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

[vafrow]

On 2/9/2024 at 4:55 AM, vafrow said:

 

One Love, T-6, western GTA (southern Ontario), Wednesday opener

Informal track

 

Sales now up to 435, almost tripling yesterday. If I keep tracking this, I'll need to decide if I do it in a more structured way, as it's too high at this point.

 

One Love, T-5, western GTA (southern Ontario), Wednesday opener

 

Total Sales: 539

New Sales: 104

Growth: 24%

Theatres tracked: MTC4

Total theatres: 5

Showtimes: 20

Radius: 19 km

Tickets per showtime: 27.0

 

Comps

0.907x of FNAF for $9.3M

2.323 of Madame Web for ($13.8M)*

*Using estimate based on comps

 

Hear me out on the FNAF comp. They're selling in a similar range, both over a very short sales cycle in Canada. Both have bad reviews, which might have a slowdown impact in the final days.

 

As for sales, there's lots of showings where you can see tickets bought in pairings for Valentine's Day, but there are other showings almost sold out, that went so quickly between day 7 and 6 that it might be group sales. 

[vafrow]

Kung Fu Panda 4, D1, T-27, western GTA (southern Ontario), Thursday Previews

 

4 tickets sold over my five theatre sample. The closest family comp I have is Wonka, which only sold one ticket in it's first day. Not a lot to gleam from this, but wanted to capture this so I have a comp in the future for D1 sales for animated.

[TwoMisfits]

8 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

Bob Marley MTC1

VD - 55415/453958 836857.61 2912 shows +7252

Friday - 8832/384880 135658.22 2296 shows +902

 

Weird the pace went down a bit today. May be the reviews actually boosted the number yesterday or bad reviews brought the pace down today. Still solid number overall for VD. 

 

$5 tickets coming Tuesday usually holds down this timeframe (the 1-3 days before they come on)...

[elhassane31]

8 hours ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I'm glad not to be alone on this. It looks bland as all hell and doesn't bring anything new to the table like Puss 2 did.

One thing to consider is that KFP movies historically do not have good marketing, like much of the time. You could've watched the trailers for movie 1 and 2 and when you got to theaters you would've gotten something that felt completely out-of-tone with those.

[TheTom]

6 hours ago, vafrow said:

 

One Love, T-5, western GTA (southern Ontario), Wednesday opener

 

Total Sales: 539

New Sales: 104

Growth: 24%

Theatres tracked: MTC4

Total theatres: 5

Showtimes: 20

Radius: 19 km

Tickets per showtime: 27.0

 

Comps

0.907x of FNAF for $9.3M

2.323 of Madame Web for ($13.8M)*

*Using estimate based on comps

 

Hear me out on the FNAF comp. They're selling in a similar range, both over a very short sales cycle in Canada. Both have bad reviews, which might have a slowdown impact in the final days.

 

As for sales, there's lots of showings where you can see tickets bought in pairings for Valentine's Day, but there are other showings almost sold out, that went so quickly between day 7 and 6 that it might be group sales. 

 

The second comparison doesn’t seem to make sense given that we don’t even know how much it gets in the opening weekend. I mean idk but 14M looks very distorted

Edited February 10 by TheTom

[vafrow]

13 minutes ago, TheTom said:

 

The second comparison doesn’t seem to make sense given that we don’t even know how much it gets in the opening weekend. I mean idk but 14M looks very distorted

 

It's there more to report on difference between the two. They're both opening, and, I think at one point, the thought was they were expected to open the same, but they're not.

 

I wouldn't put too much weight on any number my comps are spitting out, particularly for this one.

 

1) I have a small sample of five theatres. There's a lot more potential for distortion at this size. 

 

2) Movies that skew towards black audiences will always perform differently in Canada than the US due to demographics. That said, my geographic area does have a higher population than the Canadian average, but, still, the performance is usually much less than average. This film isn't following that rule though, so it's creating quite a bit of distortion. Speaking of which ...

