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

[M37]

50 minutes ago, emoviefan said:

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to GXK NE is monster movies tend to beat the tracking and have strong walkups. The Jurassic World movies all did. Godzilla 14 and Kong Skull Island both did.  Coming out on a holiday weekend will only help it. 

You are correct, but also have to think about why tracking undervalues these films; what audience slice(s) aren’t being properly accounted for and/or over-index? 

 

Spoiler

Hint: the same ones that are largely passing on Dune II but did show up for Transformers ROTB, which is why I think there is hidden potential for it

 

And for our tracking purposes, would lean on ROTB and probably ATSV as comps, JWD (if available)

[jeffthehat]

Indiana

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire T-19

Sales	Seats	Shows
615	23717	122

Comps

0.62x Dune: Part Two T-19 = $5.7m

3.58x Kung Fu Panda 4 T-19 = ??

---

Seems like a strong start here too 

Edited March 2 by jeffthehat

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, M37 said:

You are correct, but also have to think about why tracking undervalues these films; what audience slice(s) aren’t being properly accounted for and/or over-index? 

 

  Hide contents

Hint: the same ones that are largely passing on Dune II but did show up for Transformers ROTB, which is why I think there is hidden potential for it

 

 

[TheFlatLannister]

19 hours ago, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-19

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
470	2097	95104	2.2%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

159

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-19

 

(0.467x) of Dune 2 $4.66M  

 

Comps average: $4.66M

 

Was kind of busy yesterday, but yeah this is pretty good. 

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-18

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
470	2126	95104	2.2%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

29

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-18

 

(0.461x) of Dune 2 $4.26M  

 

Comps average: $4.26M

 

Went down against comp because previews were in fact $9.25M not $10M like WB was dreaming of...

[Porthos]

More seriously, as someone has detailed tracks going allllll the way back into early 2018*, I can back up the GxK/JWD observation. 

 

Back in 2019 KotM was tracking at a nearly perfect 1:2 clip against JWFK until worse than expected reviews kicked in for KotM which kneecapped it at the very last second. 

 

The problem with comparing GxK and JWD, and it's not a small one, is the insanely long pre-sale window given to JWD is gonna make day-to-day comps after the first couple of days... challenging.  At least until deep into the run.  Across the Spider-Verse is an intriguing comp (similar length as well) though probably more for generally catching similar pattern buying in their target demos than having the exact same/very similar demos like the cross over between monster movies and JW films.

 

RotB is another good one, but sadly I only dedicated a full track to that about halfway into the run, as I was scrambling to catch up on its potential.

 

 

 

 

 

* 

[cooldude97]

14 minutes ago, Porthos said:

More seriously, as someone has detailed tracks going allllll the way back into early 2018*, I can back up the GxK/JWD observation. 

 

Back in 2019 KotM was tracking at a nearly perfect 1:2 clip against JWFK until worse than expected reviews kicked in for KotM which kneecapped it at the very last second. 

 

The problem with comparing GxK and JWD, and it's not a small one, is the insanely long pre-sale window given to JWD is gonna make day-to-day comps after the first couple of days... challenging.  At least until deep into the run.  Across the Spider-Verse is an intriguing comp (similar length as well) though probably more for generally catching similar pattern buying in their target demos than having the exact same/very similar demos like the cross over between monster movies and JW films.

 

RotB is another good one, but sadly I only dedicated a full track to that about halfway into the run, as I was scrambling to catch up on its potential.

 

 

 

 

 

* 

i wasn't around during the day of the first three Monsterverse films but outside KOTM's lackluster review scores I do wonder how much of a effect the major movies that also came out around them affected legs and opening gross (G14 had x-men DOFP during it's second weekend, Kong was sandwiched between beauty and the beast and logan, KOTM has to deal with the 2019 summer)

[leoh]

27 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-18

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
470	2126	95104	2.2%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

29

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-18

 

(0.461x) of Dune 2 $4.26M  

 

Comps average: $4.26M

 

Went down against comp because previews were in fact $9.25M not $10M like WB was dreaming of...

oh okay so now you’re considering 9.25M for Dune as a comp. Right?

 

I agree that Dune certainly didn’t get the 10M reported by Warner, but I think your last projection for Dune (9.5M) is about right. WB saw 11.5M and simply rounded it to 12M. 
 

Idk but 9.25M to 10M would have been too much of a stretch.

Edited March 2 by leoh

[ThatWaluigiDude]

Any idea when Godzilla x Kong will start the pre-sales?

