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

[Mulder]

Wonka has massive Mary Poppins vibes to me, complete with a bunch of people on here being convinced it'd blow up and then it didn't.

[Porthos]

25 minutes ago, Relevation said:

Ah. Point taken

 

 

Potentially waltzing in an even worse direction but I don’t believe Barbie’s first day was terribly frontloaded (big obv, but not really frontloaded). Would that work?

 

Barbs had one day of EA-only sales that also complicated things, but might be in a closer ballpark, sure.  Gonna say though that things like Oppenhemier might be a bit more appropriate.  Hesitate to say KOFTM given how relatively frontloaded that was, but maybe along those lines.

 

FWIW, I'm one of the few current trackers who has comps like Dune, and Nope and other potentially plausible ones from a couple of years back.  And even there, there are pitfalls (Nope had a super long pre-sale run and Dune did not).

 

Problem is what sort of target are we looking at here for previews and how front/backloaded do we think the run will be?  Answering those two questions goes a decent way into narrowing/looking for comps.

[ringedmortality]

Just now, Mulder said:

Wonka has massive Mary Poppins vibes to me, complete with a bunch of people on here being convinced it'd blow up and then it didn't.

I still think Mary Poppins Returns numbers for Wonka would be really good

[HummingLemon496]

Wonka might have some great late growth

[Bob Train]

4 minutes ago, Mulder said:

Wonka has massive Mary Poppins vibes to me, complete with a bunch of people on here being convinced it'd blow up and then it didn't.

Unlike Mary Poppins, people under the age of 50 have seen a movie featuring Willy Wonka in theaters. 

[filmlover]

2 minutes ago, ringedmortality said:

I still think Mary Poppins Returns numbers for Wonka would be really good

Same. I never saw any reason to believe this had a ceiling higher than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's $206M total nearly 20 years ago (which was largely powered by Depp goodwill from Pirates of the Caribbean 1 at the time).

[Mulder]

2 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

Unlike Mary Poppins, people under the age of 50 have seen a movie featuring Willy Wonka in theaters. 

Just like you said FNAF would have amazing drops.

[ringedmortality]

Just now, filmlover said:

Same. I never saw any reason to believe this had a ceiling higher than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's $206M total nearly 20 years ago (which was largely powered by Depp goodwill from Pirates of the Caribbean 1 at the time).

 

Yeah. IMO Wonka breaking out basically meant it would get to Mary Poppins Returns numbers. Though I guess breaking out mean like, actually I guess I'm just not sure what people mean when they say that

[Mulder]

Just now, ringedmortality said:

 

Yeah. IMO Wonka breaking out basically meant it would get to Mary Poppins Returns numbers. Though I guess breaking out mean like, actually I guess I'm just not sure what people mean when they say that

For context, in another thread someone told me Wonka was a 'blockbuster' the way Aquaman was when I said Aquaman 2's best pro was it being the only big blockbuster in December.

[tonytr87]

Wonka getting to 150 mil will be a win. It's an old IP. 

 

What I don't get is Hunger Games tracking at 50 mil. Maybe Gen Z doesn't read as much as millennials. 

[filmlover]

I don't think we're going to see any single movie dominate this holiday season tbh. Grosses will be rather spread out due to a lack of that one title that's looking to bring everyone together in immense excitement.

[keysersoze123]

One thing going for Wonka is Paul King. He made 2 brilliant family movies in Paddington 1/2. if he executes as well as he can, I think its going to play well throughout the holidays. Mary Poppins on the other hand was derivative safe Disney live action flick. 

 

That said I am not expecting crazy early presales for Wonka. It needs reviews out early and hopefully its strong and families book tickets to see through the holidays. 

[Mulder]

Just now, keysersoze123 said:

One thing going for Wonka is Paul King. He made 2 brilliant family movies in Paddington 1/2. if he executes as well as he can, I think its going to play well throughout the holidays. Mary Poppins on the other hand was derivative safe Disney live action flick. 

 

That said I am not expecting crazy early presales for Wonka. It needs reviews out early and hopefully its strong and families book tickets to see through the holidays. 

Neither Paddington made a ton of money in the US. I'm not saying Wonka's gonna bomb or anything, but I think like 150-200 is a sensible place to expect it to land and would be very strong for it.

[YM!]

5 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

One thing going for Wonka is Paul King. He made 2 brilliant family movies in Paddington 1/2. if he executes as well as he can, I think its going to play well throughout the holidays. Mary Poppins on the other hand was derivative safe Disney live action flick. 

 

That said I am not expecting crazy early presales for Wonka. It needs reviews out early and hopefully it’s strong and families book tickets to see through the holidays. 

On the bright side, both Trolls and Wish look like whiffs judging from reviews/reactions outside of kids.

[keysersoze123]

3 minutes ago, Mulder said:

Neither Paddington made a ton of money in the US. I'm not saying Wonka's gonna bomb or anything, but I think like 150-200 is a sensible place to expect it to land and would be very strong for it.

200m would make it the biggest movie of Q4. I think Wonka is a easier sell on a talking bear. But it needs to be WOM driven than amazing OW. 

[M37]

9 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Problem is what sort of target are we looking at here for previews and how front/backloaded do we think the run will be?  Answering those two questions goes a decent way into narrowing/looking for comps.

Given the release date, should be good for a >5x OW total. So ~$25-$40M OW for the under $225M range, or ~$60M+ for the over $325M blow-up (because in between those values is not a target one should aim for) 

 

Im much more in the former camp, something like 8x-10x IM range (don’t quote me on that), so like $2.5-$5M preview is roughly the target range IMO. Will have to think about comps, but honestly Transformers mentioned above doesn’t seem terrible 

[HummingLemon496]

1 minute ago, keysersoze123 said:

200m would make it the biggest movie of Q4. I think Wonka is a easier sell on a talking bear. But it needs to be WOM driven than amazing OW. 

Maybe Migration or Wish. But yeah other than those nothing else is topping $200M in Q4

[emoviefan]

2 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

One thing going for Wonka is Paul King. He made 2 brilliant family movies in Paddington 1/2. if he executes as well as he can, I think its going to play well throughout the holidays. Mary Poppins on the other hand was derivative safe Disney live action flick. 

 

That said I am not expecting crazy early presales for Wonka. It needs reviews out early and hopefully its strong and families book tickets to see through the holidays. 

Yeah can we wait to reviews come out before we decide how a movie is gonna do.  It goes both ways. HG;BOFSAS probably had 50m+ OW locked and then the reviews came out. If Wonka gets good reviews that will juice it if not then probably not.

[tonytr87]

1 minute ago, YM! said:

On the bright side, both Trolls and Wish look like whiffs judging from reviews/reactions outside of kids.

 

Wish is tracking high. 

[tonytr87]

1 minute ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Maybe Migration or Wish. But yeah other than those nothing else is topping $200M in Q4

 

Aquaman will do it.