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

[TheFlatLannister]

18 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

*A quick addendum* 

(0.465x) of Mi7  $3.25M Previews

(0.839x) of Equalizer 3 $3.19M Previews

(1.037x) of Saw X $2.07M Previews

(0.203x) of Oppenheimer $2.13M Previews

COMPS: 2.66M 

I don't think I'm on the $3m train anymore. Put me down for $2.7m +/- $0.2m

‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Previews $2.6M

Apple Original Films big splash into wide theatrical releases with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, distributed by Paramount, drew $2.6M in previews that began at 2PM

 

 

I should've rounded down not up....

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by TheFlatLannister

[abracadabra1998]

4 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Previews $2.6M

Apple Original Films big splash into wide theatrical releases with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, distributed by Paramount, drew $2.6M in previews that began at 2PM

 

 

I should've rounded down not up....

 

 

Nice call moving down your prediction! I let my emotional hopes for this film get in the way of logic  oh well, on to the next one

[Hilts]

20 hours ago, Hilts said:

 

Killers of the Flower Moon							OK
Thursday - showings starting 2.30pm
Day	Theatres	Showings	Daily Sold	Total Sold	Total Seats	% Sold	Growth
T-4	25	100	283	2,869	17,929	16.00%	10.94%
T-3	25	100	361	3,230	17,929	18.02%	12.58%
T-2	25	121	487	3,717	19,799	18.77%	15.08%
T-1	25	136	575	4,292	21,264	20.18%	15.47%
T-0	25	141	1,054	5,346	22,565	23.69%	24.56%
MTC1	8	49	+339	1,882	7,365	25.55%	21.97%
MTC2	4	24	+198	976	4,050	24.10%	25.45%
MTC3	3	30	+221	1,378	6,220	22.15%	19.10%
Other	10	38	+296	1,110	4,930	22.52%	36.36%
Comps
Oppenheimer					1.098x	=	$11.53m
Barbie					0.503x	=	$11.16m
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny					1.773x	=	$12.76m
Sound of Freedom					1.291x	=	$6.71m

 

$10m is LOCKED. 😉

 

All kidding aside, what a run. Was a blast to track just wished it was more of a break out elsewhere.

 

Last day jump was not great as I suspected, but to be fair we are mainly comping against summer films and walkups for a 3.5 hour movie on Thursday in Fall was not likely to be stellar. Hoping for a good weekend multiplier.

 

Per Deadline (nice!):

 

Quote

Top theaters last night for the Scorsese movie came from NY, LA, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, and Vancouver.

 

So by my calcs this over-indexed about 700% for me to get around $2.6m, lol

 

 

[jeffthehat]

On 10/19/2023 at 10:26 AM, jeffthehat said:

Counted the top 5 selling theaters for Eras last weekend at Malco and got these comps

 

Eras 2nd Thursday T-0

 

2.06x Eras 1st Thu T-0 = $5.8m

 

Eras 2nd Fri T-1

 

0.204x Eras 1st Fri T-1 = $7.1m

 

Still no showtimes for FNAF. Guessing they'll be added Mon/Tues like they were for KotFM this week. 

 

Thursday comp held nice. The weekend could be competitive if the Fri comp holds (think it'll be higher though). 

[Krissykins]

50 minutes ago, vale9001 said:

 

 

wasn't this move supposed to be like just released in Apple +, or at least coming there just 2-3 weeks after the theaters release?. It's not like they were expecting to make 500M dollars from theaters anyways. 

Still yeah i hope can make at least 30M.

No, this was always for theatrical, via Paramount. If they weren’t expecting $500m, they shouldn’t have spent so much to make it. 

