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

[Issac Newton]

Devera (T-9 Days)

 

$1,420,773 - 580 Locs - 1,637 Shows - 48,186 Tix Sold

 

Incl. Canada $1.52M. WKend PS $1.9M NA

[vafrow]

22 hours ago, vafrow said:

 

Transformers One, T-3, Western GTA (southern Ontario), Thursday Previews and Early Access shows 

 

Previews

Total Sales: 31

New Sales: 1

Growth: 3%

Theatres: 5

Showtimes: 13

Tickets per Showtime: 2.4

Chains tracked: MTC4

Ticket Premium in effect: Y

 

Wednesday EA Shows

Showtimes: 1

EA Sales: 23

New sales: 2

Growth: 21%

 

Previews Sales by Showtime

Late Afternoon: 2/1

Early Evening: 12/6

Late Evening: 17/6

 

Preview Sales by Format

Dolby: 3/3

Dolby 3D: 13/4

IMAX: 9/4

4DX: 6/2

 

Comps (preview to preview)

0.109x KFP4 for $0.5M

0.157x IO2 for $2.0M

0.061x DM4 for $1.7M

2.818x Garfield for $5.4M

0.348x GB:FE

 

Average: $2.3M (incl Garfield)

 

This stayed flat when things usual accelerate, and it's getting punished in the comps. To the point where I'm including Garfield in the mix, as there's risk that they could be comparable at the end here.

 

I see it doing well in more predictable markets like Florida, so this should just be a data point, not a definitive prediction. We'll just need to see how final days play out.

 

Transformers One, T-2, Western GTA (southern Ontario), Thursday Previews and Early Access shows 

 

Previews

Total Sales: 54

New Sales: 23

Growth: 71%

Theatres: 5

Showtimes: 13

Tickets per Showtime: 4.2

Chains tracked: MTC4

Ticket Premium in effect: Y

 

Wednesday EA Shows

Showtimes: 1

EA Sales: 40

New sales: 17

Growth: 74%

 

Previews Sales by Showtime

Late Afternoon: 4/1

Early Evening: 29/6

Late Evening: 21/6

 

Preview Sales by Format

Dolby: 9/3

Dolby 3D: 21/4

IMAX: 16/4

4DX: 8/2

 

Comps (preview to preview)

0.163x KFP4 for $0.8M

0.240x IO2 for $3.1M

0.077x DM4 for $2.1M

3.000x Garfield for $5.8M

0.545x GB:FE for $2.6M

 

Average: $2.9M

 

Well, it finally got the kick it needed. Later than I hoped, but we're back to something reasonable here, especially if it's indicative of growth curve we'll see as walk ups. Getting to low $3M range, plus strong EA shows puts $4M on the table.

 

Growth is heavily concentrated in the early shows, likely an indication of families showing up.

 

It's important to note that this gained on all comps, including Garfield, which was at such a low baseline that moderate sales at the end were creating a high growth curve. To outpace that is impressive, especially when it was flat yesterday.

[THUNDER BIRD]

3 hours ago, Cooper Legion said:

Spring 2017 flashback intensifying 

What happened in spring 2017

[THUNDER BIRD]

2 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

For Megalopolis, I will just say they aren't the worst ever I have tracked.

Discussing Film on X(formerly Twitter) 

 

Another Box Office Pundit from Box Office Tracking Forum Box Office Theory has said that "Megalopolis pre sales aren't the worst pre sales he's tracked", showing that there's still hope for Francic Ford Coppola's Magnum Opus.

[vafrow]

On 9/15/2024 at 9:36 AM, vafrow said:

 

Joker: Folie a Deux, T-19, Western GTA (southern Ontario), Thursday Previews and Monday EA 

 

Total Sales: 71

New Sales: 5

Growth: 8%

Theatres: 5

Showtimes: 19

Tickets per Showtime: 3.7

Chains tracked: MTC4

Ticket Premium in effect: Y

 

Sales by Showtime

Late Afternoon: 6/4

Early Evening: 40/9

Late Evening: 25/6

 

Preview Sales by Format

Dolby: 29/7

VIP: 19/6

IMAX: 23/6

 

Comps

1.164x Beetlejuice² for $11.4M

0.208x Dune 2 for $2.0M

0.139x The Marvels for $0.9M

1.145x Alien Romulus for $7.4M

Average: $5.5M

 

Monday EA Sales

Total: 87

New sales: 6

Growth: 7%

Showings: 2 IMAX showing in radius 

 

EA Comp

0.221x Dune 2 for $0.4M

 

I added Alien Romulus as a comp. Not sure why I didn't think to add this before.

