason why I made the group charts for Animation/Family and Horror and Original and stuff like that, because it's easier to track and people can probably connect the dots. Like with Animation/Family, when you know what came out from last summer to now, it's easy to connect the dots. Still, the goal was to showcase the correlation first and foremost and that there is something to how Quorum tracks awareness and interest, and I think I succeeded on that front and showed the site's legitimacy for us trackers.

[XXR vs XXR]

22 minutes ago, Legion By Night said:

WF 60 days isn’t for another 2 weeks, but it’s at 62.5/6.75 atm which is comfortably the 2nd strongest behind NWH in both. Avatwo also has very good metrics (64.5/6.5 t-121) but the shocking one imo is Gotg3 — 55/6.92(!) on a trailerless t-256.

 

GOTG3 OW > NWH OW?! Make the club 

[M37]

Not going to lie, that’s a whole LOT of information (and work!) to try to absorb all at once. Couple thoughts at first glance: 

 

Is interest a primed question (are you interested in this movie now that I told you about it?) or is only measured among those who are already aware? If it’s the latter, then perhaps [awareness x interest] might be more informative than just pure interest 

 

For some of those plots, the relationship looks more exponential than linear 🤔

 

Think it would be better to use the full opening week rather than just OW for Y-axis to account for varying seasons (as I’m sure you’ve heard me say before) 

 

Sure I’ll have more to say once I’ve had time to reread and digest a bit 

[Eric Lasagna]

12 minutes ago, M37 said:

Is interest a primed question (are you interested in this movie now that I told you about it?) or is only measured among those who are already aware? If it’s the latter, then perhaps [awareness x interest] might be more informative than just pure interest 

 

The site doesn't really specify. I would think it's logging people who said they were aware of the movie, but I can't say for certain.

[Inceptionzq]

1 hour ago, Eric the Genie said:

The site doesn't really specify. I would think it's logging people who said they were aware of the movie, but I can't say for certain.

You are correct

 

[Legion Again]

1 hour ago, Eric the Genie said:

I tried to figure out how to put the OW to each dot, but Google Sheets wasn't giving me any clues. That's part of the reason why I made the group charts for Animation/Family and Horror and Original and stuff like that, because it's easier to track and people can probably connect the dots. Like with Animation/Family, when you know what came out from last summer to now, it's easy to connect the dots. Still, the goal was to showcase the correlation first and foremost and that there is something to how Quorum tracks awareness and interest, and I think I succeeded on that front and showed the site's legitimacy for us trackers.

Yeah, well done. I can feel myself getting nerdsniped though, if you'd be willing to share the raw data I'd probably dive into some exponential and multivariate regressions etc. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

One thing that could be interesting to add to the analysis that I had anecdotally observed with Quorum data is that the interest/awareness "bars" for certain opening values seem to have gotten higher as theatrical business has gotten back to normal over the last couple of years. At the very least, it did seem to me anecdotally that fewer films were able to get away with low awareness/interest scores in 2022 as opposed to 2021, and the scores just seemed higher across the board. 

[Eric Lasagna]

On 8/28/2022 at 12:37 AM, Menor Reborn said:

One thing that could be interesting to add to the analysis that I had anecdotally observed with Quorum data is that the interest/awareness "bars" for certain opening values seem to have gotten higher as theatrical business has gotten back to normal over the last couple of years. At the very least, it did seem to me anecdotally that fewer films were able to get away with low awareness/interest scores in 2022 as opposed to 2021, and the scores just seemed higher across the board. 

Well this was talked about in the Tracking Thread earlier today. Might as well take a wack at it. Keep in mind I'm only looking at Final Awareness, because I wanted to be done with this quick and I don't have unlimited time on my hands.

 

2021 Awareness

Spoiler

 

 

In terms of final awareness, teen% and 20% is good as dead. When your movie has final awareness in the 30s, you have a 40% chance of a double-digit opening and 10% chance of 20M. In the 40s? 86% chance of double digits, 57% chance of 20M, 43% chance of 40M, 28% chance of 70M. The 50s? 100% chance of 40M, 67% chance of 50M, and then 33% chance of 90M. And then you have F9 at 60% and No Way Home at 73%. Keep in mind we have a pool of only 27 movies. That's not great.

 

2022 Awareness

Spoiler

 

Sub-30%, it's a 5% chance that you get to 10M. If it's in the 30s, you have a 39% chance to reach 10M and a 0% chance of 20M. In the 40s, 92% chance of 10M, 61% chance of 20M, 38% chance of 30M, 15% chance of 40M. Hit the 50s, 100% chance of 10M, 86% chance of 20M, 57% chance of 30M, 28% chance of 40M, 14% chance of 60M. In the 60s range, 100% chance of 50M, 87% chance of 70M, 75% chance of 100M. And then in the 70s, you got Avatar and The Batman, which are both only a couple thousand apart in their OWs. Huh.

 

So I guess in 2022, the bar has gotten lower. If you were above 50% in 2021, you got a minimum of 44M. And in 2022, the minimum is 15M. But even then, it's kind of hard to say anything definitive for 2023 lowering the bar even lower, because we're only 5 weeks into the year and I only tracked six movies so far. Just kind of unfair.

 

@M37 and @Favorite Fearless Legion since y'alls were in the conversation too.

[grim22]

1 hour ago, Eric Crowe said:

 

 

2022 Awareness

  Hide contents

 

 

That's an exponential curve. Excel can likely fit it to a closest exponent pretty easily. 2022 can be mapped onto an exponential equation.

[Legion Again]

Yeah definitely too early for a real conclusion about 23. Have to see where we’re sitting in June or whatever.

[Factcheck]

3 hours ago, Favorite Fearless Legion said:

Yeah definitely too early for a real conclusion about 23. Have to see where we’re sitting in June or whatever.

What was the final awareness of Shang-Chi? Less than 6 or more than 6?

[Factcheck]

8 minutes ago, Factcheck said:

What was the final awareness of Shang-Chi? Less than 6 or more than 6?

Ok less than 45, I think Ant-man 3 will do 100M+ OW even with less than 60 final awareness. Tracking can't go that much wrong.

[poweranimals]

Yeah, I'm thinking the site's metrics are questionable at best. John Wick 4 has the most awareness of any movie coming out this year? I don't buy it. 

[PlatnumRoyce]

Not to be greedy (no this is me being greedy) but have you re-run these graphs/have easy means to do so? 75 datapoints were a good number for the post but a lot of the subgraphs really are suffering from small sample size. 

Even if the answer is no, thanks for throwing this together. I'd hoped someone would do this when I first learned of quorum.