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

[ReturnOfTheBoxOffice]

With everything over performing this month do y’all think GxK will continue that trend? Or will these great numbers screw it at the BO? I’ll be devastated if it flops.

[charlie Jatinder]

20 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Kung Fu Panda 4 MiniTC2

 

Friday - 27112/100481 (481 showings) $315,261

 

Actual gross probably ~$290-300K, that would normally be $15M ish.

 

Comps

1.52x Elemental - $14.3M

2.04x Trolls 3 - $16.5M

 

Saturday - 7822/105846 (507 showings) ~$85K

 

Admits +20% from FRI while gross is +15%. SAT may be $21-22M ish.

Kung Fu Panda 4 MiniTC2

Saturday - 34949/105534 (505 showings) $392,412 + 1502/4282 (28 showings) $17,579 (Spanish version)

 

Weirdly not much growth here vs rest of country. Actually, meh growth and considering how Hispanic demo is over-indexing, MiniTC2 should have done much better. 

 

Missed Spanish version on FRI.

[vafrow]

On 3/9/2024 at 5:56 AM, vafrow said:

 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Western GTA (Southern Ontario), T-13, Thursday previews,

 

Total Sales: 45

New Sales: 7

Growth: 18%

Theatres tracked: MTC4

Total theatres: 4

Showtimes: 17

Radius: 19 km

Tickets per showtime: 2.9

Ticket premium in effect: Yes

 

Sales by timing (sales/showtimes)

Late Afternoon: 5/3

Early Evening: 37/5

Late Evening: 3/5

 

Sales by format (sales/showtimes)

Dolby: 35/10
IMAX:3/1
VIP: 7/2

 

T-13 Comps

0.469x HG:BoSS for $2.7M

1.000x Madame Web for $6.0M 

2.045x Aquaman 2 for $9.2M

0.100x Dune 2 for $1.0M

0.129x The Marvels for $0.9M

1.875x Wonka for $6.6M

 

A bit of a jump. I wonder if a busy weekend at the movies helped trigger people to look ahead a bit.

 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Western GTA (Southern Ontario), T-12, Thursday previews,

 

Total Sales: 48

New Sales: 3

Growth: 7%

Theatres tracked: MTC4

Total theatres: 4

Showtimes: 17

Radius: 19 km

Tickets per showtime: 2.9

Ticket premium in effect: Yes

 

Sales by timing (sales/showtimes)

Late Afternoon: 5/3

Early Evening: 40/5

Late Evening: 3/5

 

Sales by format (sales/showtimes)

Dolby: 38/10
IMAX:3/1
VIP: 7/2

 

T-13 Comps

0.407x HG:BoSS for $2.3M

0.814x Madame Web for $4.9M 

1.655x Aquaman 2 for $7.4M

0.101x Dune 2 for $1.0M

0.134x The Marvels for $0.9M

1.846x Wonka for $6.5M

 

Nothing too interesting. 

 

I did do a pull on last night for Friday sales, which was 166, or 3.45x it's current Thursday. That's encouraging i figure. 

[Human]

5 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

With everything over performing this month do y’all think GxK will continue that trend? Or will these great numbers screw it at the BO? I’ll be devastated if it flops.

Keep hoping.  It is coming off a loved movie.

 

I hope audiences are not conditioned to wait for streaming.

[katnisscinnaplex]

On 3/9/2024 at 7:40 AM, katnisscinnaplex said:

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Arthur the King	T-5	Jax	5	14	0	10	1,173	0.85%
		Phx	6	15	4	13	1,955	0.66%
		Ral	7	20	2	11	1,779	0.62%
	Total		18	49	6	34	4,907	0.69%

 

T-5 comps

 - Peter Rabbit - .791x (712k)

 - Dog - missed

 - Jungle Cruise - .19x (513k)

 - Stillwater - 2x (560k)

 - Otto (expansion) - .694x (441k)

 - King Richard (OD) - .486x (942k)

 

Size adjusted comps - 610k

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Arthur the King	T-4	Jax	5	14	0	10	1,173	0.85%
		Phx	6	15	3	16	1,955	0.82%
		Ral	7	20	3	14	1,779	0.79%
	Total		18	49	6	40	4,907	0.82%

 

T-4 comps

 - Peter Rabbit - .588x (529k)

 - Dog - missed

 - Jungle Cruise - .197x (529k)

 - Stillwater - 1.9x (533k)

 - Otto (expansion) - .698x (431k)

 - King Richard (OD) - .494x (957k)

 

Size adjusted comps - 558k

 

(Pretty interesting that three comps are right at 530k)

 

Let me know if anyone has any other comp suggestions.  I'm also eying a couple other Wahlberg movies Uncharted and Father Stu.

