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

[M37]

25 minutes ago, Wotad said:

Why are people assuming they messed with the numbers when we have seen numbers go up similarly before? Seems weird that people are throwing these accusations out without any proof.

The proof is in this thread

 

25 minutes ago, Wotad said:

Deadline numbers are always wrong and are a preview not a report on actual numbers, it went up from the reported number of 11m to the actual 12m.. I dont see the issue? 

The issue is that A + B + C + D = X, and if one knows A, B & C within a reasonable margin of error, and there is no logical explanation for D to be abnormally high (or low), then it is reasonable to question how X was derived

[vafrow]

1 hour ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

I'm confused by this, though. Wasn't Oppenheimer sold out in standard theaters its opening week? Dune Part 2 hasn't been having any capacity issues, to my knowledge.

 

I'm going a bit by memory on Oppenheimer and a bit on my own data for Dune, but, Oppenheimer was selling out every IMAX, particularly the 70mm. Around here, people would eagerly wait ofr showtimes to open up so they could grab them.

 

But, Oppenheimer was also appealing enough to general audiences who were happy to see it on normal screens. The hype was high.

 

For Dune, IMAX was driving a lot of sales. Things weren't necessary selling out (although many of them did days in advance), but seat selection was limited, and you saw sales slow down because of it.

 

Meanwhile, non PLF showings all struggled. There were lots of empty and near empty showings in my sample.

 

 

[Porthos]

Okay meme/joke time over.

 

I want to push back very very slightly back against the (emerging consensus?!?) idea that this was an obvious fudge job by WB.

 

Now I *know* this is coming from perhaps a place of Motivated Reasoning, so granted in advance.  And most of the data was pointing to around 9m to 9.3m True Thursday Previews.

 

But not all of it.  It might have gotten lost a bit in all of the discussion, but @rehpyc was reporting that MTC3 was pointing to around 10m Thur:

 

23 hours ago, rehpyc said:

Dune 2 T-1 (excluding EA)

Oppenheimer: 8.98

Avatar 2: 10.58

Dune1: 10.12

Barbie: 11.32

 

Somewhere around 10 still seems about right.

 

 

I'll get to Sacramento in a moment, but we had another chain that @jeffthehat tracks which called 10m almost on the nose:

 

On 2/29/2024 at 9:50 AM, jeffthehat said:

Malco

Dune: Part Two

Day	T-Release	Sales	Seats	Shows	Growth
Thu	T-0	2205	11737	66	+20.1%

Thursday Comps

1.82x The Marvels T-0= $12.0m

1.86x HG BoSS T-0 = $10.7m

4.19x Wonka T-0 = $14.6m

2.82x FNaF T-0 = $29.1m*

0.19x T-Swift Eras Fri T-0 = $8.3m / $4.98m ATP adjusted (-40%)**

*two-day presales window

** just guessing on ATP adjustment

---

Gonna overindex here. But I'm reading it as a positive sign, as this chain is mostly tiny cities in the South. A lot of markets are pointing to sub-$10m at finish, but also seeing a lot of $11m+. Truth is probably in the middle, so I'll go $10.1m +/- 0.4m today. 

 

(I'll get to commentary about herding at the end — promise!)

 

Finally, there's Sacramento.  Not gonna re-quote my post again, but in it I noted that my ad-hoc 2021->2023 ATP adjustment of 1.13047x for Dune spat out a 9.87m True Thursday.  It would only take the slightests of ATP hikes/added PLF sales/performing better in places like Canada to move that from 9.9m to 10m.

 

And I will note quite a bit of anecdotal discussion in the OW thread about higher ticket prices for Dune: Part Two.  Even an ATP hike of $.25 to $0.50 on some tickets across the country might boost things from 9.75m to 10m.

 

I will also make a comment that sometimes things like our track of MTC1 miss the mark.  Maybe it did perform better at various minor theater chains/Middle America, like @TwoMisfits suggested.  We do have the tracks from @katnisscinnaplex and @charlie Jatinder  which suggest not.  But, then again, jeffthehat's chain (plus the major from rehpyc) which suggests it might have.

 

Which brings me to my last piece of commentary:  Herding.

 

Whenever a bunch of data-obsessed folks get together, the temptation to go with the majority of the data is strong.  Hell, I'll even cop to slightly (and I do mean slightly) weighting my final forecasts on the direction of other markets if I feel uncertain about things.  At the same time, sometimes the large data sets are just plain wrong and it's the what looks to be outliers are in fact correct.  We see this all the time in election polling, for instance.  It's why reputable firms will go ahead and publish those "obvious" outliers.  Turns out, sometimes those outliers, aren't.