 

Growth is staying in a nice healthy range. The comps I do have at this stage started earlier, so were closer to the bottom of the U at the time, while Joker still has first week momentum. Still, it's not bad. Note, as I saw a few people here and elsewhere try to extrapolate this. This isn't a huge acceleration or anything. It's just good, decent growth after a very slow start.

 

Joker: Folie a Deux, T-16, Western GTA (southern Ontario), Thursday Previews and Monday EA 

 

Total Sales: 83

New Sales since T-19: 12

Growth: 17%

Theatres: 5

Showtimes: 19

Tickets per Showtime: 3.7

Chains tracked: MTC4

Ticket Premium in effect: Y

 

Sales by Showtime

Late Afternoon: 6/4

Early Evening: 50/9

Late Evening: 27/6

 

Preview Sales by Format

Dolby: 32/7

VIP: 25/6

IMAX: 26/6

 

Comps

1.258x Beetlejuice² for $12.3M

0.223x Dune 2 for $2.2M

0.264x The Marvels for $1.7M

1.078x Alien Romulus for $7.0M

Average: $5.8M

 

Monday EA Sales

Total:116

New sales: 29

Growth: 33%

Showings: 2 IMAX showing in radius 

 

EA Comp

0.286x Dune 2 for $0.6M

 

This has maintained a steady pace all week, on the higher end of my expectations. More comps will come online later this week, so I thought better to get an update out now for like to like comparisons, but it has increased against comps.

[vafrow]

Piece by Piece is up for sale on MTC4, but there's only two locations showing it in all of the Greater Toronto Area, and neither are in my radius.

 

I don't think this has huge commercial appeal or anything, but what's the point of this if it isn't getting a moderate release. 

[Eric Prime]

21 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

What happened in spring 2017

Long story short, a user here showed Wonder Woman tracking/presales. Information that was confidential. However, it was being shared not only in other forums, but was being directly tweeted to VPs and higher-ups for major theater chains. Again...confidential information that these companies probably hate us sharing in the first place. That's why we use MTC1 or MTC2 for everything.

 

This in turn led to the user who shared them afraid he would lose his job and we had to completely shut down the first tracking thread in favor of a new one. And from what I can gather, it was because Wonder Woman presales were being used as a vessel for fanboy wars. I don't know if it was DC fans bragging about how good their movie was doing, I don't know if it was Marvel fans dogging on it. Either way, it was really, very uncool, especially when it was all done for bragging rights on corporate children's movie franchises.

[Eric Prime]

I will also say that to the users out there looking to share this stuff outside of BOT, and I know you're reading this, that you should probably ask for users' permissions to do that instead of just doing it willy-nilly, especially when you're doing this to spread fale or exaggerated information. Because yes indeed, Megalopolis is not going to be the biggest bomb in movie history, and you are spreading misinformation for...whatever reason. Not sure why this is the movie getting this treatment of all things.

 

I know that this is a "public forum" and anybody can read it, but it's still pretty disrespectful to take other people's work and spread misinformation. I know that I really didn't like it when a random post I made where I speculated that maybe Guardians 3 might not reach 100M OW was then posted on Reddit. And then treated as gospel by Reddit as a way to start drama over the box office of a silly kids movie that was destined to make more money than we will ever make in our lifetimes. And while I'm not speaking for Lannister or other users, I would think it would be better to at least be courteous and respectful towards other users like this, because you don't know how they are gonna feel.

 

So yeah, if you're reading this, please just be a little more mindful.

[vale9001]

Adam Driver has 0 star appeal anyways. The movie is already cursed but having a male star with a least a minimum market wouldn't be bad for it. 

[M37]

Spoiler

 

13 hours ago, vafrow said:

One of the things I wonder is if the people running AI models have found us yet and are scraping our data. I believe we're far away from meeting the expectations that the tech industry says that AI will deliver, but theoretically, if we got there, an AI model with all this data could give someone the tools to enter in what sales are for a movie in their area for an upcoming film and spit out a forecast

One could easily write such a model now, but it’s a problem of precision: we know there is like a 99% probability of seeing a growth curve somewhere between ERAS and Minions 2, but that’s a VERY wide range off a given starting value. The human trackers attempt to narrow down that range with comps, similar films based on genre and other nuanced factors, but those are always subjective to a degree, both in selection and confidence level.
 

And while I wouldn’t classify it as AI in current form, that was essentially what my growth rate modeling was tying to do: project forward using the sole inputs of current sales and past trajectory, (nearly) independent of any information about the film in question, only the sales pattern. I do think a ML application could be written now under that umbrella, with some refinement in the process (and probably more data, especially on the small scale)

 

Spoiler

If I ever get off my ass and get around to actually coding rather than relying on the work of others, y’all better watch out! 