[katnisscinnaplex]

On 3/9/2024 at 7:42 AM, katnisscinnaplex said:

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Ghostbusters: FE	T-12	Jax	5	56	6	111	8,681	1.28%
		Phx	6	53	6	124	9,018	1.38%
		Ral	8	38	3	129	5,493	2.35%
	Total		19	147	15	364	23,192	1.57%

 

T-12 comps

 - Haunted Mansion (Total) - 1.197x (3.71m)

 - Shazam 2 - .852x (2.9m)

 - Suicide Squad - 1.3x (5.33m)

 - NTTD (Total) - missed

 - TMNT (Total) - .67x (3.75m)

 - MI:7 (Total) - .446x (3.92m)

 - Ghostbusters Afterlife (Total) - .877x (3.95m)

 

Size adjusted comps - 3.97m

 

A couple other movies that may be comps, but I'm not committing to the model yet

 - Nope - .953x (6.1m)

 - Morbius - .658x (3.75m)

Movie	Day	Area	TC	Shows	New	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Ghostbusters: FE	T-11	Jax	5	56	0	111	8,681	1.28%
		Phx	6	53	-2	122	9,018	1.35%
		Ral	8	39	2	131	5,604	2.34%
	Total		19	148	0	364	23,303	1.56%

 

T-11 comps

 - Haunted Mansion (Total) - 1.127x (3.49m)

 - Shazam 2 - .813x (2.76m)

 - Suicide Squad - 1.24x (5.08m)

 - NTTD (Total) - .631x (3.97m

 - TMNT (Total) - .655x (3.67m)

 - MI:7 (Total) - .426x (3.75m)

 - Ghostbusters Afterlife (Total) - .831x (3.74m)

 

Size adjusted comps - 3.84m

 

A couple other movies that may be comps, but I'm not committing to the model yet

 - Nope - .915x (5.85m)

 - Morbius - .634x (3.61m)

[abracadabra1998]

On 3/7/2024 at 8:52 PM, abracadabra1998 said:

 

Minneapolis St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (T-14):

Day: T-14	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 17 theaters	92	67	325	17219	1.89

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		257	61	79.08
MTC1:		173	31	53.23
Marcus:		40	5	12.31
Alamo:		55	19	16.92
Other chains:		57	12	17.54

 

Comps:

1.27x Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: $5.71 Million

0.96x TMNT (w/ EA): $5.29 Million

0.39x FNAF: $4.09 Million

0.4x Indy 5: $2.9 Million

 

Average: $4.5 Million

 

Changed up the comps a bit, will add BoSS at T-11 (giving it a few more days to "catch up" since it had only been on sale for two days at T-14).

 

Minneapolis St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (T-11):

Day: T-11	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 19 theaters	106	29	354	19591	1.81

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		6	0	4.38
MTC1:		86	17	62.77
Marcus:		11	2	8.03
Alamo:		7	2	5.11
Other chains:		33	12	24.09

 

Comps:

1.25x Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: $5.63 Million

1.46x Wonka: $5.12 Million

0.82x BoSS: $4.73 Million

0.69x TMNT (w/ EA): $3.78 Million

2.07x Haunted Mansion (w/ EA): $6.42 Million

0.4x Indy 5: $2.9 Million

 

Average: $4.76 Million

 

Numbers pulled earlier than usual because of an Oscars watch party, and this should be the bottom of the U curve, but it's a bad update nonetheless. Rolling with these comps from now on, a bit all over the place but I'm really not sure how this is going to behave from here.

[abracadabra1998]

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Arthur the King (T-4):

Day: T-4	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 15 theaters	41	27	27	3554	0.76

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		0	0	0
MTC1:		19	19	70.37
Marcus:		2	2	7.41
Alamo:		0	0	0
Other chains:		6	6	22.22

 

Comps:

1x Ordinary Angels: $285k

0.34x Big Fat Greek Wedding 3: $185k

0.21x Haunting in Venice: $235k

 

Average: $235k

 

Boys on the Boat comp tomorrow.

