The Box Office Buzz, Tracking, and Pre-Sale Thread

[Mojoguy]

21 minutes ago, Eric the Turtle said:

Stupid inflation smh

I would be willing to pay up to $5 for Meg 2. Not a cent more though.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Mojoguy

[charlie Jatinder]

4 hours ago, Shawn said:

I'll try and find out again, but otherwise whatever @across the Jat verse or anyone else can reverse engineer from the numbers he sees might be the only approximation we get.

3.85 & 1.75M two days of EA

[keysersoze123]

Blue Beetle MTC1

Previews(T-9) - 18047/462586 317969.57 2210 shows

Friday - 10721/620975 181919.49 2898 shows

 

 

[vafrow]

19 hours ago, vafrow said:

 

Blue Beetle, T-9, southern Ontario

 

Sales have edged up to 189, so about 16% over the last 2 days or so.

 

Not tremendous, but, given the long weekend here, not unexpected. 

 

Showtimes will go up overnight for the following week, where we'll see how many more showtimes it'll get.

 

Current showtimes are 133 across 35 theatres.

 

Blue Beetle, T-8, southern Ontario

 

Ticket sales up another 16% or so in under 24 hours. As expected, return after the long weekend likely helped. Sales are at 221 , up from 189.

 

New showtimes are up, with there now being an additional 10 theatres to get to 48, and  showtimes up to 164. It appears that no individual theatre that had existing showtimes expanded, but 10 new theatres added it.

 

With no direct comps for broader area, I still am assessing at the local level. Sales went up to 13 after staying stalled at 6 for a few days. That gives the following comps

 

0.433x The Flash for $4.2M

0.650x T:ROTB for $5.7M

 

With my theatre making up 5.8% of sales, when it doesn't make up that much of showtimes or population base of my coverage area, I'd say it's overindexing the local market.

 

Still, it's all pointing in a positive direction.

[M37]

12 hours ago, Mojoguy said:

I heard the event was really hectic for theaters last year, hopefully they handle it better this year. I'm sure concession sales made it worth it for them.

From what I heard, it was a nightmare in a lot of places. First time for such an event, nobody really knew what to expect, and the result was over 7 million admissions, somewhere between the opening Saturday of NWH and that of Barbenheimer. But it wasn’t just 1 or 2 movies drawing in most of the business, but all of them, and so seats were not properly allocated to demand (like Super Pets selling out everywhere) 

 

My read-between-the-lines assumption is that it was almost too successful, so they moved off of Labor Day weekend, from Sat to Sun, and (apparently) raised prices, all to try to cool off the demand a bit to a more manageable level. Still think even with those moves it could be a 5M+ admit day though

[filmlover]

The fact a major sequel (Equalizer 3) is launching on Labor Day weekend almost certainly ensured they weren't going to have the event on that weekend again. 8/25-27 makes sense considering the only major opener (Gran Turismo) is looking to be greeted with shrugs.

[TwoMisfits]

5 minutes ago, filmlover said:

The fact a major sequel (Equalizer 3) is launching on Labor Day weekend almost certainly ensured they weren't going to have the event on that weekend again. 8/25-27 makes sense considering the only major opener (Gran Turismo) is looking to be greeted with shrugs.

 

And Gran Turismo is desperate to create WOM - so giving up a day of big dollar value box office to try to bring in the teen to middle age male sports movie audience for future weeks/weekends isn't the worst way to get it some momentum...especially since $4 might be the right price for the movie...

 

[ringedmortality]

24 minutes ago, M37 said:

My read-between-the-lines assumption is that it was almost too successful, so they moved off of Labor Day weekend, from Sat to Sun, and (apparently) raised prices, all to try to cool off the demand a bit to a more manageable level. Still think even with those moves it could be a 5M+ admit day though

I think doing it on Labor Day is cool though. Like a working class event. 

They should just add more showtimes, I thought they wanted more admits 

Edited August 9, 2023 by ringedmortality

[filmlover]

They might go back to Labor Day next year when the big opener is Kraven the Hunter (which must be a winner if they delayed it from a prime first weekend of October launch spot to a dumpy Labor Day weekend one). Sony probably twisted their arms into moving it to a weekend that wouldn't diminish the opening of a guaranteed $20M+ opener (and the rest of September has at least one major sequel each week so that was ruled out).

