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

[Krissykins]

Does Madame Web have Tuesday previews? Or is Valentines Day a full day opening release? 

[filmlover]

10 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Does Madame Web have Tuesday previews? Or is Valentines Day a full day opening release? 

No Tuesday previews.

[leoh]

28 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

I have limited comp sets for my current tracking zone, so I only go back to November. But, Hunger Games feels like the most relevant among what I have.

 

I'll likely add Marvels, but, anything MCU is always front loaded, and the Valentine's Day factor for MW will likely lead to better walk ups. I also didn't track initial days on Marvels, so it'll only be relevant once I switch to T minus tracking. But, when I do add it, it's going to spit out a low number ($1M range) because of that front end demand and that I believe Marvels overperformed here.

 

Aquaman is the other, which I'm obviously using, but, it also only became available for sale very late in the run. It's going to give an inflated number for a few days when I switch.

 

 

Oh yeah I get it now, so now I agree you’re right, The Marvels was highly front loaded, I remember by the first days of pre sales people were projecting it to make 85M OW, but The Marvels ended up with 46M. So it makes sense you avoid using it as a comp.

 

So I agree with you about Hunger Games, it was way less front loaded. Then yeah I think you’re right, Aquaman and Hunger Games seem to be the best comps.

[el sid]

Argylle, counted today for today:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 162 (5 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 131 (6 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 6 (2 showtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 8 (4 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 20 (3 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 278 (6 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 392 (7 showtimes)

 

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 997.

Up so-so 18% since yesterday.

Comps (all films counted on Thursday of the release week for Thursday): The 355 (350k from previews) had 213 sold tickets = 1.65M.
Expend4bles (750k) had 210 = 2.7M.
Plane (435k) had 210 = 2.05M.
The Menu (1M) had 387 = 2.6M.
Bullet Train (4.6M) had 1.508 = 3.05M.

 

Average: 2.4M. But I fear that this number is still too optimistic because it lost in the comps since Monday and with these reviews, the walk-ups will probably not be great.
2M could be more realistic.

[keysersoze123]

Madame Web is not doing well anywhere. looking at NYC, 1 prime time imax show has sold 152/480. Minus that its terrible. Empire has sold very little and rest of the theaters are meh. This is a bad time to release this when SH movies are no longer the in thing. I am sure Sony will delay the reviews until as late as possible. I think Anyone but you will see a VD boost as they are releasing a new cut before that !!! 

[Porthos]

7 hours ago, vafrow said:

 

Dune Part 2, Western GTA (southern Ontario), T-29 Thursday previews and T-25 EA shows

 

Still, it's low growth, and likely bottom of the U as others have said.

 

For what it's worth, I think it still has a bit of dropping to do before leveling off in the u-curve territory. And even there it'll probably bounce up and down on any given day in a noisy way.

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

1 hour ago, leoh said:

Oh yeah I get it now, so now I agree you’re right, The Marvels was highly front loaded, I remember by the first days of pre sales people were projecting it to make 85M OW, but The Marvels ended up with 46M. So it makes sense you avoid using it as a comp.

 

So I agree with you about Hunger Games, it was way less front loaded. Then yeah I think you’re right, Aquaman and Hunger Games seem to be the best comps.

Who thought the Marvels would make 85M after day 1 of PS??? It was obviously not going close to that.

[keysersoze123]

4 minutes ago, Menor the Destroyer said:

Who thought the Marvels would make 85M after day 1 of PS??? It was obviously not going close to that.

He is confused by early industry projections(or Quorum which is even worse). I dont think any comps had it higher than Eternals Day 1. I did not track Day 1 but @Porthos or others can provide comps for sure. Amazing thing about Marvels was trend did not change at all. I thought the trend will improve relative to Eternals and that just did not happen. 

[leoh]

31 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

Madame Web is not doing well anywhere. looking at NYC, 1 prime time imax show has sold 152/480. Minus that its terrible. Empire has sold very little and rest of the theaters are meh. This is a bad time to release this when SH movies are no longer the in thing. I am sure Sony will delay the reviews until as late as possible. I think Anyone but you will see a VD boost as they are releasing a new cut before that !!! 

“Well” is a strong word in fact. Lol

 

But it’s still doing better than Aquaman, Blue Beetle and Morbius.

 

it’s better than I expected (I was like trashing it before the pre sales ngl lol)

 

I was watching the NFL conference (which had around 60M viewers this year) and I saw a couple of Madame Web TV Spots there (what is kinda surprising given that NFL playoffs and conference championship games draw has some of the most expensive TV spots). So I guess an improvement in marketing campaigns is helping it to get a decent growth in locations other trackers posted here.

WoM seems to be decisive for superhero movies nowadays, let’s see how it does in the coming days.