 

====

 

Now, all of the above being said, it is perhaps more plausible than not that WB for some unfathomable reason decided to cater the favor of BOT and r/boxoffice think that a 12m headline was obviously better than 11.5m.  But at the same time, I do have to wonder: WHY?

 

All joking aside, it's only places like this that'll care about the difference between 9.25m and 10m True Previews.  So why would WB bother when 11.25m looks just as good as 12m in the Trades?  None clue.  

 

The more likely scenario is that WB fudged for some unfathomable reason.  But I do want to point out that there is in fact corroborating evidence for 10m Thursday, even without bringing in soft factors like higher ticket prices for this movie and only this movie or a slightly higher than expected PLF percentage/more adult ticket sales.

Edited March 1 by Porthos
Double checked my post and the ATP adj'ed Dune was 9.87m, not 9.83m

[TJ327]

8 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

 

Which brings me to my last piece of commentary:  Herding.

 

Whenever a bunch of data-obsessed folks get together, the temptation to go with the majority of the data is strong.  Hell, I'll even cop to slightly (and I do mean slightly) weighting my final forecasts on the direction of other markets if I feel uncertain about things.  At the same time, sometimes the large data sets are just plain wrong and it's the what looks to be outliers are in fact correct.  We see this all the time in election polling, for instance.  It's why reputable firms will go ahead and publish those "obvious" outliers.  Turns out, sometimes those outliers, aren't.

Considering how close the numbers & projections were, all it would’ve taken were a few markets for the movie to overperform, which, combined with ATP, would be enough to push it over the edge.

 

It looks like it did that in Vancouver and Sacramento, there’s bound to be a couple more with similar numbers. Vancouver alone more than makes up for the underperformance in Orlando.

[Inceptionzq]

21 hours ago, Inceptionzq said:

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2

T-1 Friday

559 Showings

23481

+2561

66344

ATP:

16.78

0.663	Barbie T-1	31.93M
1.371	Oppenheimer T-1	30.87M

1.147	Guardians T-1	35.10M
1.426	Avatar T-1	51.63M
0.944	Thor L&T T-1	38.27M
0.720	Doctor Strange 2 T-1	39.43M
0.931	Batman T-1	32.67M
2.413	Dune Part 1 T-1	29.92M

 

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2

T-0 Friday

560 Showings

26284

+2803

66384

ATP:

16.61

0.700	Barbie T-0	33.75M
1.433	Oppenheimer T-0	32.27M
1.894	Indiana Jones T-0	31.82M
1.077	Guardians T-0	32.94M
1.325	Avatar T-0	47.98M
0.885	Thor L&T T-0	35.89M
0.707	Doctor Strange 2 T-0	38.67M

2.277

Dune Part 1 T-0

28.24M

 

22 hours ago, Inceptionzq said:

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2

T-1 Friday

304 Showings

7700

+1373

43177

0.808

Oppenheimer T-1

18.19M

 

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2

T-0 Friday

307 Showings

9444

+1744

43335

0.870	Oppenheimer T-0	19.60M
1.500	Indiana Jones T-0	25.20M

 

Numbers are from a few hours ago. Adjusting Drafthouse comps based on Thursday's overperformance, and averaging it out gives 22.3M. Doing this just for Oppenheimer, Avatar 2, and Dune Part 1 gives 19.99M. Adjusting Oppenheimer at Emagine based on Thursday performance gives 24.02M. Averaging the adjusted Drafthouse and Emagine comps together gives 22.5M. I'll go with that

[jeffthehat]

23 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Okay meme/joke time over.

 

I want to push back very very slightly back against the (emerging consensus?!?) idea that this was an obvious fudge job by WB.

 

Now I *know* this is coming from perhaps a place of Motivated Reasoning, so granted in advance.  And most of the data was pointing to around 9m to 9.3m True Thursday Previews.

 

But not all of it.  It might have gotten lost a bit in all of the discussion, but @rehpyc was reporting that MTC3 was pointing to around 10m Thur:

 

 

 

I'll get to Sacramento in a moment, but we had another chain that @jeffthehat tracks which called 10m almost on the nose:

 

(I'll get to commentary about herding at the end — promise!)

 

Finally, there's Sacramento.  Not gonna re-quote my post again, but in it I noted that my ad-hoc 2021->2023 ATP adjustment of 1.13047x for Dune spat out a 9.83m True Thursday.  It would only take the slightests of ATP hikes/added PLF sales/performing better in places like Canada to move that from 9.8m to 10m.