[M37]

1 minute ago, ringedmortality said:

I think doing it on Labor Day is cool though. Like a working class event. 

They should just add more showtimes, I thought they wanted more admits 

There’s only so far one can go with extended operating times, a couple hours earlier or later (see Barbenheimer) - there are time of day demand peaks and a fixed capacity

 

I think it makes more sense to make a whole weekend out of it, rather than a single day, because then you don’t have to worry about pulling business from the full priced weekend days to the discount one, but would naturally spread itself out 

 

And usually, Labor Day weekend is a (basically) empty release week, a last hurrah of summer slate (including re-expansions), so that would IMO be a great time to do it. All 4 days 

[katnisscinnaplex]

On 8/8/2023 at 7:54 AM, katnisscinnaplex said:

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Gran Turismo (EA)	T-0*	Jax	2	3	6	35	892	3.92%
		Phx	2	2	2	35	123	28.46%
	Total		4	7	8	70	1,015	6.90%
	T-1	Jax	5	7	20	166	960	17.29%
		Phx	1	1	5	96	208	46.15%
		Ral	1	1	10	56	261	21.46%
	Total		7	9	35	318	1,429	22.25%
Last Voyage	T-2	Jax	5	14	4	41	1,563	2.62%
		Phx	6	18	12	54	1,770	3.05%
		Ral	6	15	18	42	1,361	3.09%
	Total		17	47	34	137	4,694	2.92%

*T-0 total includes 8/2 T-0 totals as well.  All three EA days will be in tomorrow's EA T-0 total and will have comps for other final EA sales

 

Last Voyage T-2 comps

 - Renfield - .862x (732k)

 - Black Phone - .428x (1.11m)

 - Knock at the Cabin - .675x (979k)

 - Northman - .388x (524k)

 - Green Knight - .846x (634k)

 - Talk to Me - .993x (1.24m)

 - Beast - 1.212x (1.12m)

 - The Invitation - 2.045x (1.58m)

 

Size adjusted comps - 1.02m

 

Renfield is likely the best comp, but I didn't start tracking until T-2.  I'm still expecting under a million, and wouldn't be surprised with around 800k.  Some of the comps still look promising though.

 

Last Voyage pace chart:

Movie	3-day pace	Prev 3-day	Prev 3-day	Last Day
Last Voyage	101.47%	47.06%	33.33%	33.01%
Renfield
Black Phone	103.82%	32.48%
Knock at the Cabin	46.04%	25.18%		20.12%
Northman				22.57%
The Green Knight	200.00%	33.33%		86.21%
Talk to Me	86.49%	50.00%	29.73%	35.29%
Beast	94.83%	34.48%		43.04%
The Invitation				63.41%

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Gran Turismo (EA)	T-0	Jax	5	10	21	216	1,852	11.66%
		Phx	2	3	12	141	331	42.60%
		Ral	2	3	0	56	261	21.46%
	Total		8	16	33	413	2,444	16.90%
	T-2	Jax	3	3	15	32	531	6.03%
		Phx	3	3	1	13	432	3.01%
		Ral	3	3	20	32	438	7.31%
	Total		9	9	36	77	1,401	5.50%
	T-3	Jax	3	6	0	12	1,508	0.80%
		Phx	3	6	3	11	1,066	1.03%
		Ral	3	6	5	15	760	1.97%
	Total		9	18	8	38	3,334	1.14%
	T-4	Jax	3	4	6	6	526	1.14%
		Phx	3	3	2	2	548	0.36%
		Ral	3	3	2	9	322	2.80%
	Total		9	10	10	17	1,396	1.22%
Last Voyage	T-1	Jax	5	17	11	52	1,688	3.08%
		Phx	6	20	11	65	1,958	3.32%
		Ral	7	19	14	56	1,886	2.97%
	Total		18	56	36	173	5,532	3.13%

 

Well, it looks like Gran Turismo is going ALL IN on early shows/sneaks/whatever.  In addition to the scheduled early shows (8/2, 8/8, 8/9), they are keeping F-Su shows this weekend AND next weekend and marking them as sneaks.  So now there are NINE different days with early shows not even including previews Thursday (8/24).  I'll check how wide these all are in my showtimes report on Friday.  Long story short, this opening is going to be a mess even before the Cinema Day on opening Sunday skewing things further.  Preview tickets have been on sale for the new date for about a week now and have sold all of two tickets in my regions compared to the 547 total EA tickets sold.  