 

American Society of Magical... (T-4):

Day: T-4	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 7 theaters	14	17	17	1026	1.66

 

Comps:

0.27x Drive-Away Dolls: $95k

1.42x Book of Clarence: $405k

0.16x Iron Claw: $110k

 

Thought this was gonna be in a lot more theaters, I'll keep tracking it but probably won't post more updates between now and T-1... feels like a waste

[emoviefan]

2 minutes ago, abracadabra1998 said:

Minneapolis-St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Arthur the King (T-4):

Day: T-4	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 15 theaters	41	27	27	3554	0.76

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		0	0	0
MTC1:		19	19	70.37
Marcus:		2	2	7.41
Alamo:		0	0	0
Other chains:		6	6	22.22

 

Comps:

1x Ordinary Angels: $285k

0.34x Big Fat Greek Wedding 3: $185k

0.21x Haunting in Venice: $235k

 

Average: $235k

 

Boys on the Boat comp tomorrow.

 

American Society of Magical... (T-4):

Day: T-4	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 7 theaters	14	17	17	1026	1.66

 

Comps:

0.27x Drive-Away Dolls: $95k

1.42x Book of Clarence: $405k

0.16x Iron Claw: $110k

 

Thought this was gonna be in a lot more theaters, I'll keep tracking it but probably won't post more updates between now and T-1... feels like a waste

Yeesh on those Arthur numbers. Don't think The Panda and Paul Atreides have anything to worry about next week. 

[abracadabra1998]

9 minutes ago, emoviefan said:

Yeesh on those Arthur numbers. Don't think The Panda and Paul Atreides have anything to worry about next week. 

My comps aren’t the best (BFGW and Haunting are sequels), and @katnisscinnaplex numbers do look better there, but far from the Dog-style breakout that I was kind of expecting/wish for sadly  

[emoviefan]

7 minutes ago, abracadabra1998 said:

My comps aren’t the best (BFGW and Haunting are sequels), and @katnisscinnaplex numbers do look better there, but far from the Dog-style breakout that I was kind of expecting/wish for sadly  

I mean it will be number 3 for the weekend but that will only take about 6 million or so looking at this weeks numbers for the holdovers.

[leoh]

1 hour ago, abracadabra1998 said:

 

Minneapolis St. Paul Area Previews:

 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (T-11):

Day: T-11	Shows	New Seats	Sold	Seats	% Sold
Totals: 19 theaters	106	29	354	19591	1.81

 

Type of tix:		Total:	New:	Percentage:
PLFs:		6	0	4.38
MTC1:		86	17	62.77
Marcus:		11	2	8.03
Alamo:		7	2	5.11
Other chains:		33	12	24.09

 

Comps:

1.25x Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: $5.63 Million

1.46x Wonka: $5.12 Million

0.82x BoSS: $4.73 Million

0.69x TMNT (w/ EA): $3.78 Million

2.07x Haunted Mansion (w/ EA): $6.42 Million

0.4x Indy 5: $2.9 Million

 

Average: $4.76 Million

 

Numbers pulled earlier than usual because of an Oscars watch party, and this should be the bottom of the U curve, but it's a bad update nonetheless. Rolling with these comps from now on, a bit all over the place but I'm really not sure how this is going to behave from here.

This matches perfectly @TheFlatLannister daily tracking. It’s doing pretty well in NY AMC theaters as well, heading to a better opening OD than Ghostbusters Afterlife.

 

I am hopping that more and more movies can over preform this year. Theaters are really neeeding this after that Jan/Fev, Feb had a crazy 40% drop from Feb 2023.

Edited March 10 by leoh

[poweranimals]

14 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

With everything over performing this month do y’all think GxK will continue that trend? Or will these great numbers screw it at the BO? I’ll be devastated if it flops.

Yeah, I'm rooting for it to do well. While I admitedly have been a little underwhelmed by the Godzilla franchise in the past, I really liked Godzilla 2014 which I rewatched recently and have been recently watching Monarch and while it hasn't been perfect, I've been really enjoying it too. I'll probably rewatch the other movies when I'm done to build up hype for GxK.