 

And I will note quite a bit of anecdotal discussion in the OW thread about higher ticket prices for Dune: Part Two.  Even an ATP hike of $.25 to $0.50 on some tickets across the country might boost things from 9.75m to 10m.

 

I will also make a comment that sometimes things like our track of MTC1 miss the mark.  Maybe it did perform better at various minor theater chains/Middle America, like @TwoMisfits suggested.  We do have the tracks from @katnisscinnaplex and @charlie Jatinder  which suggest not.  But, then again, jeffthehat's chain (plus the major from rehpyc) which suggests it might have.

 

Which brings me to my last piece of commentary:  Herding.

 

Whenever a bunch of data-obsessed folks get together, the temptation to go with the majority of the data is strong.  Hell, I'll even cop to slightly (and I do mean slightly) weighting my final forecasts on the direction of other markets if I feel uncertain about things.  At the same time, sometimes the large data sets are just plain wrong and it's the what looks to be outliers are in fact correct.  We see this all the time in election polling, for instance.  It's why reputable firms will go ahead and publish those "obvious" outliers.  Turns out, sometimes those outliers, aren't.

 

====

 

Now, all of the above being said, it is perhaps more plausible than not that WB for some unfathomable reason decided to cater the favor of BOT and r/boxoffice think that a 12m headline was obviously better than 11.5m.  But at the same time, I do have to wonder: WHY?

 

All joking aside, it's only places like this that'll care about the difference between 9.25m and 10m True Previews.  So why would WB bother when 11.25m looks just as good as 12m in the Trades?  None clue.  

 

The more likely scenario is that WB fudged for some unfathomable reason.  But I do want to point out that there is in fact corroborating evidence for 10m Thursday, even without bringing in soft factors like higher ticket prices for this movie and only this movie or a slightly higher than expected PLF percentage/more adult ticket sales.

 

Great write-up per usual, been having similar thoughts. Don't have reliable comps for Indiana yet, but at T-1 sales were 92% of One Love opening day. That obviously had great walkups while Dune had poor walkups. But Dune has the ATP advantage. Overall I was suspecting strength in middle/southern America based on what I had, as well as abracadraba's Twin Cities data. 

 

[vafrow]

13 minutes ago, jeffthehat said:

 

Great write-up per usual, been having similar thoughts. Don't have reliable comps for Indiana yet, but at T-1 sales were 92% of One Love opening day. That obviously had great walkups while Dune had poor walkups. But Dune has the ATP advantage. Overall I was suspecting strength in middle/southern America based on what I had, as well as abracadraba's Twin Cities data. 

 

 

I'm in a similar boat as i try and build up comps. Plus, I work with small samples. Both lead to often unreliable results that are outliers from other trackers. It took me a while to not try and find comps that give a result that I want.

 

There's a lot of great data in this thread, which is great. But, it really takes some discipline to let the data speak for itself sometimes.

 

I had a unique experience on One Love. I was an upward outlier for a while until the end when I landed pretty close to the final result. I reflected on that after, and I think what worked for me there is that I was in a market where Color Purple did horribly, and I had to throw that out early. Where that wss one of the main comps elsewhere, because it was a musical film releasing on a weekday busy holiday that targeted the black community that came out 2 months ago. For everyone else, that almost had to be part of the sample. But TCP was front loaded, while OL was the exact opposite, so it painted a different picture than what played out.

 

Especially when dealing with smaller samples and markets that have unique preferences or idiosyncrasies. The variances are often the most interesting data that we can have. It often highlights when a film is doing better or worse worse with a certain demographic.

[iEnri]

If there is a round up, it is likely very small, it likely did 10M or close to that in true Thurdsay. The fact is that Dune was undepredicted in this forum, Dune continues to overperform everytime, the doom was too much. Trackers here are not incapable of getting the numbers wrong.

 

Charlie predictions were absolutely wrong and ridiculous, the fact that he said below 70M was possible just show how bad it was. Dune continue to impress with numbers! Rise to 700M+ WW continues.

Edited March 1 by iEnri

[von Kenni]

19 minutes ago, iEnri said:

If there is a round up, it is likely very small, it likely did 10M or close to that in true Thurdsay. The fact is that Dune was undepredicted in this forum, Dune continues to overperform everytime, the doom was too much. Trackers here are not incapable of getting the numbers wrong.