 

END RANT

 

Last Voyage T-1 comps

 - Renfield - missed

 - Black Phone - .403x (1.05m)

 - Knock at the Cabin - .692x (1m)

 - Northman - .427x (577k)

 - Green Knight - .746x (559k)

 - Talk to Me - .703x (876k)

 - Beast - 1.042x (964k)

 - The Invitation - 1.648x (1.28m)

 

Size adjusted comps - 955k

 

Last Voyage pace chart

Movie	3-day pace	Prev 3-day	Prev 3-day	Last Day
Last Voyage	94.38%	43.82%	50.00%	26.28%
Renfield
Black Phone			15.25%	34.06%
Knock at the Cabin	72.41%	26.21%	13.08%	23.15%
Northman			40.51%	14.73%
The Green Knight	262.50%	34.38%	54.76%	43.21%
Talk to Me	182.76%	48.28%	35.56%	78.26%
Beast	159.38%	29.69%	53.33%	46.90%
The Invitation				56.72%

 

Normal horror pattern would have a big increase today.  I don't really see the excitement here where it was for some of the others.  I've been expecting around 800k and I'm still in that camp.  Tomorrow will be clearer at least.  Growth rate model is giving me around 650k so that's not great...

 

Gran Turismo EA T-0 comps (For the original three EA days)

 - Transformers (EA) - .457x (685k)

 - Turtles (EA) - .393x (688k)

 - Barbie (EA) - .62x (682k)

 

I'm gonna say.....  685k

Edited August 9, 2023 by katnisscinnaplex
Add GT EA comps

[M37]

19 minutes ago, filmlover said:

The fact a major sequel (Equalizer 3) is launching on Labor Day weekend almost certainly ensured they weren't going to have the event on that weekend again. 8/25-27 makes sense considering the only major opener (Gran Turismo) is looking to be greeted with shrugs.

Yes, I can certainly see Sony being not overly receptive, giving up say a $10M Sat for at best $6-$7M even off double the admits (plus losing value on Fri & Sun). Also keep in mind Grand Turismo moved to that date, presumably after the decision was in the works behind the scenes; originally was an empty weekend 

 

But the change from Sat to Sun is what makes me think it’s more than just that release complication 

[abracadabra1998]

9 minutes ago, M37 said:

And usually, Labor Day weekend is a (basically) empty release week, a last hurrah of summer slate (including re-expansions), so that would IMO be a great time to do it. All 4 days 

Attaching it to Labor Day was a great idea last year I thought, making it a yearly thing then would solidify it as a movie-going day/weekend like some other ones (Black Friday, Christmas holidays, etc.). Since covid I feel like holidays have seen lesser jumps, my guess being people wanting to spend more time with family/others when they couldn’t during the pandemic (this is a guess, no data backing this up lol), and having a holiday specifically attached to Cinema Day would be a smart way to change that trend.

 

Long story short I was sad to see they changed it this year  

[katnisscinnaplex]

On 8/8/2023 at 7:57 AM, katnisscinnaplex said:

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Blue Beetle	T-9	Jax	5	42	9	67	6,627	1.01%
		Phx	6	43	4	62	8,909	0.70%
		Ral	8	28	15	78	4,226	1.85%
	Total		19	113	28	207	19,762	1.05%
Strays	T-9	Jax	6	15	3	18	1,897	0.95%
		Phx	6	23	0	18	3,053	0.59%
		Ral	6	18	0	20	2,703	0.74%
	Total		18	56	3	56	7,653	0.73%
Strays (EA)	T-8	Jax	3	3	0	3	352	0.85%
		Phx	3	3	0	1	403	0.25%
		Ral	4	4	3	6	506	1.19%
	Total		10	10	3	10	1,261	0.79%

 

Strays (Total) T-9 comps

 - Easter Sunday - 2.2x (1.1m)

 - Joy Ride (Total) - 1.065x (1.17m)

 - 80 for Brady (Total) - .725x (544k)

 - Cocaine Bear - .449x (898k)

 - Violent Night - .917x (1.01m) 

 - Turtles (Total) - .103x (566k)

 

Size adjusted average - 930k

 

