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

[Grand Cine]

3 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Wish has added up to some sales in MiniTC2 for an original animation this far out. Could be a rare Disney W these days, especially after 2 disastrous Thanksgiving weekend. 

Could you imagine Wish have a better week/weekend than Trolls 3 ?

[Boxofficerules]

23 minutes ago, Grand Cine said:

Good for the budget , i think if the movie makes like 300-350M , i think it's a little victory for Lionsgate because outside John Wick , it's not a good year for them.

Saw X did well.

[Shawn Robbins]

10 hours ago, Borobudur said:

Until strike is over, there is no hope for the movie to pick up momentum in the final stage of presale.

I would disagree on this. Most horror films of this ilk are the least impacted by the strike and are more capable of organic late stage pre-sales and walk-up business due to the nature of the genre and youth appeal, especially without major stars that would move the needle on the promotional trail (no disrespect to Josh Hutcherson).

[Shawn Robbins]

1 hour ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

My gut says a little high with $78M, but more in the ballpark than last week:).

 

If you want someone who's been pushing all month that ending/last minute/walk up sales are just not there after student loans and school restarted...

 

Last week was $73M.

[TwoMisfits]

1 minute ago, Shawn said:

Last week was $73M.

 

Nah, I was talking about KOTFM's last estimate before open:)...

 

But $73M for FNAF - that was such a good number...why change?:)

[M37]

23 minutes ago, Eric Fazbear said:

I mean Universal has done the exact same playbook. Sing had sneak previews on the opening Saturday of Moana, Sing 2 on the opening Saturday of Encanto, Puss in Boots 2 the opening Saturday of Strange World. It's a free country, so why not copy the competition and play dirty right back?

It wasn’t about “playing dirty”, taking business away, but questioning the ROI. The purpose of a sneak like that is to draw an audience and build WOM before main opening, and I’m not sure that particular day against that specific competition, only a few days before real previews, is going to have the drawing power one would hope for an advance screening 

 

At least with the Universal EAs, it’s day 4(.5) of a 5(.5)-day holiday weekend when business is already inflated overall, especially for families, not the first non-work day of the new openings, as well as being a big travel day. And a few weeks before opening, where it’s really a special opportunity for first watch 

[Shawn Robbins]

Friendly warning for After Death counters: That is an Angel Studios release, the same crowdfunding studio behind Sound of Freedom and His Only Son. Those and other faith-based films like Jesus Revolution, The Chosen, and Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist from recent times are probably going to be more relevant comps than traditional Hollywood titles.

[Shawn Robbins]

6 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Nah, I was talking about KOTFM's last estimate before open:)...

 

But $73M for FNAF - that was such a good number...why change?:)

 

If it's close enough, I sense Universal will help it get the Blumhouse record opening over Halloween 2018. Possibly even the day-and-date record over Black Widow, but we'll see about that one.

[Giorno]

The Marvels (D-14):

 

691 tickets sold at 10 Houston AMC's/+21 YD

 

 

[Shawn Robbins]

54 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Nah, I was talking about KOTFM's last estimate before open:)...

 

But $73M for FNAF - that was such a good number...why change?:)

 

46 minutes ago, Shawn said:

 

If it's close enough, I sense Universal will help it get the Blumhouse record opening over Halloween 2018. Possibly even the day-and-date record over Black Widow, but we'll see about that one.

Just to clarify, "the model" spit out a number north of $80M (over the Blum record) but I pulled it back (but still over Halloween) slightly to account for all the ATP/streaming/reviews/video game/etc. factors especially after pre-sale tracking (KOTFM included) has been skewed toward the high end for several films in the last month or so.

[Hilts]

2 hours ago, Arlborn said:

3 PM, really? I know it’s been happening a lot lately, but they might as well just officially incorporate Thursdays to the box office weekend with the way things are going.   
 