 

Charlie predictions were absolutely wrong and ridiculous, the fact that he said below 70M was possible just show how bad it was. Dune continue to impress with numbers! Rise to 700M+ WW continues.

 

With respect, I think you're making far-fetching conclusions here, and if I may, disrespecting the great work that Charlie and other trackers do here. They were spot on with Dune Part 1. With Part 2 it was more about keeping cool heads, following the data, and applying their vast experience of seeing how so many other movies had their pre-sale runs. 

 

At the same time, tracking is a game of probabilities and there can always be outliers or factors that Porthos mentioned in the earlier post. So even if the used tracking data that has served trackers well in 90% of the cases points to something there is always a probability of actuals being something else whether it is 5% or 10% that can happen.

 

Charlie's predictions were totally in line when we saw the MTC1 numbers that were awful and aligned with what he posted. It can still go under $70M but in light of the new data on previews the probability for that has significantly gone down. But to say that the prediction was absolutely wrong and ridiculous is absolutely wrong and ridiculous itself.

[M37]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

Okay meme/joke time over.

 

I want to push back very very slightly back against the (emerging consensus?!?) idea that this was an obvious fudge job by WB.

 

Now I *know* this is coming from perhaps a place of Motivated Reasoning, so granted in advance.  And most of the data was pointing to around 9m to 9.3m True Thursday Previews.

 

But not all of it.  It might have gotten lost a bit in all of the discussion, but @rehpyc was reporting that MTC3 was pointing to around 10m Thur:

 

 

 

I'll get to Sacramento in a moment, but we had another chain that @jeffthehat tracks which called 10m almost on the nose:

 

(I'll get to commentary about herding at the end — promise!)

 

Finally, there's Sacramento.  Not gonna re-quote my post again, but in it I noted that my ad-hoc 2021->2023 ATP adjustment of 1.13047x for Dune spat out a 9.87m True Thursday.  It would only take the slightests of ATP hikes/added PLF sales/performing better in places like Canada to move that from 9.9m to 10m.

 

And I will note quite a bit of anecdotal discussion in the OW thread about higher ticket prices for Dune: Part Two.  Even an ATP hike of $.25 to $0.50 on some tickets across the country might boost things from 9.75m to 10m.

 

I will also make a comment that sometimes things like our track of MTC1 miss the mark.  Maybe it did perform better at various minor theater chains/Middle America, like @TwoMisfits suggested.  We do have the tracks from @katnisscinnaplex and @charlie Jatinder  which suggest not.  But, then again, jeffthehat's chain (plus the major from rehpyc) which suggests it might have.

 

Which brings me to my last piece of commentary:  Herding.

 

Whenever a bunch of data-obsessed folks get together, the temptation to go with the majority of the data is strong.  Hell, I'll even cop to slightly (and I do mean slightly) weighting my final forecasts on the direction of other markets if I feel uncertain about things.  At the same time, sometimes the large data sets are just plain wrong and it's the what looks to be outliers are in fact correct.  We see this all the time in election polling, for instance.  It's why reputable firms will go ahead and publish those "obvious" outliers.  Turns out, sometimes those outliers, aren't.

 

====

 

Now, all of the above being said, it is perhaps more plausible than not that WB for some unfathomable reason decided to cater the favor of BOT and r/boxoffice think that a 12m headline was obviously better than 11.5m.  But at the same time, I do have to wonder: WHY?

 

All joking aside, it's only places like this that'll care about the difference between 9.25m and 10m True Previews.  So why would WB bother when 11.25m looks just as good as 12m in the Trades?  None clue.  

 

The more likely scenario is that WB fudged for some unfathomable reason.  But I do want to point out that there is in fact corroborating evidence for 10m Thursday, even without bringing in soft factors like higher ticket prices for this movie and only this movie or a slightly higher than expected PLF percentage/more adult ticket sales.

Alright, so going to have to gently push back on your push back 😉

 

The one unstated assumption from most sample comps is that we're not actually seeing the full picture, as tracking stops (depending on tracker) some time around the first showtime, and presuming tickets will grow through the night at a similar pace. However, for a few select samples - MTC1, MiniTC and Lannister's Miami spot-check, we get to see further down the rabbit hole, and those final numbers in comparison to presales were unequivocally BAD. That weakness in walk-ups is going to have an effect on the relative value vs comps

 

If Movie A stops count at 4K, it will comp out at half of Movie B at 8K (0.5x). But if Movie B actually grew another 25% through the night (10K finish), while Movie A only saw an additional 15% growth (4600), the true comp is .46x, or 8% lower; that would move a $10.5M value comp at start of previews down to $9.66M by final. And we have solid data that suggests that kind of attrition through the evening is precisely what was happening with Dune II vs nearly every comp including MCU films and Dune I