[Shawn Robbins]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

Five Nights at Freddy's Preview Tracking T-7 Update

I can't recall the last film track that had me so ... conflicted, with the raw data clearly showing an up arrow, while having to weight that against outside factors pulling it down. Going to delve a bit deep, so using spoiler boxes to limit length of post

 

Thursday Preview:

Chart update here, where the average has wobbled a bit but remained around $13M+

 

Further analysis

  Hide contents

Perhaps more importantly, we're definitely seeing some convergence happening, where the higher value comps are starting to drift down, while - despite the purposeful choice of higher pace comps - the lower level values are coming up, which only increases confidence in the expected value. (The one exception are the OK comps for Barbie & Oppy, but with @Hilts new to the tracking team, fewer comps to choose from, and wouldn't read too much into that trend)

 

When delving down a bit and looking at pace (growth rate), there is really nothing that suggests a slowdown is imminent; the 7-day and 3-day growth rate ranges are +45%-60% and +18%-28% respectively for most samples, with only typically higher early sale samples Orlando and Drafthouse falling outside than that range. For comparison, ATSV was in the +36%-55% and +18-26% range for that same time period. Flash also had a fairly poor final week, and even those comp values are in a similar range if FNAF follows suit

 

However, a few caveats:

• ATP - the values here are based on a straight comparison of tickets sold, and with FNAF having limited PLF shows and the potential for a higher share of discounted if not child at least student rate tickets, the actual value is likely a bit lower
• Streaming - The elephant in room regarding this opening, the simultaneous release on Peakcock, has only grown bigger with the advertising now including Thursday night. Per CNET, it debuts at 8PM ET on 10/26, and could undercut potential Thursday sales
• Capacity - Hopefully theaters come around when setting schedules this week, but a present there is a limit on supply that could diminish potential sales

Overall, ~$13M Previews still sounds right, with pace at present suggesting higher potential - challenging IT's $13.5M horror record - but with added uncertainty and several reasons why we shouldn't be surprised if it were to land lower. Without hitting some kind of major wall that data at present doesn't suggest, can't really see much lower than $11M though

 

So what about the Opening Weekend?

  Hide contents

Here's where it gets far more complicated. Noted upthread that every Sept/Oct release thusfar has managed at least a 3x Thu-->TFri, though from sales patterns seems likely FNAF won't make the same jump, and probably performs more like a CBM or Franchise film. Some potential comps

• Black Widow = 1.99x (summer, Day & Date, COVID)
• Venom 2 = 2.23x
• Black Adam = 2.51x
• Halloween Ends = 2.77x
• Fast X = 2.74

Maybe in the worst case something like Black Widow, but more likely IMO in the 2.2-2.75 range as the D&D release starts to work against it. Still believe a $40M+ OD is happening, which would best Joker's top mark (#163) for October. But after that ...

 

Saturday and Sunday sales are especially weak; in Drafthouse, Sat tickets sold are only at 70% of Thursday, which is the lowest at T-7 ratio I have down except for Flash, where Sat only increased 60% from Thur.  However, the next closest are Fast X and Black Adam, so a strong final week and/or walk-up rate can make up a lot of ground there.

As referenced above, Halloween Kills and Ends made 46% and 51% of the OW through Friday as they saw a -4% and -13% Sat respectively, and still believe a very good chance FNAF sees a similar Sat drop. For Sunday, both were in neighborhood of -45%, though with the rating (R vs PG13) and age skew, maybe it can hold a bit better (or worse?)

 

Putting all the math together works out to an IM of around 7x, potentially lower depending on where Friday land, though can't rule out higher if walk-ups are strong and Peacock doesn't inflict too much damage

 

Rolling up the analysis together get me to here, with a midpoint right around Venom 2, higher than the top end of  @Shawn's updated LRF

FNAF OW Forecast Matrix		Thursday Preview Gross Range
		$11.0	$11.4	$11.9	$12.3	$12.8	$13.2	$13.6	$14.1	$14.5
Thur / Wknd Ratio (IM)	6.00	$66.0	$68.6	$71.3	$73.9	$76.5	$79.1	$81.8	$84.4	$87.0
	6.25	$68.8	$71.5	$74.2	$77.0	$79.7	$82.4	$85.2	$87.9	$90.6
	6.50	$71.5	$74.3	$77.2	$80.0	$82.9	$85.7	$88.6	$91.4	$94.3
	6.75	$74.3	$77.2	$80.2	$83.1	$86.1	$89.0	$92.0	$94.9	$97.9
	7.00	$77.0	$80.1	$83.1	$86.2	$89.3	$92.3	$95.4	$98.4	$101.5
	7.25	$79.8	$82.9	$86.1	$89.3	$92.4	$95.6	$98.8	$102.0	$105.1
	7.50	$82.5	$85.8	$89.1	$92.3	$95.6	$98.9	$102.2	$105.5	$108.8
	7.75	$85.3	$88.6	$92.0	$95.4	$98.8	$102.2	$105.6	$109.0	$112.4
	8.00	$88.0	$91.5	$95.0	$98.5	$102.0	$105.5	$109.0	$112.5	$116.0

 

Not ruling out the higher end of a $100M+ OW, but tempering expectations a bit due to outside factors working against that outcome

Final thought

  Hide contents

Despite two major challengers in 2 weeks, Joker may hold onto the October OW after all

  Hide contents

getting the ... last laugh

 

 

 

Excellent stuff.