 

3) Everyone else is using The Color Purple as a comp for obvious reasons. When I run that comp, it spits out a number of $1.087B. Yes, it's forecasting that a poorly received musical biopic on Bob Marley will break the domestic box office record in a single day.

 

In the end, I can only work with the data that I have. I wasn't going to track this film, but it's performing so much better than expectations, I wanted to better understand it, and at least add this data to the collective of this thread. 

[TheTom]

34 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

It's there more to report on difference between the two. They're both opening, and, I think at one point, the thought was they were expected to open the same, but they're not.

 

I wouldn't put too much weight on any number my comps are spitting out, particularly for this one.

 

1) I have a small sample of five theatres. There's a lot more potential for distortion at this size. 

 

2) Movies that skew towards black audiences will always perform differently in Canada than the US due to demographics. That said, my geographic area does have a higher population than the Canadian average, but, still, the performance is usually much less than average. This film isn't following that rule though, so it's creating quite a bit of distortion. Speaking of which ...

 

3) Everyone else is using The Color Purple as a comp for obvious reasons. When I run that comp, it spits out a number of $1.087B. Yes, it's forecasting that a poorly received musical biopic on Bob Marley will break the domestic box office record in a single day.

 

In the end, I can only work with the data that I have. I wasn't going to track this film, but it's performing so much better than expectations, I wanted to better understand it, and at least add this data to the collective of this thread. 

oh no problem  I’m just referring to the projection you did using a movie we don’t know what the opening day is yet. Reporting the difference between right now in your market is ok. Yet the problem is you’re using a local partial data as basis for a final national projection, this creates deep distortions. It’s not a criticism but just a friendly advice from someone who has been working with statistics since 2001  

Edited February 10 by TheTom

[filmlover]

 

[ViewerAnon]

13 hours ago, elhassane31 said:

Maybe things could be turned around if the movie has good word of mouth. Have you heard anything about the quality of the movie?

 

No, kid's movies are a little more challenging because their test screenings require attendees to actually have children and not many of my usual sources do.

 

11 hours ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I'm glad not to be alone on this. It looks bland as all hell and doesn't bring anything new to the table like Puss 2 did.

He announced on Twitter recently that he's out of the scooperbro game, so he likely won't respond to this. Very unfortunate as he was the only likeable and the most reliable one of the lot. I think the initial Scream 6 hoax took a toll on him.

 

Thanks Sylvester, it's always nice to hear stuff like this

SCREAM VI was a major factor in my decision. It wasn't so much that I was wrong as I have more "reach" than I normally take into account, so when I said things like "Neve Campbell is definitely back!" it led to Neve actually being questioned and confronted like she was lying. Combined with people being spoiled unintentionally as things spread on various movies and I just thought I'd become more of a net negative than a positive.

[vafrow]

1 hour ago, TheTom said:

oh no problem  I’m just referring to the projection you did using a movie we don’t know what the opening day is yet. Reporting the difference between right now in your market is ok. Yet the problem is you’re using a local partial data as basis for a final national projection, this creates deep distortions. It’s not a criticism but just a friendly advice from someone who has been working with statistics since 2001  

 

The comp on Madame Web is also a combination of comps of other movies. I could have also used all of those individual comps to land at a similar number.

 

The reality is that FNAF overindexed locally here, so I didn't want to make that the only comp, even if it's showing closest to the consensus. I wanted at least something else, and Color Purple is a no go for obvious reasons. 

[TheTom]

1 hour ago, vafrow said:

 

The comp on Madame Web is also a combination of comps of other movies. I could have also used all of those individual comps to land at a similar number.

 

The reality is that FNAF overindexed locally here, so I didn't want to make that the only comp, even if it's showing closest to the consensus. I wanted at least something else, and Color Purple is a no go for obvious reasons. 

I mean to bring down to earth your projection (since 14M is by no means realistic for OL) you could use The Marvels as a second comp, this would be preferable than adding 14M as a comp which we all can agree is way too unrealistic for OL 

 

TCP also would bring it down to earth but I guess it really underperformed in Ontario and so you’re trying to avoid using it. Right?

