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

[AniNate]

Definitely still impressive for an R rated movie. Unless I'm mistaken, DP&W now the leader in that stat by a significant margin even inflation adjusted

[M37]

Ok, this is only tangentially-tracking (and wordy), so under spoiler box it goes, but adding my thoughts to Thanksgiving projections talk

 

Spoiler

Just want to point out how casually some of y'all are throwing out history making Thanksgiving numbers, for not one but TWO films. Can it happen? Sure, why not! But maybe some perspective would be helpful

 

Fun fact: no film has opened to more than $93M over the 5-day Thanksgiving frame, with only 2 films ever having broken $100M, both sequels with massive hype and opening the Friday before: Frozen II and Catching Fire. Is the anticipation for the Moana ($250M) sequel on the the level of two $400M films? Maybe, maybe not.

 

With that said, Ralph Breaks the Internet turned a mostly forgettable $190M domestic run from the original into an $84M 5-day TG opening just 6 years later, and the original Moana already hit $82M for its 5-day, so getting to $100M+ seems totally plausible. [Before even getting into what 1999's Toy Story 2 and 2000's Grinch did in terms of admits]. But calling a $100M+ record-breaking, forecast a "lowball" seems a little dismissive to me, given how even that "low" of a number would be a new record, and top 3 all-time

 

Now roping in Glicked (or whatever name we're trying to crowbar in), Let's look at the overall TG grosses since 2010, when Disney started planting its flag on TG weekend for an animated release. (Its been a while since I exercised my charting muscles ...)

 

 

Pre-pandemic, the TG Top 10 was averaging around $240M in total. However, post-pandemic, that has fallen to around $150M, due large part to poor Disney releases (Strange World, Wish) as well as a general weakness in November releases as COVID and strike delays limited the slate

 

If current ballpark projections were taken at face value - Moana over $100M for the 5-day, Wicked as well for its OW (and so around that for the second/5-day), and Gladiator II opening around $50M - that would net approximately the estimated bar on the far right. Or a Top 4 total since 2010!

 

Is Wicked the new female-skewing YA craze (following Twilight, Potter, Hunger Games) for the pre-TG weekend, and is Moana going to set a new Thanksgiving weekend record - opening or perhaps overall? It's possible!  But either and certainly both of those outcomes would be an upstream outcome given long term and especially recent history for this holiday weekend

[MightyDargon]

I'd feel more comfortable with Wickiator if we had more projections from the Gladiator side. As it is we have mainly word from advanced screenings/reviews.

[AniNate]

1 hour ago, M37 said:

But calling a $100M+ record-breaking, forecast a "lowball" seems a little dismissive to me, given how even that "low" of a number would be a new record, and top 3 all-time

 

A $100m 5-day would essentially mean opening the same if not slightly worse than the first Moana's 5-day inflation adjusted and finishing around $300mil domestic if it also follows the first Moana's multiplier. Probably would be a solid profit for Disney still, but fair or not expectations for the movie have gone a lot higher now post-Inside Out 2 and with the longstanding streaming performance of the movie. Even if it's still a "record" in un-inflation adjusted dollars, it would honestly be pretty bafflingly disappointing if its opening weekend audience didn't expand at all from the first movie, especially with IO2 managing to increase 30% off the admissions of the already original movie record-setting opening of the first Inside Out.  

 

 

Edited Saturday at 04:17 PM by AniNate

[vale9001]

Frozen 2 marketing was waaaaay bigger than what Moana is getting imo.

 

Anyways for what I read around most people thought Frozen 2 is mediocre or okay but everyone agrees was like a superflous movie. This can impact expectations for another princess sequel.

 

The point with Disney animated classics is they are based on classic fables, classic books, folklore stories etc.. and they already have a very complete narrative arc with the original movie. Sequels feel forced and for this reasons before Frozen they never did big sequels made for the big screen.

 

Even if people watch and rewatch the original they can feel they don't need a sequel when it's about these very classic princesses stories.

 

What can work better with a sequel is Zootopia. It's a very "pixar" comedy and sequels have more sense for these kinda of stories. 

Edited Saturday at 03:31 PM by vale9001

[M37]

40 minutes ago, AniNate said:

 

A $100m 5-day would essentially mean opening the same if not slightly worse than the first Moana's 5-day inflation adjusted and finishing around $300mil domestic if it also follows the first Moana's multiplier. Probably would be a solid profit for Disney still, but fair or not expectations for the movie have gone a lot higher now post-Inside Out 2 and with the longstanding streaming performance of the movie. Even if it's still a "record" in un-inflation adjusted dollars, it would honestly be pretty bafflingly disappointing if its opening weekend audience didn't expand at all from the first movie, especially with IO2 managing to increase 30% off the admissions of the already original movie-record setting opening of the first Inside Out.  