Blue Beetle T-9 comps

 - Cocaine Bear - 1.41x (2.82m)

 - Bullet Train - .859x (2.88m)

 - Turtles - .79x (3.04m)

 - Suicide Squad - .655x (2.69m)

 - Shazam 2 - .444x (1.51m)

 - Flash - .158x (1.53m)

 - Morbius - .313x (1.78m)

 

Size adjusted average - 2.79m

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Blue Beetle	T-8	Jax	5	42	7	74	6,627	1.12%
		Phx	6	43	4	66	8,909	0.74%
		Ral	8	28	3	81	4,226	1.92%
	Total		19	113	14	221	19,762	1.12%
Gran Turismo (EA)	T-10	Jax	4	8	0	0	1,642	0.00%
		Phx	4	8	0	0	1,098	0.00%
		Ral	2	4	0	0	310	0.00%
	Total		10	20	0	0	3,050	0.00%
	T-11	Jax	4	4	0	0	821	0.00%
		Phx	4	4	0	0	544	0.00%
		Ral	2	2	0	0	155	0.00%
	Total		10	10	0	0	1,520	0.00%
	T-9	Jax	4	4	0	0	821	0.00%
		Phx	4	4	0	0	544	0.00%
		Ral	2	2	2	2	155	1.29%
	Total		10	10	2	2	1,520	0.13%
Strays	T-8	Jax	6	15	0	18	1,897	0.95%
		Phx	6	23	0	18	3,053	0.59%
		Ral	6	18	0	20	2,703	0.74%
	Total		18	56	0	56	7,653	0.73%
Strays (EA)	T-7	Jax	3	3	0	3	352	0.85%
		Phx	3	3	0	1	403	0.25%
		Ral	4	4	0	6	506	1.19%
	Total		10	10	0	10	1,261	0.79%

 

As mentioned, GT has shows on F-Su for this weekend as well.  Only two tickets sold in 40 shows though.

 

Strays (Total) T-8 comps

 - Easter Sunday - 2.28x (1.14m)

 - Joy Ride (Total) - .892x (981k)

 - 80 for Brady (Total) - .786x (589k)

 - Cocaine Bear - .44x (880k)

 - Violent Night - .795x (875k) 

 - Turtles (Total) - .094x (526k)

 

Size adjusted average - 955k

 

Blue Beetle T-8 comps

 - Cocaine Bear - 1.47x (2.95m)

 - Bullet Train - .909x (3.05m)

 - Turtles - .752x (2.89m)

 - Suicide Squad - .646x (2.65m)

 - Shazam 2 - .454x (1.54m)

 - Black Adam - .224x (1.7m)

 - Flash - .158x (1.53m)

 - Morbius - .302x (1.72m)

 

Size adjusted average - 2.81m

[vafrow]

51 minutes ago, M37 said:

From what I heard, it was a nightmare in a lot of places. First time for such an event, nobody really knew what to expect, and the result was over 7 million admissions, somewhere between the opening Saturday of NWH and that of Barbenheimer. But it wasn’t just 1 or 2 movies drawing in most of the business, but all of them, and so seats were not properly allocated to demand (like Super Pets selling out everywhere) 

 

My read-between-the-lines assumption is that it was almost too successful, so they moved off of Labor Day weekend, from Sat to Sun, and (apparently) raised prices, all to try to cool off the demand a bit to a more manageable level. Still think even with those moves it could be a 5M+ admit day though

 

I'm not sure about timing in the states, but, labor day weekend being start of both public schools and colleges, I'm sure workforce is hard to manage for that labor day weekend. A lot of people probably work only for the summer, and quit before that weekend to get ready for school.

 

Since theatres are going into the quiet period, you can't hire more staff. You're probably already trying to ration hours. And this year will be worse with the strikes.

[M37]

29 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

I'm not sure about timing in the states, but, labor day weekend being start of both public schools and colleges, I'm sure workforce is hard to manage for that labor day weekend. A lot of people probably work only for the summer, and quit before that weekend to get ready for school.

 

Since theatres are going into the quiet period, you can't hire more staff. You're probably already trying to ration hours. And this year will be worse with the strikes.