Midnight previews were actually fun, it felt cool and exclusive, it felt nice to be surrounded by just the big fans of a certain franchise, the hype was very palpable always. Now they’re just not as special, but oh well, I won’t digress further into the old man yells at clouds trope.

 

I've been thinking about the general shift to very early preview starting times, I understand in the summer it does make a bit more sense because of holidays etc. But why bother outside of that season as with work/school commitments those early afternoon shows are not exactly busy as shown by excellent recent data particularly from @vafrow - by the way are you extracting that manually? I am interested to do it but if it's a lot of extra time it may be too much for me.

 

I know we are just looking at a few samples here and there and these earlier shows probably do fill up quite a bit in certain regions when fan driven. But it probably could do with some tidying up. Bad example probably but who is watching Freelance at 4pm? I'm not surprised the 2pm FNAF showings are dead as target audience are all still at school!

Edited October 26, 2023 by Hilts

[Giorno]

2 minutes ago, Hilts said:

 

I've been thinking about the general shift to very early preview starting times, I understand in the summer it does make a bit more sense because of holidays etc. But why bother outside of that season as with work/school commitments those early afternoon shows are not exactly busy as shown by excellent recent data particularly from @vafrow - by the way are you extracting that manually? I am interested to do it but if it's a lot of extra time it may be too much for me.

 

I know we are just looking at a few samples here and there and these earlier shows probably do fill up quite a bit in certain regions when fan driven. But it probably could do with some tidying up. Bad example probably but who is watching Freelance at 4pm?

lets them beat opening weekend records which makes for great headlines/marketing 

[el sid]

Freelance had today for Thursday 46 sold tickets in 4 theaters.

Comps (all counted on Thursday of the release week for Thursday): Expend4bles (750k from previews) had 276 sold tickets,
Plane (435k) had 210
and Copshop (950k OD) had 49 sold tickets.
 

2M OW would be my guess 😬.

[TheFlatLannister]

19 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

Orlando-Daytona-Gainesville 

 

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S

 

Thursday Previews 

 

T-1

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
302	5455	58193	9.4%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

676

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

18

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-1

 

(1.174x) of Flash $11.39M Previews

(0.658x) of ATSV $11.41M Previews

(1.838x) of Fast X $13.79M Previews

(0.515x) of Barbie $10.87M Previews

Comps AVG: $11.87M

 

Show count is excellent, but it lost substantial ground against comps. Looks more like mid $11m than say $12m-$13m

Orlando-Daytona-Gainesville 

 

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S

 

Thursday Previews 

 

T-0 *Final Update

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
302	6489	58193	11.2%

^{*numbers taken as of 2:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

1034

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-0

 

(1.136x) of Flash $11.02M Previews

(0.581x) of ATSV $10.08M Previews

(1.686x) of Fast X $12.65M Previews

(0.600x) of GOTG 3 $10.50M Previews

Comps AVG: $11.06M

 

Hmmm, great finish but comps look more like $10M than say $12M+

Guess I'll go with $10.5M-$11M (would not be shocked with $10M flat tbh)

[JustLurking]

Is it a great finish if it's losing ground against most comps in most samples though? Just seems really frontloaded which is not surprising.

[Arlborn]

10 minutes ago, el sid said:

Freelance had today for Thursday 46 sold tickets in 4 theaters.

Comps (all counted on Thursday of the release week for Thursday): Expend4bles (750k from previews) had 276 sold tickets,
Plane (435k) had 210
and Copshop (950k OD) had 49 sold tickets.
 

2M OW would be my guess 😬.

2M sounds almost too generous. There’s literally no marketing for this movie, if I weren’t on here I wouldn’t know it even existed. Trailer seemed fine actually for what it’s going for, is it a classic case of being beaten to the punch by a better product? Since I’m sure that anyone who watches the trailer automatically thinks of Lost City of D

[el sid]

After Death, counted today for Thursday:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): no showtimes
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 18 (2 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 19 (2 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 0 (4 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 6 (4 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 15 (2 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 20 (3 showtimes)

 

Total tickets sold in 6 theaters: 78.