 

Of note, the $80M top end in the LRF yesterday factors in depressed ATP due to younger audiences + lack of premium screens (though the addition of premiums and good early sales in those is one reason the range went up by such a large margin this week).

 

Essentially, without the ATP adjustment, the raw LRF model's top end is very close to this $89M midpoint. Maybe just a few million above to also account for less impact than expected from streaming availability and the "who-the-hell-knows" aspect of forecasting reviews/word of mouth and walk-up potential outside the core fan base.

[Giorno]

The Marvels (D-20):

 

605 ticket sold (10 Houston AMC's)/ +9 YD

 

Comps:

 

0.731 x (D-20) Oppenheimer = $7.67m

 

0.867 x  EA + (D-20) PV of MI:DR = $6.06m

 

1.53 x (D-20) MI:DR = $10.7m

 

[Taylor89]

34 minutes ago, jeffthehat said:

 

Thursday comp held nice. The weekend could be competitive if the Fri comp holds (think it'll be higher though). 

 

Can eras movie reach 40m?

[alexandr]

18 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

No, this was always for theatrical, via Paramount. If they weren’t expecting $500m, they shouldn’t have spent so much to make it. 

 

Paramount didn't want to spend $200M on it because they knew it wouldn't make $500M theatrically, which is why Apple was brought on to finance the film.

[vale9001]

1 minute ago, Taylor89 said:

 

Can eras movie reach 40m?

 

it's impossible to predict. Too may unusual factors. Previews last week were last minute so it's not easy to read how yesterday numbers were. Also doesn't play on weekedays.

Yesterday numbers seems solid if you take as a thursday but how the weekend will play?. People interested on seeing it again after the first weekend already did it yesterday or we should expect normal weekened increase this time?. Hard to know. From yesyerday numbers yes could even touch 40M but again hard to predict for a lot of unusual if not never seen factors. 

Everything from 25 to 40 is possibile. Less or more than this range shouldn't happen. 

[Krissykins]

17 minutes ago, alexandr said:

 

Paramount didn't want to spend $200M on it because they knew it wouldn't make $500M theatrically, which is why Apple was brought on to finance the film.

I don’t want to derail the thread. But what I mean is no one should’ve spent $200m on it if they wanted to make a profit from a theatrical release. It’ll end up a theatrical flop. 

[jeffthehat]

44 minutes ago, Taylor89 said:

 

Can eras movie reach 40m?

 

Hard to tell without knowing how Sat/Sun are doing. 

 

Fwiw I think @Inceptionzq showed ~75% Fri/Fri drop in their Denver data. Mine's showing ~80%, but it's a small sample. If those numbers applied to the full weekend we'd be looking at ~$23m. But not enough data here to draw conclusions imo. 

 

Editing to add that I still don't know for sure what they'll do with the Thursday number. But Jat implied that it'll be reported separately so that's probably the case. 

Edited October 20, 2023 by jeffthehat

[Curiouser and Curiouser]

38 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

I don’t want to derail the thread. But what I mean is no one should’ve spent $200m on it if they wanted to make a profit from a theatrical release. It’ll end up a theatrical flop. 

This isn't on topic, but there is no universe apple gave this movie that budget and expected a return theatrically. 

[Giorno]

Apple wants awards and get in with top talent in Hollywood, they are gonna get both with this movie.

[Austin]

*incoming moderation post in 3...2...1...*

[keysersoze123]

I think Eras will hit double digit today based on how thursday gross. 

[Porthos]

4 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

Sacramento have been on the money for these Marvel movies. But you did say Cap Marvel actually over indexed there. Will this movie under index here? Otherwise all the tracking numbers seen so far seem wildly optimistic. 