 

Knowing only MTC1 final data point, I would have ballparked ~$9M for Thursday. Even adjusting for higher ATP, like using a straight $ value comp with Oppy final, would spit out about $9.3M. The Oppy comp for all samples was at $9.6M (not accounting for capacity limitations which likely kept Oppy down), and the mean of everything but clear outlier Drafthouse was $9.64M. The only film for which the average of all samples finished close to $10M was Avatar 2 ($9.94), which we know by virtue of the added capacity of premium priced 3D shows had a higher ATP than any other film tracked

 

I could understand the herding argument more if there was a general consensus around say a $10M number, and we sort of collectively brushed off samples that were finishing higher or lower as outliers and were "surprised" by the result, but instead the opposite was true. We collectively expected $10M, and the data wasn't coming in to justify it, and forecasts were being lowered. Yes, there were some samples values over it, but not enough, and honestly not the right ones, like Emagine or Jax/Ral/Pho, which would have suggested a TGM or GOTG3 like GA/rural over-performance to offset the weaker walk-ups in the metro areas.

 

I really don't see a path from the entirety of the data see to a true $10M Thursday; IMO there's just not plausible story even of high ATP and select market/chain over-performance to tell of how it gets there. Now maybe it was like $9.6/$9.7, and the Sunday EA was actually $2.1M instead of $2M flat, and it's a soft (and not unusual) round up by a couple hundred K to $12M preview estimate; nothing to sweat there. But there is also solid data that suggests calling it $12M might be veering more into fudge territory (inexplicably for an estimate that will be rolled into the next day anyway)

 

tl;dr - Calling it a round up and suggesting the true value was close to very much under $10M/$12M, is actually giving the benefit of the doubt here

[iEnri]

18 minutes ago, von Kenni said:

 

With respect, I think you're making far-fetching conclusions here, and if I may, disrespecting the great work that Charlie and other trackers do here. They were spot on with Dune Part 1. With Part 2 it was more about keeping cool heads, following the data, and applying their vast experience of seeing how so many other movies had their pre-sale runs. 

 

At the same time, tracking is a game of probabilities and there can always be outliers or factors that Porthos mentioned in the earlier post. So even if the used tracking data that has served trackers well in 90% of the cases points to something there is always a probability of actuals being something else whether it is 5% or 10% that can happen.

 

Charlie's predictions were totally in line when we saw the MTC1 numbers that were awful and aligned with what he posted. It can still go under $70M but in light of the new data on previews the probability for that has significantly gone down. But to say that the prediction was absolutely wrong and ridiculous is absolutely wrong and ridiculous itself.

I just said that Dune was undepredicted, I dont see how is that disrespectful. Okay sorry if I disrespected Charlie, but there is also multiple cases where he has been wrong about Dune: saying that the EA sales were having bad numbers and undepredicting Dune during Part 1's release. It is quite visible the multiple undepredictions even if they weren't completely unresonable.

 

As I said, Dune continues to overperform expectations.

Edited March 1 by iEnri

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/29/2024 at 3:05 PM, Inceptionzq said:

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2

T-2 Saturday

577 Showings

27657

+3161

69068

ATP:

16.38

0.765	Barbie T-2	36.56M
1.444	Oppenheimer T-2	38.33M

1.238	Guardians T-2	48.13M
1.611	Avatar T-2	71.42M
1.220	Thor L&T T-2	51.38M
0.823	Doctor Strange 2 T-2	47.58M
1.030	Batman T-2	44.57M
2.954	Dune Part 1 T-2	40.52M

 

T-3 Sunday

520 Showings

18935

+2151

62865

ATP:

16.48

0.666	Barbie T-3	29.12M
1.303	Oppenheimer T-3	30.23M

1.426	Guardians T-3	44.81M
1.740	Avatar T-3	63.63M
1.401	Thor L&T T-3	45.53M
0.925	Doctor Strange 2 T-3	35.97M
1.274	Batman T-3	43.48M
3.043	Dune Part 1 T-3	29.76M

Alamo Drafthouse Dune Part 2

T-1 Saturday

579 Showings

32936

+5279

69129

ATP:

16.07

0.809	Barbie T-1	38.66M
1.510	Oppenheimer T-1	40.09M
2.532	Indiana Jones T-1	47.05M
1.192	Guardians T-1	46.33M
1.534	Avatar T-1	68.01M
1.118	Thor L&T T-1	47.09M
0.842	Doctor Strange 2 T-1	48.69M