 

[leoh]

8 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

He is confused by early industry projections(or Quorum which is even worse). I dont think any comps had it higher than Eternals Day 1. I did not track Day 1 but @Porthos or others can provide comps for sure. Amazing thing about Marvels was trend did not change at all. I thought the trend will improve relative to Eternals and that just did not happen.

Edited February 2 by leoh

[misterpepp]

Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training tix on sale tomorrow

[Jerri Blank-Diggler]

On 1/29/2024 at 6:25 PM, abracadabra1998 said:

 

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

The Chosen, Season 4, Eps 1-3 (T-3):

Day: T-3	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 13 theaters	23	69	601	2171	27.68

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		0	0	0
MTC1:		281	243	46.76
Marcus:		145	141	24.13
Alamo:		0	0	0
Other chains:		175	148	29.12

 

Comps:

4.45x The Shift: $1.66 Million

3.18x After Death: $1.27 Million

 

Average: $1.47 Million

 

I'm curious if you're going to be able to post a T-0 or an Opening Day for this one. Previous Chosen episodes have been doing well, but in the latest Box Office Pro forecast, this is now predicted to just earn $3.2 Million for the entire weekend. As of last Friday, BOP had Chosen's FSS at $7-11 M, but suddenly the FSS estimate range is down to $2.5-$5.5 M with that pinpoint at $3.2 M, which would put it down all the way at #7 for the weekend. I'm pretty surprised at this big drop for such a previously dependable performer.

 

Shawn mentioned the longer runtime of this Chosen event in comparison to previous ones, which is a fair point. I hadn't realized that this Chosen event stretches to almost a KOTFM length at just under 3.5 hours (with short intermissions between episodes). That said, there is a devoted, "faithful" fanbase here, and it looks like it will be months before any of these Season 4 episodes will be made available to stream, so this fanbase either has to go to the theater or wait several months. I've looked at theaters around me, and many are filling up throughout the weekend. Are you seeing positive or negative trends in your area?

Edited February 1 by Jerri Blank-Diggler

[babz06]

4 hours ago, VanillaSkies said:

It was bound to happen, and smart of Sony too.

 

https://x.com/filmupdates/status/1753075344368968124?s=46

 

Anyone But You: Valentine’s encore with extra footage out February 9th!

It should get a V-day boost. I wonder if that will be enough to get it past the century mark. That’s clearly what Sony is aiming for.

[TwoMisfits]

29 minutes ago, Jerri Blank-Diggler said:

 

I'm curious if you're going to be able to post a T-0 or an Opening Day for this one. Previous Chosen episodes have been doing well, but in the latest Box Office Pro forecast, this is now predicted to just earn $3.2 Million for the entire weekend. As of last Friday, BOP had Chosen's FSS at $7-11 M, but suddenly the FSS estimate range is down to $2.5-$5.5 M with that pinpoint at $3.2 M, which would put it down all the way at #7 for the weekend. I'm pretty surprised at this big drop for such a previously dependable performer.

 

Shawn mentioned the longer runtime of this Chosen event in comparison to previous ones, which is a fair point. I hadn't realized that this Chosen event stretches to almost a KOTFM length at just under 3.5 hours (with short intermissions between episodes). That said, there is a devoted, "faithful" fanbase here, and it looks like it will be months before any of these Season 4 episodes will be made available to stream, so this fanbase either has to go to the theater or wait several months. I've looked at theaters around me, and many are filling up throughout the weekend. Are you seeing positive or negative trends in your area?

 

The release date is also a mistake.  If you want faith goers, Lent starts Feb 14 and ends with Easter on Mar 31.

 

So, I'd have timed the episodes as follows...

 

1-2 Feb 14-Feb 27

3-4 Feb 28-Mar 12

5-6 Mar 13-Mar 26

7-8 (into the Triduum) Mar 27- Apr 9

 

One of those "make Chosen a part of your Lenten experience"...

 

But I'm sure it was the tightness expected late March and the openness of early Feb that led to the dates and the division of the episodes into 3 parts and not 4...but the dates and release length are just not great for this release...

[M37]

On 1/31/2024 at 4:46 PM, vafrow said:

Valentine's Day is such a unique holiday though. I'm not sure of the more analytical types like @M37 have thoughts.

 

Since as noted, we very little data on Wed/Valentine's opening, decided to rope in the Thursday debuts as well to hopefully help illuminate. The data set still only includes 2 titles since 2013, but nonetheless there does seem to be an underlying pattern.