 

[M37]

1 hour ago, Eric the Marxist said:

I know that I really didn't like it when a random post I made where I speculated that maybe Guardians 3 might not reach 100M OW was then posted on Reddit. And then treated as gospel by Reddit as a way to start drama

I’m glad to see you finally take responsibility for all that GOTG3/reddit drama 🙃

[AniNate]

Good that it seems TFOne starting to pick up. With KFP4 weekend pace it would need 2.8 mil Thursday previews to hit the low end of Shawn's expectations (not including the EA/PLF fan event today)

[THUNDER BIRD]

2 hours ago, Eric the Marxist said:

Long story short, a user here showed Wonder Woman tracking/presales. Information that was confidential. However, it was being shared not only in other forums, but was being directly tweeted to VPs and higher-ups for major theater chains. Again...confidential information that these companies probably hate us sharing in the first place. That's why we use MTC1 or MTC2 for everything.

 

This in turn led to the user who shared them afraid he would lose his job and we had to completely shut down the first tracking thread in favor of a new one. And from what I can gather, it was because Wonder Woman presales were being used as a vessel for fanboy wars. I don't know if it was DC fans bragging about how good their movie was doing, I don't know if it was Marvel fans dogging on it. Either way, it was really, very uncool, especially when it was all done for bragging rights on corporate children's movie franchises.

Good answer, poor ending with last 2 lines, just like Wonder Woman. 

[vafrow]

11 minutes ago, M37 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

One could easily write such a model now, but it’s a problem of precision: we know there is like a 99% probability of seeing a growth curve somewhere between ERAS and Minions 2, but that’s a VERY wide range off a given starting value. The human trackers attempt to narrow down that range with comps, similar films based on genre and other nuanced factors, but those are always subjective to a degree, both in selection and confidence level.
 

And while I wouldn’t classify it as AI in current form, that was essentially what my growth rate modeling was tying to do: project forward using the sole inputs of current sales and past trajectory, (nearly) independent of any information about the film in question, only the sales pattern. I do think a ML application could be written now under that umbrella, with some refinement in the process (and probably more data, especially on the small scale)

 

  Hide contents

If I ever get off my ass and get around to actually coding rather than relying on the work of others, y’all better watch out! 

 

 

You're far more technical than I am, but I have no doubt that you could build something pretty robust.

 

I was thinking about more the open ended applications though, like ChatGpt and others.

 

Will these tools be robust enough to contextualize all the data, and let someone ask in a search engine what a movie is forecasted to make on real time data. Maybe? Possibly?

 

It's the type of thing AI advocates are promising. And every variable we have in our analysis is something that could be learned. It's probably years away if at all. 

 

It's just something I've been pondering. I think what drives people to seek out this site is that it's real data, with real people analyzing and assessing. 

[VanillaSkies]

9 hours ago, Flip said:

Every artsy movie sells well in NYC and LA though, especially if there’s EA involved

That is definitely not true. 
There are plenty of artsy movies that bomb in NY/LA and never end up expanding beyond because of it. 
 

Most theatres in NY/LA have added an additional showtime for Wednesday EA because it’s selling so well. That only happens when interest is there.

[HummingLemon496]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

I’m glad to see you finally take responsibility for all that GOTG3/reddit drama 🙃

Imma be honest GOTG 3 didn't even beat $100M by that much. It only did $118M and that required GREAT reception/WOM. 

[WorkingonaName]

10 minutes ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Imma be honest GOTG 3 didn't even beat $100M by that much. It only did $118M and that required GREAT reception/WOM. 

GOTG 3 had a disappointing opening?, You're just telling me now for the first time.   

[MightyDargon]

118 mil is much more than 100 mil, its nearly 20 mil more.

[Lux Lenchner]

43 minutes ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Imma be honest GOTG 3 didn't even beat $100M by that much. It only did $118M and that required GREAT reception/WOM. 

 

'Didn't beat $100M by that much' Huh??

[vafrow]

We probably shouldn't relitigate GOTG3 further, but I think anyone trying to criticize the under $100M forecasts doesn't quite understand the work that trackers do here. I wasn't tracking yet, but following that file spurred me to do so.

 

MCU films of a certain tier had a very predictable growth at that stage. They'd have high sales up front and then slow growth to release. Critical reception at the end would indicate if it accelerates better or worse than average.

 

GOTG3 broke that pattern hard. Sales were slow out the gate. It was perfectly reasonable to apply the normal comps, and they all were pointing low.

 

Things changed around two weeks prior, when the marketing push got pretty aggressive, the word of mouth circulated. And the comps all climbed. But Disney even broke their release patterns to get word of mouth earlier, likely responding to the negative sales trend.

 

It wasn't a guessing game. It was a data driven exercise by smart people with robust datasets. And anyone only looking at the final result is missing the full story that happened in behind.