 

 

The problem with straight inflation adjustment is that (as I have continued to beat the drum on), the movie-going audience audience has shrunk post-pandemic, but is being offset by those higher prices, the result being roughly a wash 

 

$84M in gross 7 years ago is about the same share of potential audience as $84M is now 

[AniNate]

3 minutes ago, M37 said:

The problem with straight inflation adjustment is that (as I have continued to beat the drum on), the movie-going audience audience has shrunk post-pandemic, but is being offset by those higher prices, the result being roughly a wash 

 

$84M in gross 7 years ago is about the same share of potential audience as $84M is now 

 

But then there's Inside Out 2's performance, which just threw a really huge wrench into that assumption.

[charlie Jatinder]

On 10/8/2024 at 12:15 PM, charlie Jatinder said:

Venom 3 MiniTC2 T-17 Days

 

Previews - 462/65204 (270 showings)

 

Comps

0.78x Venom 2 T-17 in CA locs - $9.5M adj for inflation

 

Black Adam T-17 - $5M+ adj for inflation

Aquaman 2 T-17 - $5.3M

 

Twisters T-17 - $8.5M (adj for under indexing)

Venom 3 MiniTC2 T-6 Days

 

Previews - 1013/74446 (300 showings)

 

Comps

~0.65x of Venom 2 at the same time in 15 locs - $8M adj for inflation

 

Aquaman 2 - $5.8M

Black Adam - $5M+ adj for inflation

 

Twisters - $7.5M (adj for under indexing)

[Chubbycc]

 

I have seen little promotions for Moana 2. I don’t understand why Disney isn’t giving it the Frozen 2 marketing. Even IO2 had much bigger marketing. Trailers and clips are not enough. And The Rock doesn’t have much pull like he use to. 
 

Universal is giving Wicked the Frozen marketing. And I think Disney hasn’t released the tickets for Moana yet cause they want to wait for Wicked tickets to slow down. But I don’t think it’s slowing down anytime soon. 
 

$100m 5 days for Moana isn’t shocking. This movie needs Frozen level marketing to get it a $1B. 
 

Is Disney banking on Mufasa? 

[M37]

1 hour ago, AniNate said:

 

But then there's Inside Out 2's performance, which just threw a really huge wrench into that assumption.

We’re getting way off topic here, but just to clear, I'm saying to take ~2012 and beyond pre-pandemic grosses at face value, not inflation adjust and then use as a baseline 

 

IO2 finished between Finding Dory & Incredibles 2, so there was precent for a large sequel increase - as there may be with Moana; just not to bump the original $84M to a higher number b/c of ticket increases, then also bump up for a sequel 

[titanic2187]

3 minutes ago, Chubbycc said:

 

I have seen little promotions for Moana 2. I don’t understand why Disney isn’t giving it the Frozen 2 marketing. Even IO2 had much bigger marketing. Trailers and clips are not enough. And The Rock doesn’t have much pull like he use to. 
 

Universal is giving Wicked the Frozen marketing. And I think Disney hasn’t released the tickets for Moana yet cause they want to wait for Wicked tickets to slow down. But I don’t think it’s slowing down anytime soon. 
 

$100m 5 days for Moana isn’t shocking. This movie needs Frozen level marketing to get it a $1B. 
 

Is Disney banking on Mufasa? 

 

What do you mean by "even". Both original IO and Frozen grossed way bigger than Moana. Not a surprise Disney doesn't try to match the marketing scale of the former two. 

[AniNate]

I mean, wicked has slowed down based on my last theater check. And there's still a month and a half to go. Most promotional campaigns even for huge blockbusters don't really begin until a month before release.

 

Google Trends data (which ultimately ended up being pretty useful for comparing TFOne and wild robot buzz) has them at about even until wicked obviously spiked when tickets went on sale

 

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 3-m&geo=US&q=%2Fg%2F11b_2659rr,%2Fg%2F11y2ynfw02&hl=en

[AniNate]

23 minutes ago, M37 said:

We’re getting way off topic here, but just to clear, I'm saying to take ~2012 and beyond pre-pandemic grosses at face value, not inflation adjust and then use as a baseline 

 

IO2 finished between Finding Dory & Incredibles 2, so there was precent for a large sequel increase - as there may be with Moana; just not to bump the original $84M to a higher number b/c of ticket increases, then also bump up for a sequel 

 

The original Inside Out opened in 2015 to $90 million which adjusts to $120mil today. Inside Out 2's opening beat that by close to 30%.