[cooldude97]

5 minutes ago, ThatWaluigiDude said:

Any idea when Godzilla x Kong will start the pre-sales?

Tuesday 

[TheFlatLannister]

20 minutes ago, leoh said:

oh okay so now you’re considering 9.25M for Dune as a comp. Right?

 

I agree that Dune certainly didn’t get the 10M reported by Warner, but I think your last projection for Dune (9.5M) is about right. WB saw 11.5M and simply rounded it to 12M. 
 

Idk but 9.25M to 10M would have been too much of a stretch.

Charlie is saying $9.25M and I usually just use his numbers since they are accurate 

[TheFlatLannister]

On 2/26/2024 at 6:28 PM, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

KUNG FU PANDA 4

 

Thursday

 

T-10

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
486	1665	95176	1.7%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE T-16

396

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE T-16

5

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

Orlando

SEATS SOLD

404

 

COMPS

T-10

 

(1.151x) of Trolls 3 $1.50M

(0.751x) of Elemental $1.80M

(1.629x) of Migration $2.44M

 

COMP AVG: $1.91M

 

Nice increase in pace, but still pretty low numbers overall. 

FLORIDA 

 

KUNG FU PANDA 4

 

Thursday

 

T-5

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
486	1620	95176	1.7%

^{*numbers taken as of 6:00PM EST}

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

N/A

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

Orlando

SEATS SOLD

673

 

COMPS

T-5

 

(1.653x) of Trolls 3 $2.15M

(0.924x) of Elemental $2.22M

(2.447x) of Migration $3.67M

(0.790x) of TMNT $3.04M

 

COMP AVG: $2.77M

 

Good news, increased a lot against comps for the past few days. Still looking like a $30Mish OW

Edited March 3 by TheFlatLannister

[Porthos]

45 minutes ago, cooldude97 said:

i wasn't around during the day of the first three Monsterverse films but outside KOTM's lackluster review scores I do wonder how much of a effect the major movies that also came out around them affected legs and opening gross (G14 had x-men DOFP during it's second weekend, Kong was sandwiched between beauty and the beast and logan, KOTM has to deal with the 2019 summer)

 

May 2019 was something of a bloodbath concerning competition, and was noted quite frequently at the time, yes.   Especially since everyone was still dealing with the fallout from the event crater caused by Endgame obliterating nearly every DOM record in sight in Late April.  But the competition observation only goes so far as Aladdin did much better than nearly anyone expected, especially when the reviews came in at borderline rotten.  John Wick 3 also, probably, did a little better than consensus or at least at the upper end of hopes/dreams.  

 

So the unexpected success of Aladdin and JW3 hitting the upper end of its ceiling tells me that if either Detective Pikachu or King of the Monsters were similarly well regarded by the GA, they would have done better.  Not as good if they had more breathing room between them all, no.  But films still found a way to break out/reach their ceilings in May 2019 despite all of the major guns firing nearly every weekend.

Edited March 3 by Porthos

[leoh]

10 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

Charlie is saying $9.25M and I usually just use his numbers since they are accurate 

yeah… but it’s still a projection based in the info he has access to, so a 0.25 or 0.35 difference would be reasonable idk… there were many IMAX and Dolby Cinema screenings added for 01:00 / 3:30. This might have had some impact. Of course I 100% agree with that it’s really likely a round up. But considering many new shows added between 1am and 3:30am, I’d say this might have had some impact in the final counting for Thursday previews. So I’d not be surprised if it had ended up at 9.5M/9.6M…

[Minnale101]

Ahhh may 2019 good memories of thinking detective pikachu was doing a billion lol

 

aladdin live action did way way better than I thought and it was indeed good movie

 

2019 was great year to follow box office 

[Porthos]

Not to get dragged back into this, but this whole argument is why unless I am absolutely forced not to by studio shenanigans (Sneaks for MI7, TMNT being folded into the OW for instance), I just go with studio estimates and call it a night.  Is it less accurate?  Perhaps.  But if pressed, I might point out that a studio that fudges their numbers on one film is likely to do it for another. 

 

Less conspiratorially, as long as one is consistent with one's methodology, then what ever errors/house bias that is introduced from less than perfect data should be, if nothing else, applied fairly regularly and thus be able to accounted for by folks who think any particular comp might be weighted too far into one direction or the other.