Comps: Overcomer (775k from previews) had on Thursday for Thursday 91 sold tickets
and Sound of Freedom (?) had on Tuesday for Tuesday 1.189 sold tickets.

After Death, counted today for Friday:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): no showtimes
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 29 (6 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 84 (3 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 0 (5 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 17 (7 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 18 (4 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 37 (4 showtimes)

 

Total tickets sold in 6 theaters: 185. Not frontloaded.

Comps (annoying how long it took me to find at least some presale numbers and box office results): Overcomer (2.25M true Friday) had on Thursday for Friday 34 sold tickets
and The Chosen: Season 3 (2.27M true Friday) had also on Thursday for Friday 378 sold tickets.
Sound of Freedom (14.2M OD including previews) had two days earlier, on Tuesday for Friday, 380 sold tickets.

And The Jesus Revolution (3.7M true Friday) had with 13 days left (Idk if the growth rates of that movie were better) 45 sold tickets (in 5 theaters).

 

So I see the same in my theaters: Terrible growth rates. But as I said yesterday Sound of Freedom was more of a genre mix and faith-based films often don't need huge presales to have ok weekend numbers. IMO the trailer is quite effective. Idk if it hurts that it's a documentary but almost 200 sold tickets for Friday is no bad number and the Angel Studios are now well known.
So overall I think After Death will find its audience. More than 5M OW, could also get 10M.

 

[vafrow]

33 minutes ago, Hilts said:

 

I've been thinking about the general shift to very early preview starting times, I understand in the summer it does make a bit more sense because of holidays etc. But why bother outside of that season as with work/school commitments those early afternoon shows are not exactly busy as shown by excellent recent data particularly from @vafrow - by the way are you extracting that manually? I am interested to do it but if it's a lot of extra time it may be too much for me.

 

I know we are just looking at a few samples here and there and these earlier shows probably do fill up quite a bit in certain regions when fan driven. But it probably could do with some tidying up. Bad example probably but who is watching Freelance at 4pm? I'm not surprised the 2pm FNAF showings are dead as target audience are all still at school!

 

Manual. And with recent changes, full manually counting. 

 

But, to keep track, I did set up the sheet to have a full showtime listing. Adding the data for showtime categories only required tagging each showtime in my spreadsheet.

 

I agree that the early time doesn't add much. Summers are a different story. But even then, it feels minor. I'm curious to see how data plays out if I stick with this approach.

 

The biggest factor reducing preview attendance in my view is that alot of people don't know that movies come out early. I rarely go see a movie in previews, but sometimes it's the most convenient time for me. When I tell someone, they're usually surprised it's out already.

[jeffthehat]

The Marvels T-14

 

Coverage - 10/33 Malco theaters

Show count - 32

Seats sold - 461

Total seats - 6048

% sold - 7.6%

 

Comp

 

Eras Fri T-14 = $4.08m / $2.21m ATP adjusted (-45%)

---

 

The Eras comp is obv low-balling. But what's interesting/sad is that Marvels has been keeping pace with it. At T-23 the comp was $2.24m ATP adjusted. 🙃

 

 

[M37]

38 minutes ago, Hilts said:

I've been thinking about the general shift to very early preview starting times, I understand in the summer it does make a bit more sense because of holidays etc. But why bother outside of that season as with work/school commitments those early afternoon shows are not exactly busy as shown by excellent recent data particularly from @vafrow 

I think it’s mostly that the ~3p Thursday start time has become “industry standard”, and it’s a very follow the leader mentality. To put it another way, why give up those shows - even with minimal business - and start later, when whatever opens next Thursday (particularly in PLF) will be taking those screens and shows away from your release 

 

Honestly at this point they should just move to a full day Thursday “preview” and let exhibitors figure out whatever start time makes sense operationally. Sometimes the start time + run time doesn’t make sense and leads to poor showtimes that actually limit potential business (see Oppy for example)