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

[vafrow]

27 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Is Madame Web tracking above Bob Marley for Thursday onwards? Would be funny if MW got #1 for the weekend. 

 

Right now, Valentine's Day has One Love above the 2x mark over MW in my tracking, and more importantly, in Keys tracking.

 

Even best case scenario for MW, and worst case scenario for OL, that's likely too big a gap to bridge. And I can't see MW being too high along best case scenarios given reception.

 

Edit: Similar patterns observed for The Flat Lannister, abracadabra and jeffthehat as well. However, I'm probably spoiling the pretty charts and graphs that M37 is working on as we speak.

Edited February 13 by vafrow

[leoh]

7 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

Right now, Valentine's Day has One Love above the 2x mark over MW in my tracking, and more importantly, in Keys tracking.

 

Even best case scenario for MW, and worst case scenario for OL, that's likely too big a gap to bridge. And I can't see MW being too high along best case scenarios given reception.

both movies has bad reception, WB around 20% and OL around 35% on rotten tomatoes

 

I remember the Indie Wire calling them the hopes for February box office lol

Edited February 13 by leoh

[leoh]

43 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Is Madame Web tracking above Bob Marley for Thursday onwards? Would be funny if MW got #1 for the weekend. 

OL is well ahead of MW only on VDay, in AMC NY theaters the rest of the OW they are pretty close and walks up will decide who’s the winner. Some trackers have madame web ahead of OL on Thursday in their local American markets.

 

Yet it’s now pretty unpredictable given that we already know both have had a bad reception (MW ~20% and OL ~35% on rotten tomatoes)

 

 

Edited February 13 by leoh

[M37]

1 hour ago, Krissykins said:

Is Madame Web tracking above Bob Marley for Thursday onwards? Would be funny if MW got #1 for the weekend. 

I think it will be fairly close after Wed, but Marley has such a high relative starting value - and Madame not likely to have a WOM push - that Marley still probably wins the 3 & 4-day weekend, and the 6-day.

 

At like say $8M to $5M for their ODs (which could be too high and too low respectively), would still project to (based on multi math I worked out before) something like $20M vs $17.5 for the 4-day, unless Marley just absolutely crashes post V-Day. The Vow, which opened the Friday before, had a 2.3x V-Day (Tue) to 4-day Pres weekend ratio, and that is the lowest I've found in years where V-Day fell on a weekday

[keysersoze123]

1 hour ago, Krissykins said:

Is Madame Web tracking above Bob Marley for Thursday onwards? Would be funny if MW got #1 for the weekend. 

Unlikely. MW was ahead early on but Marley has gone ahead and the pace is also better. 

[TheTom]

20 minutes ago, M37 said:

I think it will be fairly close after Wed, but Marley has such a high relative starting value - and Madame not likely to have a WOM push - that Marley still probably wins the 3 & 4-day weekend, and the 6-day.

 

At like say $8M to $5M for their ODs (which could be too high and too low respectively), would still project to (based on multi math I worked out before) something like $20M vs $17.5 for the 4-day, unless Marley just absolutely crashes post V-Day. The Vow, which opened the Friday before, had a 2.3x V-Day (Tue) to 4-day Pres weekend ratio, and that is the lowest I've found in years where V-Day fell on a weekday

 

I think OL seems to heading to have the biggest crash ever post OD box office. MTC1 tracked by @keysersoze123 shows it has sold for Friday only 15% of its VDay OD, I don’t know if any movie with a wide release has ever performed in pre-sales as bad as OL (regarding post OD drop).

 

If it was good like TCP it could still hold a bit, but on Rotten Tomatoes OL has only 35%

Edited February 13 by TheTom

[M37]

31 minutes ago, TheTom said:

 

I think OL seems to heading to have the biggest crash ever post OD box office. MTC1 tracked by @keysersoze123 shows it has sold for Friday only 15% of its VDay OD, I don’t know if any movie with a wide release has ever performed in pre-sales as bad as OL (regarding post OD drop).