2.735

Dune Part 1 T-1

37.53M

 

T-2 Sunday

520 Showings

22414

+3479

62857

ATP:

16.17

0.689	Barbie T-2	30.10M
1.322	Oppenheimer T-2	30.65M
2.594	Indiana Jones T-2	46.96M
1.352	Guardians T-2	42.50M
1.690	Avatar T-2	61.81M
1.256	Thor L&T T-2	40.83M
0.911	Doctor Strange 2 T-2	35.41M

2.925

Dune Part 1 T-2

28.61M

[Inceptionzq]

On 2/29/2024 at 3:02 PM, Inceptionzq said:

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2

T-2 Saturday

320 Showings

7862

+1428

45194

1.013

Oppenheimer T-2

26.58M

 

T-3 Sunday

303 Showings

4069

+755

42998

0.795

Oppenheimer T-3

18.44M

Emagine Entertainment Dune Part 2

T-1 Saturday

329 Showings

10708

+2846

45873

1.027

Oppenheimer T-1

26.97M

 

T-2 Sunday

306 Showings

5435

+1366

43236

0.798

Oppenheimer T-2

18.50M

[Porthos]

22 minutes ago, M37 said:

Alright, so going to have to gently push back on your push back 😉

 

The one unstated assumption from most sample comps is that we're not actually seeing the full picture, as tracking stops (depending on tracker) some time around the first showtime, and presuming tickets will grow through the night at a similar pace. However, for a few select samples - MTC1, MiniTC and Lannister's Miami spot-check, we get to see further down the rabbit hole, and those final numbers in comparison to presales were unequivocally BAD. That weakness in walk-ups is going to have an effect on the relative value vs comps

 

My only pushback to your pushback to my pushback is that my best three local comps, under my sampling methodology, Dune (ATP adjusted), Avatar: The Way of Water, and The Batman all broadly suggested the same thing.  All three movies were loooooong ones as well, which might be a factor here when it comes to dropping off late at night.

 

Really though it's the Dune adj of 9.87m which tells me that this has a non-zero chance of being a possibility.

 

Mind, I *do NOT* want to oversell this.  As I said in my post, it's probably more likely than not that there was some sort of fudging going on.  I'm just trying to be a bit more open minded on the possibility.

 

Also, as I've said before, I know better than to try to argue with you over data analysis.  So as I said only a slight pushback in that last post of mine.  If a wordy one.  

 

[dallas]

I don't see why WB would give the go ahead to initially publish the $11M figure then later change it if there wasn't data to suggest an actual gross closer to $12M. That's just speculation I guess, but it is something that crossed my mind. 

[emoviefan]

42 minutes ago, dallas said:

I don't see why WB would give the go ahead to initially publish the $11M figure then later change it if there wasn't data to suggest an actual gross closer to $12M. That's just speculation I guess, but it is something that crossed my mind. 

Yeah does not make sense for them to do  that. They are just going to roll the numbers together for the Friday estimate anyway. 

[noobmaster69]

44 minutes ago, dallas said:

I don't see why WB would give the go ahead to initially publish the $11M figure then later change it if there wasn't data to suggest an actual gross closer to $12M. That's just speculation I guess, but it is something that crossed my mind. 

Perhaps to create the possibility of 80m+ opening, 8X previews seems to be upper limit in tracking, which requires >9.75m previews to get 80m+ opening range.

[charlie Jatinder]

4 hours ago, Porthos said:

plus the major from rehpyc

Final Rehpyc comps will be

 

Oppy - 8.63

Avatar 2 - 9.25

Dune 1 - 8.9

Barbie - 8.6

[charlie Jatinder]

4 hours ago, Porthos said:

but we had another chain that @jeffthehat tracks which called 10m almost on the nose:

Malco comps

 

Dune 1 - 5.3

Oppy - 10.6 (lack of capacity due to clash)

Avatar 2 - 8.7

Barbie - 7.7

[JustLurking]

41 minutes ago, noobmaster69 said:

Perhaps to create the possibility of 80m+ opening, 8X previews seems to be upper limit in tracking, which requires >9.75m previews to get 80m+ opening range.

Uh...that doesn't actually do anything though. The actual weekend gross isn't going to change if they misreport the preview number, nor is there an actual hard cap suggesting the film can't go above 8x so they have to fudge the number. Like, this logic is...uh, not very logical, I'm afraid.