In the US, schools (both K-12 & colleges) having rolling starts over a month, from this week (our [current] schools start tomorrow!) through post-Labor Day. Yes, staffing absolutely does thin out starting in August, and not much hiring to replace happening given the usual weaker Fall looming, but there really isn’t a big shift pre & post Labor Day in my experience. Those leaving for school related conflicts are mostly already gone before then

 

I get your point about staffing, but the only way CD works is to have it when it’s not impacting a new release, which means it has to be in the end of summer lean period, so there will always be a disconnect between staff levels and expected business. But it’s easier IMO spread that influx out over a busy weekend than a single super busy day 

 

(EDIT - know this is way off tracking topic, but not sure where else to have this discussion)

Edited August 9, 2023 by M37

[vafrow]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

In the US, schools (both K-12 & colleges) having rolling starts over a month, from this week (our [current] schools start tomorrow!) through post-Labor Day. Yes, staffing absolutely does thin out starting in August, and not much hiring to replace happening given the usual weaker Fall looming, but there really isn’t a big shift pre & post Labor Day in my experience. Those leaving for school related conflicts are mostly already gone before then

 

I get your point about staffing, but the only way CD works is to have it when it’s not impacting a new release, which means it has to be in the end of summer lean period, so there will always be a disconnect between staff levels and expected business. But it’s easier IMO spread that influx out over a busy weekend than a single super busy day 

 

(EDIT - know this is way off tracking topic, but not sure where else to have this discussion)

 

I agree that it has to be a low point in the cycle, and I find end of summer is a great way to get people to go back and catch a film they may have missed. But it is crazy to have a Barbieheimer level weekend as one shot burst. I don't envy theatre managers.

[M37]

9 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

I agree that it has to be a low point in the cycle, and I find end of summer is a great way to get people to go back and catch a film they may have missed. But it is crazy to have a Barbieheimer level weekend as one shot burst. I don't envy theatre managers.

 But it wouldn’t be on that level most likely 

 

Last LD weekend, with CD, admits for the 4 days were roughly: 1.0M/7.5M/1.5M/1.3M = ~11.5M total

 

Even if a 4-day CD event were to boost that up to say 16M total, still looking at a ~$150M 3-day equivalent, or below this past weekend; busy, but not overwhelming. But a 7M+ single day admit level is much more difficult to handle - that’s Barbenheimer opening Saturday level 

[Eric the Clown]

Quorum Updates

Gran Turismo T-16: 32.52% Awareness

The Hill T-16: 19.38% Awareness

It Lives Inside T-44: 16.82% Awareness

The Holdovers T-93: 11.01% Awareness

Bob Marley: One Love T-156: 27.47% Awareness

Argylle T-177: 12.5% Awareness

 

The Last Voyage of the Demeter T-2: 31.06% Awareness

Final Awareness: 33% chance of 10M, 2% chance of 20M

Horror Awareness: 50% chance of 10M, 10% chance of 20M

 

Strays T-9: 39.63% Awareness

Final Awareness: 33% chance of 10M, 2% chance of 20M

Original - Low Awareness: 23% chance of 10M

 

The Nun II T-30: 42% Awareness

T-30 Awareness: 100% chance of 20M, 93% chance of 30M, 73% chance of 40M, 53% chance of 50M

Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 30M

 

The Exorcist: Believer T-65: 30.61% Awareness

T-60 Awareness: 94% chance of 10M, 71% chance of 20M, 47% chance of 30M

Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 10M, 75% chance of 20M, 50% chance of 30M

[titanic2187]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

 But it wouldn’t be on that level most likely 

 

Last LD weekend, with CD, admits for the 4 days were roughly: 1.0M/7.5M/1.5M/1.3M = ~11.5M total

 

Even if a 4-day CD event were to boost that up to say 16M total, still looking at a ~$150M 3-day equivalent, or below this past weekend; busy, but not overwhelming. But a 7M+ single day admit level is much more difficult to handle - that’s Barbenheimer opening Saturday level 

The biggest non-holiday Sunday of all time was during EG's OW at $102m. That should translate to some 8.5m patron in a single day and this the admission recorded during CD last year. This means the upper bound of market capacity for Sunday would be around 8m. I don't find it stupid to shift CD out from Labour day or to Sunday but I still don't understand why they couldn't continue it to Monday, and ended with regular Discount Tuesday.  That would for a 3-days discount day for cinema, creating bigger buzz for the event.