 

If it was good like TCP it could still hold a bit, but on Rotten Tomatoes OL has only 35%

Looking back at TCP, the Boxing Day presales were running at about 25% of Xmas Day, but the gross drop was closer to 50% (removing the ~$3M in prerelease screenings). That’s because Xmas - like V-Day - is a known busy day which increases the need to pre-buy, while Boxing Day is more walk-up friendly 

 

I expect the same here, maybe a 50% drop from Wed to Fri, not a total crash in line with the 15% ratio

[TheTom]

2 minutes ago, M37 said:

Looking back at TCP, the Boxing Day presales were running at about 25% of Xmas Day, but the gross drop was closer to 50% (removing the ~$3M in prerelease screenings). That’s because Xmas - like V-Day - is a known busy day which increases the need to pre-buy, while Boxing Day is more walk-up friendly 

 

I expect the same here, maybe a 50% drop from Wed to Fri, not a total crash in line with the 15% ratio

Idk but there are other factors, the fact that TCP had a great reception (85% on Rotten Tomatoes) and OL is having a bad reception (35%) plus its drop from OD pre sales seems to be even bigger than TCP… then would this make quite likely a bigger drop than 50%?????
 

[Tinalera]

Madame Web 

Toronto and Montreal Canada

Wed Feb 14 to Fri Feb 16 (last day before Wed)

 

Toronto	# theatre	#show	Seats Sold	Seats Rem	Ttl seat	Percent
Wed	4	21	403	5113	5516	0.0730
Thurs	4	23	68	6876	6944	0.0097
Fri	3	16	92	3745	3837	0.0239
Montreal	# theatre	#show	Seats Sold	Seats Rem	Ttl seat	Percent
Wed	4	20	209	6866	2963	0.0705
Thurs	4	20	50	6569	6619	0.0075
Fri	2	11	87	3254	3341	0.0260

 

No those Friday number of theatres is correct, More of Northern fun with removing shows or not adding any with opening  just ahead. (Montreal is really a fun one to do, never quite know how many theatres will show up for presales)

[M37]

1 hour ago, TheTom said:

Idk but there are other factors, the fact that TCP had a great reception (85% on Rotten Tomatoes) and OL is having a bad reception (35%) plus its drop from OD pre sales seems to be even bigger than TCP… then would this make quite likely a bigger drop than 50%?????
 

Having a good RT score doesn’t matter if it fails in expanding the audience base. And still comparing Boxing Day Tue, a solid presale day in its own right, to a nothing special GA Friday

 

Just think Marley is going to be a more favorable, casual/walk-up friendly film as a biopic of a famous musician

[el sid]

Yesterday it had 1.487 sold tickets for Wednesday. Up fine 81.5% since last Wednesday.
 

Bob Marley: One Love, counted today for tomorrow:

NY (AMC Fresh Meadows 7): 617 (8 showtimes)
Miami (AMC Sunset Place 24): 309 (10 showtimes)
Grand Rapids (AMC Grand Rapids 18): 94 (7 howtimes)
Austin (AMC Lakeline 9): 69 (4 showtimes)
Tempe/Phoenix (AMC Centerpoint 11): 160 (7 showtimes)
San Francisco (AMC Metreon 16): 274 (8 showtimes)
LA (AMC Universal): 391 (13 showtimes)

 

Total tickets sold in 7 theaters: 1.914.

Up decent 28% since yesterday.
Comps: Respect (650k from previews/2.95M true Friday/8.8M OW 3-day) had on Thursday of the release for Friday 247 sold tickets = 22.85M (very probably a bit too optimistic).
I Wanna Dance with Somebody (750k from previews/1.25M true Friday/5.3M OW 3-day) had also on Thursday for Friday 220 sold tickets = 10.85M.
And House of Gucci (1.3M from previews/2.9M true Friday/22M OW 5-day) had on Tuesday for Wednesday 548 sold tickets = 10.15M.
 

The Color Purple (18.15M OD) had with 6 days left 1.318 sold tickets. I guess that TCP finally had over 2k sold tickets but not so much more so BM: OL came pretty close.

 

The average of the three comps above (without TCP) would be 14.6M. That sounds a bit too good but in every comp it gets more than 10M OD. It's also a good sign that it does well in every region. So my guess is that it will reach low double digits OD.

