Weekend Thread | October 7-10th | Smile grins with a powerful $18.5m second weekend (18% drop!), Lyle hums a tune to $11.4m, Amsterdam gets karma'd with $6.4m

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

4 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I mean, it just came out and the specialty market still hasn't fully recovered (in large part because some of the main locations to see those kinds of movies like the ArcLight Hollywood went under during the pandemic and have yet to reopen). If it stumbles upon expansion then that's where the concern will be.

 It was just launched at Venice, has a major prestige star at center, is from a pedigree studio, and is best reviewed English language film of year. The trailers/teaser had decent view counts for a drama

[Joel M]

On 10/8/2022 at 8:23 PM, Cmasterclay said:

I wasn't going to see Smile but the holds and word of mouth have convinced me. Proof that this is a real effect and not just a nebulous concept!!

 

I also went for the same reason. I had no intention of watching it in theatres, didn't look like anything special. It's a catchy premise very well executed. I get why it holds so good and it works like gangbusters with a crowd. Certainly makes more sense to me than the surprising legs of the Black Phone.

[motionpic05]

30 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Yeah Kills really is a franchise stopper. I remember seeing the trailer for Kills with almost EVERY movie for months last year. That felt like it had much more buzz (makes sense since it was pushed from 2020 and followed 18)

 

(Kills is not a good movie by any means but I prefer it over 18)

Buzz is certainly slower than Kills, but I would still be surprised to see an OW under $40 million.

Pre-Sales seem okay.

[WayneBorg]

 

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

I've seen enough Youtube channels that list Friday the 13th Part 13 as their most anticipated horror film out in the next 24 months despite there not being a single even vaguely decent movie among the 12 prior Friday the 13th movies to EVER think that a cozy slippers 80s Slasher franchise isn't going to do perfectly well among the comfort-watch wing of horror fandom.

 

Halloween is like a version of Bayformers, Jurassic and Pirates, a certain amount of money is locked regardless of critics, prior movies or quality. Buzz might be somewhat relevant for non-horror goers who checked the first two out because of murmurs. But it'll only shave off a portion at best. 

 

Smile's performance is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

 

Note those international numbers for Ticket to Paradise also. Adults have been starved for rom coms and star power it seems and for easy watches. It is a lazy, mediocre movie that barely rises above "send Julia Roberts and George Clooney on holiday and just follow them around with a camera". In fact having just typed that it would indeed almost certainly have been more fun.

 

 

[WrathOfHan]

2 hours ago, CJohn said:

And now you jinxed it. Fucking hell. Someone stop this man.

[Grebacio]

1 hour ago, motionpic05 said:

Buzz is certainly slower than Kills, but I would still be surprised to see an OW under $40 million.

Pre-Sales seem okay.

I think it will get a slightly higher OW than Kills, but the same total due to stonger competition. Barbarian and Smile will definitely steal some of its audience

 

52M OW

92M Total

 

[Cmasterclay]

Smile is a huge hit but imagine how much bigger it would be if they had used a creepy slowed down cover of Smile by Uncle Kracker in the trailers

[filmlover]

9 hours ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

It doesn't help that the LA market lost the speciality theaters that treated new limited releases like the MCU. The Arclight would have a La La Land on 5-6 screens, including the Cineramadome with 800 seats, that's how movies like that could post 100K per theater averages. Now when that kind of movie debuts in Los Angeles, it just gets a couple of screens at an AMC or two. There's less capacity than before at the LA arthouse and maybe the Arclight lovers are not rushing out the same way to The Grove or wherever.

All of this is true. Add TAR's showtime-restricting running time to the mix and it likely made as much as it could under the circumstances.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

3 hours ago, filmlover said:

All of this is true. Add TAR's showtime-restricting running time to the mix and it likely made as much as it could under the circumstances.

This isnt really true. AMC Lincoln Square has it playing in multiple auditoriums. At Angelika theater it has 9 showtimes

[Krissykins]

Orphan First Kill up to $37m worldwide. Nice. 

[CJohn]

59 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Orphan First Kill up to $37m worldwide. Nice. 

Just imagine if it had a theatrically exclusive run. It would have done 100M+ WW.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

7 hours ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

This isnt really true. AMC Lincoln Square has it playing in multiple auditoriums. At Angelika theater it has 9 showtimes

Pre-pandemic, the Los Angeles side of a platform release could support many more showtimes than that per day. Here's a 2019 article about Parasite's opening weekend:

 

 

Quote

The Arclight Hollywood with greater seating has at times shown the movie on six screens, while The Landmark also in Los Angeles also has sold out multiple shows on its three screens.