Here are the Friday to Monday daily grosses, as compared to the midweek Valentine's opening, whether it was on Wed or Thur

 

 

Some clear outliers: on the high end a more male skewing action flick in Jumper, as well as Alita (though if you include the Wed previews into the OD, it comes right back in line with the rest of the bunch, none of which had any previews of note). And on the low end, we the more Valentine's heavy titles like Safe Haven and Daddy's Little Girls. [Also, Isn't it Romantic actually opened on Wed, not Thur/V-Day, so could also see how it may have also dipped down into that lower range had some fraction of early demand not been burned off a day before]

 

More importantly, here's how that daily ebb and flow translates into respective multipliers, estimating a non-VDay Thursday value to fill in the blank for the the films that didn't actually have that day.

 

Title	3-Day	4-Day	6-Day (Est)
Alita TruVD (2019-Th)	4.52	5.31	6.68
Jumper (2008-Th)	4.13	4.84	6.21
Music & Lyrics (2007-W)	3.28	3.82	5.19
Alita Full OD (2019-Th)	3.24	3.80	5.17
Definitely Maybe (2008-Th)	3.13	3.68	5.05
Beautiful Creatures (2013-Th)	2.98	3.52	4.89
Good Day to Die Hard (2013-Th)	3.01	3.48	4.85
Step Up 2 (2008-Th)	2.87	3.35	4.72
Isn't it Romantic (2019-Wed*)	2.59	3.03	4.40
Daddy's Little Girls (2007-W)	2.45	2.86	4.23
Safe Haven (2013-Th)	2.42	2.77	4.14

 

With the caveat of this being a not so great data set, that cluster in the middle range sure seems like a decent place to set expectations, unless either of these films skew towards the high or low end outliers (or V-Day related movie habits have shifted a great deal over the past few years and we just don't have solid enough data to know it yet)

 

I think for Madame Web, my starting point would be Beautiful Creatures, with room to push higher. Off say a $4M OD/V-Day, would expect the rest of the extended weekend to be in the range of:

~$12M 3-day, $14M 4-day, and $20M 6-day

 

Not sure about Marley, though sales so far are suggesting its going to be V-Day heavier, and may track more like DLG, which didn't even manage a 3x V-Day for its ensuing 4-day weekend

Edited February 2 by M37

[abracadabra1998]

On 1/29/2024 at 5:25 PM, abracadabra1998 said:

 

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

The Chosen, Season 4, Eps 1-3 (T-3):

Day: T-3	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 13 theaters	23	69	601	2171	27.68

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		0	0	0
MTC1:		281	243	46.76
Marcus:		145	141	24.13
Alamo:		0	0	0
Other chains:		175	148	29.12

 

Comps:

4.45x The Shift: $1.66 Million

3.18x After Death: $1.27 Million

 

Average: $1.47 Million

 

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

The Chosen, Season 4, Eps 1-3 (T-1):

Day: T-3	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 15 theaters	29	108	709	2685	26.41

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		0	0	0
MTC1:		315	243	44.43
Marcus:		168	141	23.7
Alamo:		0	0	0
Other chains:		226	148	31.88

 

 

Growth Rate (%):
1-Day:	N/A
3-Day:	33.27

Comps (3-day growth rates in parentheses):

4.76x The Shift: $1.77 Million (23%)

2.86x After Death: $1.14 Million (45%)

8.86x Journey to Bethlehem: $2.21 Million (110%)

 

Average: $1.71 Million

 

These numbers are from yesterday, I just didn't have time to post them. Thinking around $1.5 Million for Thursday, though capacity issues at some theaters (most just have 2 or even 1 showings) might make that a lil lower. This really isn't the market for this kind of movie though, so shooting darts a bit. Let's go with $1.5 Million, +/- 0.25.

 

(@Jerri Blank-Diggler)

[TheFlatLannister]

20 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

ARGYLLE

 

Thursday Previews

 

T-1

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
438	2746	82493	3.3%

^{*numbers taken as of 8:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

361

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-1

 

(0.606x) of Mean Girls $1.99M 

(2.104x) of Night Swim $3.16M 

 

AVG: $2.58M

 

It's in a complete free fall...Kind of expected 

FLORIDA 

 

ARGYLLE

 

Thursday Previews

 

T-0 *Final Update

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
438	3556	82493	4.3%

^{*numbers taken as of 5:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

810

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-0

 

(0.716x) of Mean Girls $2.36M

 

Going with $2.2M +/- $0.2M

 

Could be worse, I guess 

[abracadabra1998]

17 hours ago, abracadabra1998 said:

 

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Argylle (T-1):

Day: T-1	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 20 theaters	71	53	355	11587	3.06

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		259	34	72.96
MTC1:		256	38	72.11
Marcus:		14	4	3.94
Alamo:		38	4	10.7
Other chains:		47	7	13.24

 

 

Growth Rate (%):
1-Day:	17.55
3-Day:	74.88

 

Comps (1-day and 3-day growth rates in parentheses):