[vafrow]

16 minutes ago, M37 said:

Having a good RT score doesn’t matter if it fails in expanding the audience base. And still comparing Boxing Day Tue, a solid presale day in its own right, to a nothing special GA Friday

 

Just think Marley is going to be a more favorable, casual/walk-up friendly film as a biopic of a famous musician

 

This has been my thinking as well. It's still going to be front loaded to some degree, but it's managing to grow it's expectations as it's opening gets closer. The poor reviews haven't slowed it down.

 

The main thing a musical biopic has to do to have decent word of mouth is to leave audiences on a high note. I feel that shouldn't be too challeng for a Bob Marley film.

 

There's still limits to the potential audience, but, in the barren wasteland of the current marketplace, this provides a pretty accessible option.

[TheTom]

38 minutes ago, M37 said:

Having a good RT score doesn’t matter if it fails in expanding the audience base. And still comparing Boxing Day Tue, a solid presale day in its own right, to a nothing special GA Friday

 

Just think Marley is going to be a more favorable, casual/walk-up friendly film as a biopic of a famous musician

it has already been released in other markets, and audience score is bad as well, on letterbox OL has only 3 stars, which means a bad reception from audience as well… audience score so far on letterbox shows it is having a bad WoM

Edited February 13 by TheTom

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

5 hours ago, filmlover said:

The late 70s/early 80s are now far enough in the past that making a project set during that era will naturally be expensive, especially if we're talking any part of the entertainment industry. One day it's going to cost a pretty penny to recreate the 2010s.

 

But also as @Cmasterclay pointed out, the sets also mean recreating concerts where you'll have to pay and costume hundreds (thousands?) of extras unless you go the Bohemian Rhapsody route and create a mostly CGI audience. That's naturally going to balloon the budget a bit.

Iron Claw takes place beginning in the 70s with an actual A-list actor and features crowd scenes yet cost under 20million

 

Elvis reportedly cost 85m with Tom Hanks and during the pandemic

[Krissykins]

Thanks for the clarification everyone, I thought that Bob Marley was doing a Color Purple and VD was extra inflated for it for some reason then it was falling off a cliff.

 

It has sell outs here tomorrow night, so seems like it could do well other places. Crazy to me that it’s 6 day will be more than Whitney Houston’s total. 

[VanillaSkies]

Maybe it’s just me who is bothered by this, but can we stop saying either of these films is having a bad reception before they are even out to audiences. They have bad reviews from critics. We all know that this is not the same as bad reception from general audiences. Anyone But You is the latest great example of that. It has a rotten critic score but is high with general audiences and has legs like nothing we’ve seen in so long, both domestic and foreign. 
 

One Love and Madame Web could have vastly different audience reception from one another. That is when the true winner of the weekend will emerge. 

[VanillaSkies]

2 hours ago, TheTom said:

it has already been released in other markets, and audience score is bad as well, on letterbox OL has only 3 stars, which means a bad reception from audience as well… audience score so far on letterbox shows it is having a bad WoM

According to The Numbers, a reliable source, it hasn’t opened in any markets yet. 
 

https://m.the-numbers.com/movie/Bob-Marley-One-Love-(2024)#tab=international

[JustWatching]

25 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Thanks for the clarification everyone, I thought that Bob Marley was doing a Color Purple and VD was extra inflated for it for some reason then it was falling off a cliff.

 

It has sell outs here tomorrow night, so seems like it could do well other places. Crazy to me that it’s 6 day will be more than Whitney Houston’s total. 

it’s also been drifting upward on RT. Now at 42. Won’t get to fresh but at least it won’t have a scary number in the teens like MW.

[leoh]

7 minutes ago, JustWatching said:

it’s also been drifting upward on RT. Now at 42. Won’t get to fresh but at least it won’t have a scary number in the teens like MW.

both are bad movies for the critics, obviously audience reception may differ heavily. We will find out tomorrow 

[filmlover]

34 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Thanks for the clarification everyone, I thought that Bob Marley was doing a Color Purple and VD was extra inflated for it for some reason then it was falling off a cliff.

 

It has sell outs here tomorrow night, so seems like it could do well other places. Crazy to me that it’s 6 day will be more than Whitney Houston’s total. 

To be fair, there was arguably more Whitney Fatigue than Whitney Nostalgia a mere decade after her death when the biopic (which couldn't even claim to have been the first, Lifetime produced one about her in 2015) arrived. In retrospect, it's not too much of a surprise no one was there for it.