 

That's 9 screens. For a longer movie, let's say each screen does 3 showtimes per day, times 3 days for the weekend, and that's 81 showtimes from Friday to Sunday. And one of those screens had 800 seats! Even assuming a split screen or two, platform releases were once getting ~75 showtimes a weekend from two theaters in Los Angeles (and more for a shorter movie).

 

You're just not going to get that degree of saturation by playing in a couple of AMCs by the mall. Platform opening weekend numbers won't begin to touch their former glory any time soon, as long as the Los Angeles specialty market remains in its current state. Maybe inflation or a roadshow pricing boost, but not the same attendance as before.

 

 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

51 minutes ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

Pre-pandemic, the Los Angeles side of a platform release could support many more showtimes than that per day. Here's a 2019 article about Parasite's opening weekend:

 

 

 

That's 9 screens. For a longer movie, let's say each screen does 3 showtimes per day, times 3 days for the weekend, and that's 81 showtimes from Friday to Sunday. And one of those screens had 800 seats! Even assuming a split screen or two, platform releases were once getting ~75 showtimes a weekend from two theaters in Los Angeles (and more for a shorter movie).

 

You're just not going to get that degree of saturation by playing in a couple of AMCs by the mall. Platform opening weekend numbers won't begin to touch their former glory any time soon, as long as the Los Angeles specialty market remains in its current state. Maybe inflation or a roadshow pricing boost, but not the same attendance as before.

 

 

I am talking about NYC

[filmlover]

Will Oscar Movies Finally Rebound at the Box Office? Deciphering Ticket Sales for ‘Tár’ and ‘Triangle of Sadness’ https://t.co/ImCYcRb0lM

— Variety (@Variety) October 10, 2022

 

Quote

 

So it’s promising that in the same weekend that “Tár” struck a chord at the specialty market, another arthouse film also managed to sell a substantial number of tickets. Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness,” a ribald and scatological satire about the uber-wealthy, brought in $210,074 from 10 locations, translating to a healthy $21,007 per theater. For “Tár,” its $40,000 per-screen-average — which is the key metric for films playing in select theaters — is easily one of the best of the year. But “Triangle of Sadness,” too, holds one of the top per-screen-averages of the pandemic.

 

These days, indie movies require more than just positive reviews to stand a chance in theaters. In the case of “Tár,” its early October release date proved to be beneficial because the movie wasn’t overshadowed by a dominant tentpole. Movie theater subscription services, like AMC’s Stubs A-List, also appear to be helping lift attendance for smaller movies that people otherwise may not go out of their way to see in theaters.

 

[ringedmortality]

Didn’t Licorice Pizza perform better in limited than TAR. Like a lot better

[filmlover]

6 minutes ago, ringedmortality said:

Didn’t Licorice Pizza perform better in limited than TAR. Like a lot better

It did an $86K PTA but it also drew a younger/hipper demographic than something like TAR ever would, was being shown in 70MM at those four theaters (making it something extra special), was almost a half hour shorter (and thus was able to squeeze in at least one additional showtime on its screens), and opened on the extended Thanksgiving holiday when it was more easily capable of filling up every show when everyone had time off. Also was the first movie to really bow as a specialty release since studios were experimenting with the specialty releases during the pandemic era (Belfast opened in nearly 600 theaters when it would've definitely launched in 4 before expanding pre-COVID).

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

56 minutes ago, ringedmortality said:

Didn’t Licorice Pizza perform better in limited than TAR. Like a lot better

Licorice Pizza opened to $345,157 in 4 NY/LA locations to an average of $86,289, but it played exclusively in 70mm (higher ticket prices, bigger rooms). The one location it played in Los Angeles was a single screen but with 1,300+ seats.

 

Two different movies can open in 4 theaters in NY/LA but the number of screens, showtimes, seating capacity and ticket prices can vary wildly for each release, not to mention runtimes affecting the number of screenings per day. And the box office is averaged out between the number of theaters, rarely if ever does the reporting say, "[Movie So-and-So] made $400,000 in 4 theaters this weekend, and just one of them brought in $250,000 alone! The other three places kinda straggled a bit." No, you just hear it was a 100K per theater average.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[Ryan Reynolds]

 

[Ryan Reynolds]