[cooldude97]

15 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

With everything over performing this month do y’all think GxK will continue that trend? Or will these great numbers screw it at the BO? I’ll be devastated if it flops.

it should definitely overperform to current expectations as long as it avoids a rotten on RT and an A-range cinema score, but I still do worry about diminishing returns on monster action if the rumored 1 hour of monster screen time is accurate 

[TheFlatLannister]

On 3/9/2024 at 7:17 PM, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-12

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
482	2964	97492	3.0%

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

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

183

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-12

(0.539x) of Dune 2 $4.98M  

 

Comps average: $4.98M

 

Big increase today

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-11

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
482	3144	97492	3.2%

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

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

180

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-11

(0.554x) of Dune 2 $5.13M  

 

Comps average: $5.13M

 

Another big increase. Now over $5M

[WebSurfer]

Kinda surprised to see Ghostbusters doing this well early on.

[leoh]

1 hour ago, TheFlatLannister said:

FLORIDA 

 

Ghostbusters

 

Thursday 

 

T-11

SHOWINGS	SEATS SOLD	TOTAL SEATS	PERCENT SOLD
482	3144	97492	3.2%

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

SEATS SOLD SINCE YESTERDAY

180

 

SHOWINGS ADDED SINCE YESTERDAY

0

 

SELLOUTS

0

 

COMPS

T-11

(0.554x) of Dune 2 $5.13M  

 

Comps average: $5.13M

 

Another big increase. Now over $5M

I’m so happy to see this, the three major March releases exceeding even the best expectations, this is all what theaters were dreaming of!!!!

 

And there’s still GxK in the transitional week to April.

 

Hope this great March trend can keep up over the summer season 💚

Edited March 11 by leoh

[Porthos]

BTW. for folks who care about such things, looks like social/review embargo for GBFE will be the day before previews:

 

 

Now, I know waaaaaaay too many folks overreact to this sort of thing (KP4 just had a review drop at a similar time and gee wiz, it did fairly well over at RT all things considered), but I mostly care about how it affects ticket purchase patterns.   Like, this isn't gonna be getting a boost when many similar films will be.

 

Maybe marketing will do the heavy lifting instead.  But just something to keep an eye on as we start to get to T-8 to T-5 when various films will be getting social/review bumps and GBFE won't.

Edited March 11 by Porthos

[leoh]

47 minutes ago, Porthos said:

BTW. for folks who care about such things, looks like social/review embargo for GBFE will be the day before previews:

 

 

Now, I know waaaaaaay too many folks overreact to this sort of thing (KP4 just had a review drop at a similar time and gee wiz, it did fairly well over at RT all things considered), but I mostly care about how it affects ticket purchase patterns.   Like, this isn't gonna be getting a boost when many similar films will be.

 

Maybe marketing will do the heavy lifting instead.  But just something to keep an eye on as we start to get to T-8 to T-5 when various films will be getting social/review bumps and GBFE won't.

I mean, nowadays “when” you lift a review embargo is not as much important as it was in the past. With social networks you’ll know the critics thoughts even if the embargo is lifted on the day the move is released.

 

And your friends opinions matter way more than critics reviews. When Dune 2 had its review embargo lifted everyone was expecting wow now pre sales will go crazy… and they didn’t. Then the movie was as released, GA started recommending it to their friends and wow Saturday walk ups was insane to a movie everyone was already considering front loaded. Venom 3 had 30% on Rotten tomatoes but 860M at the BO with 2.8x legs.

 

Look at One Love, they lifted their embargo 7 days in advance just to get 35% on RT (which eventually increased to ~40%). Meanwhile, “Across the Spider-Verse” (96%), “Avatar Way of Water” (90%) and Kung Fu Panda 4 (81% debut) had their review embargo lifted the day before their first public previews.

 

So all things considered, studios are just choosing to play safe, you don’t need to risk your movie pre sales, because at the end of the day audience has the final word. Even if your movie has insane  pre sales like TCP (88% on RT) due to critics positive reviews, it will eventually tank/flop if audience don’t like it, it doesn’t matter how good critics reception is.

Edited March 11 by leoh

[leoh]

2 hours ago, WebSurfer said:

Kinda surprised to see Ghostbusters doing this well early on.

a good thing about @TheFlatLannister is that his projections to OD have been on point (or missing for like 100k/200k). Florida/Orlando has been proving it is a really good sample to predict BO OD. The consistency has been insane.

Edited March 11 by leoh