 

Not that I don't think people should do this.  Nothing wrong with it, as far as I am concerned.  What I do think is that folks should be consistent in how they source their data.  

 

Me?  Been doing this too long to want to change my own methodology even if I can see the upside in others doing it.

 

(at the least it gets me out of these debates and I can just say "Yell at the studios, not me.",  After doing these things for a while one finds there is real value in "living a peaceful life", as one Galen Erso observed)

[leoh]

43 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

May 2019 was something of a bloodbath concerning competition, and was noted quite frequently at the time, yes.   Especially since everyone was still dealing with the fallout from the event crater caused by Endgame obliterating nearly every DOM record in sight in Late April.  But the competition observation only goes so far as Aladdin did much better than nearly anyone expected, especially when the reviews came in at borderline rotten.  John Wick 3 also, probably, did a little better than consensus or at least at the upper end of hopes/dreams.  

 

So the unexpected success of Aladdin and JW3 hitting the upper end of its ceiling tells me that if either Detective Pikachu or King of the Monsters were similarly well regarded by the GA, they would have done better.  Not as good if they had more breathing room between them all, no.  But films still found a way to break out/reach their ceilings in May 2019 despite all of the major guns firing nearly every weekend.

I 100% agree. It’s always possible find excuses for bad performances, but monster-verse is a dying franchise for years now (WB just keeps it going due to the international box office):

 

2014: 200M

2017: 160M

2019: 110M

2021: 100M

 

monster-verse is not like Jurassic Park franchise. JP movies have always found its way to smash over 300M at domestic box office, JP movies are actually the big ones whenever it’s released.

Edited March 3 by leoh

[Bob Train]

2 minutes ago, leoh said:

I 100% agree. It’s always possible find excuses for bad performances, but monster-verse is a dying franchise for years now:

 

2014: 200M

2017: 160M

2019: 110M

2021: 100M

 

monster-verse is not like Jurassic Park franchise. JP movies have always found its way to smash over 300M at domestic box office, JP movies are actually the big ones whenever it’s released.

You could've used this exact same argument for Rise of the Beasts going sub-100m. These casual action films that don't have dedicated fans usually don't completely collapse.

[M37]

Fwiw, I will also be using $9.3M as the "true" value whenever Dune is applicable as a comp, given what Charlie has relayed

 

.... which, as @Porthos noted, probably won't be all that often directly.  But besides just a desire to validate the process, wanting to be precise with the Thursday gross is more about having a PSM value/baseline for a high PLF demand but low walk-up/less-GA friendly film, which wasn't totally metro-centric, and that was somewhat of a gap in the overall data set [which is why I said all along there wasn't a great comp for Dune II]

 

We have the metro/MTC1 heavy tier (mostly DCU), a big cluster of GA-friendlier films (including MCU) in the middle, and then a few outliers like Avatar's 2 3D-boosted ATP, and rural over-performances of Indy 5 and TGM, and now Dune being its own special case. More likely it gets used as an upper (ATP) or lower bound (pace), but that's only possible if the numerator is accurate (mostly, still an estimate)

[Porthos]

Just now, leoh said:

I 100% agree. It’s always possible find excuses for bad performances, but monster-verse is a dying franchise for years now:

 

2014: 200M

2017: 160M

2019: 110M

2021: 100M

 

monster-verse is not like Jurassic Park franchise. JP movies have always found its way to smash over 300M at domestic box office, JP movies are actually the big ones whenever it’s released.

 

HOT TAKE
 

100m in April/May of 2021 >> 110m May/June 2019.

 

(a hotter take is that all of the circumstances surrounding movies released in early 2021 make most hard data observations... less than ideal)

 

====

 

The less hot version of the take is that, yes, KotM declined very badly. And that is easily the best argument folks should have for the prospects of the Monsterverse in general.  It's not a small one, either.

 

But I'm kiiiiiiinda of the impression that GvK did pretty... decently all things considered.  But that's a soft, non-data based observation.  COVID/reopening just wrecks everything here, really.  Especially in April 2021.

[Brainbug]

Whatever you are predicting for GxK, its a fact that it will be the first MonsterVerse movie that doesnt open in close proximity to multiple other heavy hitter-blockbusters or has to face a worldwide pandemic at its peak, meaning it has no excuses to perform as badly as KOTM for example. It will be a true test to the MonsterVerses' theatralic prospects.

 

As soon as its presales window starts though its important to consider that these movies are not particulary presales-heavy and rely way more on walk-ups than other big franchise films.