 

The problem is we don't really have a good comp for The Marvels as it had a relative stronger beginning than many comps but not nearly the level of a standard MCU film. 

 

Could open it up to other films, and indeed I have, but there are developing signs (only developing) that the GA interest in this film is... minimal at the moment which lessens the value of those comps. This also might mean a deeper U-curve than normal, though I still want more data on this particular point (last two days haven't been a great omen in this department I have to say).

 

Finally the old bugbear about pre-sale length comes into play as The Marvels was just a little bit longer than some other natural comps but just a little bit shorter than some other natural comps. Which is putting a thumb on the scale on current comps.  

 

Thus the "wildly optimistic" tracking numbers.  Though here you might be referring to the Trades/others and not our own numbers.

[Inceptionzq]

1 hour ago, jeffthehat said:

 

Hard to tell without knowing how Sat/Sun are doing. 

 

Fwiw I think @Inceptionzq showed ~75% Fri/Fri drop in their Denver data. Mine's showing ~80%, but it's a small sample. If those numbers applied to the full weekend we'd be looking at ~$23m. But not enough data here to draw conclusions imo. 

 

10 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

I think Eras will hit double digit today based on how thursday gross. 

Final Eras Tour Denver pull is at 28.9% of last Friday's final, which would give 10.02M

[keysersoze123]

3 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

The problem is we don't really have a good comp for The Marvels as it had a relative stronger beginning than many comps but not nearly the level of a standard MCU film. 

 

Could open it up to other films, and indeed I have, but there are developing signs (only developing) that the GA interest in this film is... minimal at the moment which lessens the value of those comps. This also might mean a deeper U-curve than normal, though I still want more data on this particular point (last two days haven't been a great omen in this department I have to say).

 

Finally the old bugbear about pre-sale length comes into play as The Marvels was just a little bit longer than some other natural comps but just a little bit shorter than some other natural comps. Which is putting a thumb on the scale on current comps.  

 

Thus the "wildly optimistic" tracking numbers.  Though here you might be referring to the Trades/others and not our own numbers.

I meant trades for sure. Its so far behind Eternals that it needs significant ramp up to catch up to it. No signs of its pace so far. Its premier is only on 11/1. That means we wont see major bump until week to release. 

[Porthos]

3 hours ago, Krissykins said:

Initial presales indicated a potential for $40m and the long range tracking was $30-40m for weeks. 

 

Going to keep this to the tracking side.

 

Don't know if you saw this post of mine earlier, but here is a potential explanation:

 

22 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

I'm the absolute wrong person to ask on IMs.  Just not my specialty.  Have to think at least 10x though.  Length alone is gonna push this back, film-bros notwithstanding.

 

===

 

The only real concern I have with frontloading isn't so much it appealing to film nerds and history buffs... it's that it's been a Known Quantity for so long that the typical Late Awareness/Oh, This Is Actually Coming Out/This Is Actually Good that a lot of GA adult skewing films get late in their pre-sale runs was baked in long ago.

 

Or, to put it a different way: There was no review based walkup bump because reviews were known looooooong ago.  Something of an inverse Indy 5 where there was a bump in sales/pace earlier thanks to folks knowing it was (unsurprisingly) good but wasn't sustained in the later end of the pre-sale run.

 

I keep coming back to a passing observation @M37 made a few months ago (and I'm paraphrasing here) that one of the components of the social media embargo boost is just reminding folks "Hey, folks, movie coming out Real Soon Now".  If KOTFM never really got that sort of boost in awareness, or more accurately got it early, then perhaps this limp to the finish line shouldn't be so surprising.

 

If it is.  And, again, even if it is might not say all that much about the OW itself, given the length and everything else.

 

 

As I thought about it yesterday I do think that folks knowing about the quality of this film long in advance + residual hype from Oppenheimer led to a stronger and it turns out unsustainable start for Killers of the Flower Moon. 

 

Not getting an Awareness Shot in the Arm (and here the SAG strike didn't help matters) + 3.5 hour long movie = Not Quite As Rosy As Some Here Had Hoped.

 

In other words, it had something of a double whammy of (relative) fan rush and an early review lift.  Add in lack of SAG promotion and, well, there it is.