0.39x Napoleon: $1.17 Million (50%, 124%)

0.32x KOFM: $840k (23%, 64%)

1.48x Haunting in Venice: $1.63 Million (18%, 90%)

1.97x Iron Claw: $1.32 Million (19%, 71%)

0.48x Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: $2.31 Million (26%, 73%)

0.77x Blue Beetle: $2.54 Million (28%, 95%)

 

Average: $1.64 Million

 

Bleh final day and final week. I will likely do a final update tomorrow but from here and with the bad reviews I have a hard time seeing it even reach 2 million

 

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Argylle (T-1 hour):

Day: T-1 hour	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 20 theaters	70	223	578	11249	5.14

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		379	120	65.57
MTC1:		371	115	64.19
Marcus:		39	25	6.75
Alamo:		51	13	8.82
Other chains:		117	70	20.24

 

 

Growth Rate (%):
1-Day:	62.82
3-Day:	143.88

 

Comps (1-day and 3-day growth rates in parentheses):

0.39x KOFM: $1.02 Million (33%, 90%)

0.73x Blue Beetle: $2.41 Million (71%, 162%)

2.73x Last Voyage of Demeter: $2.04 Million (53%, 207%)

 

Average: $1.82 Million

 

Obviously don't have as many T-0 comps as I would like but honestly not the worst T-0 data. Wonder if we will see it across the board or if my area is just catching up a bit to everywhere else. Kinda looking at both this and yesterday's data I will put my final prediction at 1.8 Million, +/- 0.3. Gonna just keep adding some good T-1 hour data hopefully, but it's tough when so many movies start previews so early these days.

[abracadabra1998]

Did not mean to stir up this much stuff with my post yesterday lol but can confirm that Marley went on sale for both Alamo and MTC1 at some time between T-21 and T-18, when it actually started sales 24 days before. It did show some early strength in local chains which is why I have been encouraged by it ever since.

[vafrow]

20 minutes ago, M37 said:

 

Since as noted, we very little data on Wed/Valentine's opening, decided to rope in the Thursday debuts as well to hopefully help illuminate. The data set still only includes 2 titles since 2013, but nonetheless there does seem to be an underlying pattern.

Here are the Friday to Monday daily grosses, as compared to the midweek Valentine's opening, whether it was on Wed or Thur

 

 

Some clear outliers: on the high end a more male skewing action flick in Jumper, as well as Alita (though if you include the Wed previews into the OD, it comes right back in line with the rest of the bunch, none of which had any previews of note). And on the low end, we the more Valentine's heavy titles like Safe Haven and Daddy's Little Girls. [Also, Isn't it Romantic actually opened on Wed, not Thur/V-Day, so could also see how it may have also dipped down into that lower range had some fraction of early demand not been burned off a day before]

 

More importantly, here's how that daily ebb and flow translates into respective multipliers, estimating a non-VDay Thursday value to fill in the blank for the the films that didn't actually have that day.

 

Title	3-Day	4-Day	6-Day (Est)
Alita TruVD (2019-Th)	4.52	5.31	6.68
Jumper (2008-Th)	4.13	4.84	6.21
Music & Lyrics (2007-W)	3.28	3.82	5.19
Alita Full OD (2019-Th)	3.24	3.80	5.17
Definitely Maybe (2008-Th)	3.13	3.68	5.05
Beautiful Creatures (2013-Th)	2.98	3.52	4.89
Good Day to Die Hard (2013-Th)	3.01	3.48	4.85
Step Up 2 (2008-Th)	2.87	3.35	4.72
Isn't it Romantic (2019-Wed*)	2.59	3.03	4.40
Daddy's Little Girls (2007-W)	2.45	2.86	4.23
Safe Haven (2013-Th)	2.42	2.77	4.14

 

With the caveat of this being a not so great data set, that cluster in the middle range sure seems like a decent place to set expectations, unless either of these films skew towards the high or low end outliers (or V-Day related movie habits have shifted a great deal over the past few years and we just don't have solid enough data to know it yet)

 

I think for Madame Web, my starting point would be Beautiful Creatures, with room to push higher. Off say a $4M OD/V-Day, would expect the rest of the extended weekend to be in the range of:

~$12M 3-day, $14M 4-day, and $20M 6-day

 

Not sure about Marley, though sales so far are suggesting its going to be V-Day heavier, and may track more like DLG, which didn't even manage a 3x V-Day for its ensuring 4-day weekend

 

Just so you know, I felt bad calling on you by name, but I do love those sweet, sweet charts!

 

In all seriousness though, this is very helpful. Valentine's Day is one of the weirder variables.  When I realized how few situations that we've had like this, it made me realize how challenging that multiplier guess is, but I think you've pinned down a solid range.