 

A similar audience expansion for Moana 2 would mean something like a $130-140mil opening. Think that's reasonable as a non underwhelming expectation to set, given how much the IP does seem to have grown to Frozen-level popularity since the first movie came out while at the same time acknowledging certain audience reservations about the sequel as a concept and lessened Disney enthusiasm in the wake of their last two bombs.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 05:39 PM by AniNate

[TalismanRing]

 

2 hours ago, AniNate said:

 

A $100m 5-day would essentially mean opening the same if not slightly worse than the first Moana's 5-day inflation adjusted and finishing around $300mil domestic if it also follows the first Moana's multiplier. Probably would be a solid profit for Disney still, but fair or not expectations for the movie have gone a lot higher now post-Inside Out 2 and with the longstanding streaming performance of the movie. Even if it's still a "record" in un-inflation adjusted dollars, it would honestly be pretty bafflingly disappointing if its opening weekend audience didn't expand at all from the first movie, especially with IO2 managing to increase 30% off the admissions of the already original movie record-setting opening of the first Inside Out. 

 

I'm repeating myself but the Deadline article headline was $100m but was using Quorum as a cited source which actually gave a $105-$115m number,

 

Quroum just gave us this gem of a prediction a day out which is all over the place.

 

Smile 2 T-1: 60.06% Awareness, 46.42% Interest

Final Awareness: 100% chance of 20M, 90% chance of 30M, 86% chance of 40M

Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 40M

Final Interest: 46% chance of 10M, 19% chance of 20M, 10% chance of 30M

Horror Interest: 43% chance of 10M, 11% chance of 20M, 4% chance of 30M

 

[Cooper Legion]

Adjusted OW/DPW/how big is mega opener now stuff:

Spoiler

 

9 hours ago, AniNate said:

Definitely still impressive for an R rated movie. Unless I'm mistaken, DP&W now the leader in that stat by a significant margin even inflation adjusted

Yes, it dethroned DP1's 170M. Although there is a strong argument to be made the Reloaded's OW would remain the adjusted winner if it had opened Fri. And Reloaded OW was almost certainly more impressive using a better across time comparison metric than simple atp.

 

And I don't agree that DPW would have opened bigger if it was pg13, probably smaller. I wouldn't quite set the bar for monster OWs now all the way at 300 but probably would move it up to 250. There are 8 movies now with an adjusted OW over 250, which is similar to the 8 movies with an adjusted ow over 200 that existed in 2018 between BP and IW.

More direct upcoming tracking related:

I tend to agree with M37 here in part. While product matters, there is also some degree of industrywide constraint on how much business is likely to occur in total on the Thanksgiving 5day, and that probably will not look like Gladiator, Wicked, and Moana all doing high end of expectations nums.    

 

On the other hand as usual I do not agree that nominal cash is more meaningful than tickets when it comes to setting baselines or ceilings of historical precedence.

[Cooper Legion]

5 hours ago, TalismanRing said:

Smile 2 T-1: 60.06% Awareness, 46.42% Interest

Final Awareness: 100% chance of 20M, 90% chance of 30M, 86% chance of 40M

Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 40M

Final Interest: 46% chance of 10M, 19% chance of 20M, 10% chance of 30M

Horror Interest: 43% chance of 10M, 11% chance of 20M, 4% chance of 30M

 

Note that Eric's % notes there based on quorum nums are quite different than actual predictions from the quorum itself. Although I agree with the larger point which is that their numbers have a, generously speaking, noisy connection to actual result

[HummingLemon496]

Legion what' your previews and Venom OW prediction based on sales

[Cooper Legion]

11 minutes ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Legion what' your previews and Venom OW prediction based on sales

Still a partial walkup believer, say 8->63 maybe

[AniNate]

38 minutes ago, Cooper Legion said:

that probably will not look like Gladiator, Wicked, and Moana all doing high end of expectations nums

 

I do expect Glicked (yes I'm running with that) will not have real impressive Thanksgiving holds. Catching Fire despite great word of mouth still dropped over 50% for the Thanksgiving 3 day, and Wicked seems like it's attracting a similar kind of demographic. They also will likely both be losing substantial PLF showtimes. Both should have solid recoveries over the Christmas season if the good buzz is there though.

Edited Sunday at 12:16 AM by AniNate

[HummingLemon496]

3 minutes ago, Cooper Legion said:

Still a partial walkup believer, say 8->63 maybe

Idk I'm thinking like 10 --> 80 still 

 

This is where the $100M budget comes in clutch