[vafrow]

7 minutes ago, TheTom said:

I mean to bring down to earth your projection (since 14M is by no means realistic for OL) you could use The Marvels as a second comp, this would be preferable than adding 14M as a comp which we all can agree is way too unrealistic for OL 

 

TCP also would bring it down to earth but I guess it really underperformed in Ontario and so you’re trying to avoid using it. Right?

 

In my other post, I outlined that TCP comp is literally at a billion right now. There has never been a bigger outlier.

 

I'm trying to avoid engineering the outcome. $14M is not a reasonable projection for this film with the data we have from other trackers, but it's not an unreasonable number for what my market is doing for ticket sales.

 

I've accepted that my market is not a great predictor market. Canada is weird. And there's plenty of demographic anomalies within. But, you have to report what you have, not eliminate data that doesn't conform to others.

 

I would never have guessed that One Love would be an overperformer in this market to this degree, but that's what's happening. 

 

[Porthos]

Been doing some last minute checking/verification and it looks like Dune: Part Two is *NOT* getting any sort of Super Bowl promotion after all.

 

So pretty much ignore any and all speculation about a SB bounce and in fact I won't be surprised in the slightest if it takes a pretty hefty hit locally tomorrow.

[Porthos]

For folks doing comps on Madame Web, how much are y'alls taking into account the increased matinee seats sold?  Figure it won't be as brutal as Discount Tuesday adjustments, but have to think some sort of downward adjustment needs to be made.  Unless the matinee showings are barren wastelands, of course.

[emoviefan]

7 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Been doing some last minute checking/verification and it looks like Dune: Part Two is *NOT* getting any sort of Super Bowl promotion after all.

 

So pretty much ignore any and all speculation about a SB bounce and in fact I won't be surprised in the slightest if it takes a pretty hefty hit locally tomorrow.

Not a surprise. WB has historically never advertised during  the Super Bowl until last year and we know how that turned out. 

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:50 PM, Inceptionzq said:

Dune Part 2 Denver Showings

Early Access:

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST DAY	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
848	15	1353	62.68%

 

Thursday Previews:

AMC Westminster 24

Total

407

1794

22.69%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

349

1388

25.14%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST DAY	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
1621	37	18464	8.78%

 

2.688

Indiana Jones T-21

19.36M

0.442

Thor L&T T-21

12.83M

Dune Part 2 Denver Showings

Early Access:

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST 2 DAYS	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
860	12	1353	63.56%

 

Thursday Previews:

AMC Westminster 24

Total

414

1794

23.08%

AMC Highlands Ranch 24

Total

360

1388

25.94%

 

SEATS SOLD	SOLD PAST 2 DAYS	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD	THEATERS	SHOWINGS
1686	65	18719	9.01%	13	91

 

1.537	Oppenheimer T-19	16.14M
2.566	Indiana Jones T-19	18.48M

0.938

Batman T-19*

20.26M

*Includes EA sales, all other comps Thursday previews only

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:52 PM, Inceptionzq said:

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2

T-21 Thursday

173 Showings

6924

+228

25671

ATP:

18.54

1.803

Indiana Jones T-21

12.98M

0.740

Thor L&T T-21

21.45M

 

T-22 Friday

247 Showings

7680

+251

36998

ATP:

18.00

2.393

Indiana Jones T-22

40.19M

1.130

Thor L&T T-22

45.84M

 

T-23 Saturday

261 Showings

9180

+246

39076

ATP:

17.47

2.955

Indiana Jones T-23

54.90M

1.523

Thor L&T T-23

64.12M

 

T-24 Sunday

238 Showings

5307

+214

35376

ATP:

17.66

3.355

Indiana Jones T-24

60.72M

1.853

Thor L&T T-24

60.22M

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2 [+2 days of sales]

T-19 Thursday

175 Showings

7300

+376

25893

ATP:

18.45

2.053	Oppenheimer T-19	21.56M
1.852	Indiana Jones T-19	13.34M

1.123

Batman T-19*

19.77M

*Doesn't include Batman EA sales I missed

 

T-20 Friday

253 Showings

8181

+501

37718

ATP:

17.99

2.329	Oppenheimer T-20	52.44M
2.464	Indiana Jones T-20	41.40M

1.349

Batman T-20

47.33M

 

T-21 Saturday

261 Showings

9715

+535

39076

ATP:

17.42

2.261	Oppenheimer T-21	60.04M
2.917	Indiana Jones T-21	54.19M

1.962

Batman T-21

84.87M

 

T-22 Sunday

238 Showings

5730

+423

35376

ATP:

17.60

2.224	Oppenheimer T-22	51.58M
3.439	Indiana Jones T-22	62.25M

3.063

Batman T-22

104.55M

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:53 PM, Inceptionzq said:

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2

T-21 Thursday

104 Showings

825

+28

17566

1.097

Indiana Jones T-21

7.90M

 

T-22 Friday

162 Showings

950

+48

27661

5.017

Indiana Jones T-23

93.21M

 

T-23 Saturday

168 Showings

893

+47

28815

5.017

Indiana Jones T-23

93.21M

 

T-24 Sunday

162 Showings

241

+14

27939

3.394

Indiana Jones T-24

61.44M

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2 [+2 days of sales]

T-19 Thursday

104 Showings

894

+69

17568

1.322	Oppenheimer T-19	13.89M
1.116	Indiana Jones T-19	8.04M

 

T-20 Friday

162 Showings

1053

+103

27667

1.976	Oppenheimer T-20	44.49M
2.909	Indiana Jones T-20	48.87M

 

T-21 Saturday

168 Showings

1001

+108

28817

2.836	Oppenheimer T-21	74.44M
4.700	Indiana Jones T-21	87.32M

 

T-22 Sunday

162 Showings

274

+33

27939

1.566	Oppenheimer T-22	36.31M
3.383	Indiana Jones T-22	61.23M

[vafrow]

20 minutes ago, Porthos said:

For folks doing comps on Madame Web, how much are y'alls taking into account the increased matinee seats sold?  Figure it won't be as brutal as Discount Tuesday adjustments, but have to think some sort of downward adjustment needs to be made.  Unless the matinee showings are barren wastelands, of course.

 

I'm not taking any adjustments into account because, well, I'm not that sophisticated in my analysis. Plus, MTC4 doesn't offer discounts for matinees. But, for what it's worth, under 5% of sales for Madame Web in my sample is in matinee timings. If a discount was offered, that nuner would probably be more.

[TheTom]

57 minutes ago, vafrow said:

 

In my other post, I outlined that TCP comp is literally at a billion right now. There has never been a bigger outlier.

 

I'm trying to avoid engineering the outcome. $14M is not a reasonable projection for this film with the data we have from other trackers, but it's not an unreasonable number for what my market is doing for ticket sales.

 

I've accepted that my market is not a great predictor market. Canada is weird. And there's plenty of demographic anomalies within. But, you have to report what you have, not eliminate data that doesn't conform to others.

 

I would never have guessed that One Love would be an overperformer in this market to this degree, but that's what's happening. 

 

““But, you have to report what you have, not eliminate data that doesn't conform to others.”

 

But you have just said you are deliberately avoiding to use TCP as a comp for “obvious” reasons. So I quite don’t get it. Statistically speaking, we have always to fit our data to the reality.

 

Anyways, you can use whatever data you prefer, I’m just telling you that statistically this doesn’t make sense:

 

“0.907x of FNAF for $9.3M

2.323 of Madame Web for ($13.8M)* *Using estimate based on comps”

 

While the first is a very reasonable comparison because you’re using a final national data to project a final national result, the second one is by no means reasonable, because you’re using a local partial data to predict a national final result. This creates distortions and is really misleading.

 

But you’re free to keep pushing that OL will have a better first day than Dune, I don’t think punishing this is very reasonable, but anyway we’ll find out in two weeks.