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

[Menor the Destroyer]

Just now, Flip said:

I’m expecting walk ups to be very strong, old people (this movies demo) tends to buy tickets closer to OD

I don't know where this idea of "old people tend to walk up" got started but most evidence suggests that all other things being equal the exact opposite is true.

 

That said this is an original and I don't expect the genre to be very presale heavy so should have solid walkups regardless.

[AniNate]

I'm pretty sure old people weren't the ones buying tickets to Deadpool & Wolverine the minute they went on sale.

 

Wherever that assumption that they don't walk up is coming from, there is also a difference between presales a month in advance and a week or less in advance. Not technically walkups but not hyped up presales in the big comic book franchise tentpole sense either. They're buying in advance but they're not planning their life around it.

 

 

Edited Friday at 06:51 PM by AniNate

[Speedorito]

Didn’t we have this discussion about older, white audiences not really driving walkups last week, with a plethora of examples in the recent past? Twisters can be an exception but the insistence that it MUST be one is odd.

 

 

[AniNate]

We weren't talking about Twisters but there was also a pretty massive exception to that rule July last year

[Speedorito]

Yes, the pay it forward film that resonated with conservative media and has nothing in common other than “white people”

 

(Sorry everyone if I’m derailing the thread a bit).

[AniNate]

I would guess there is a not insignificant audience overlap with Horizon at least.

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, ChipDerby said:

If Twisters opens to $70 mil I'll run down my street nude. 2024 back end of the year gonna be bonkers.

 

The ultra rare occurrence where "69" would not be a nice result!

[Porthos]

25 minutes ago, Menor the Destroyer said:

I don't know where this idea of "old people tend to walk up" got started but most evidence suggests that all other things being equal the exact opposite is true.

 

Probably a presumption/conflation of "olds = boomers" and "boomers aren't [as] online", which... Well as stereotypes go, seems fairly dated.

[AniNate]

Are we just defining walkup as a literal walkup? Because if that's the case I don't think many people of all ages really do that these days. Everyone looks online first to make sure there's seat(s) and a time available that they like and they buy then before putting the effort in of getting presentable and driving to the theater, it's just a matter of how long in advance they do that. 

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:21 PM by AniNate

[keysersoze123]

if its "diverse" audience then the presales tend to be backloaded as have seen for Zilla and Apes. But if its targeting the white demographics then the final week surge tends to be meh. We have to see how demographics for Twisters will go. Horizon on the other hand would be big time skewed towards older white male audience. 

[toutvabien]

Twisters opening in the 50s and still legging it out to $200m doesn't seem that crazy to me. Not saying it's the most likely outcome, but I can sorta see the potential.

[Menor the Destroyer]

17 minutes ago, AniNate said:

Are we just defining walkup as a literal walkup? Because if that's the case I don't think many people of all ages really do that these days. Everyone looks online first to make sure there's seat(s) and a time available that they like and they buy then before putting the effort in of getting presentable and driving to the theater, it's just a matter of how long in advance they do that. 

 

 

I generally count all same day sales as walkups for that reason. But even final week works for this. Older audience targeting films tend to have meh final week bumps with all other things being equal. 

 

Admittedly it can be hard to disentangle race and age effects since those two variables are correlated.

[cannastop]

21 minutes ago, AniNate said:

Are we just defining walkup as a literal walkup? Because if that's the case I don't think many people of all ages really do that these days. Everyone looks online first to make sure there's seat(s) and a time available that they like and they buy then before putting the effort in of getting presentable and driving to the theater, it's just a matter of how long in advance they do that. 

 

 

IDK I think that's the only definition of walk-up I know.

My mom is insistent on not paying fandango fees and so she wants to buy tickets at the kiosk at the theater.

[Kon]

55 minutes ago, Menor the Destroyer said:

I don't know where this idea of "old people tend to walk up" got started but most evidence suggests that all other things being equal the exact opposite is true.

 

That said this is an original and I don't expect the genre to be very presale heavy so should have solid walkups regardless.

I've read a similar unfounded theory about legs. I've read people say "the audience of this movie being older would give it good legs", but that seems to be hardly true.

[AniNate]

2 minutes ago, Kon said:

I've read a similar unfounded theory about legs. I've read people say "the audience of this movie being older would give it good legs", but that seems to be hardly true.

 

I mean not that movies aimed at younger auds can't have good legs, but I still think it's pretty true that older people aren't as rushed to see stuff on opening weekend. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

6 minutes ago, Kon said:

I've read a similar unfounded theory about legs. I've read people say "the audience of this movie being older would give it good legs", but that seems to be hardly true.

Nah, I think that is true from what I've seen. Younger audiences tend to drive a little more frontloading (not applying to family films but stuff targeting teenagers and younger adults). My guess is that younger casual viewers are more likely to just spontaneously go that day and older casual viewers would rather schedule a viewing a few days later.

 

Would be interesting maybe to look at this systematically, though the demographic data we have tends to be somewhat irregular since its often just what Deadline decides to post.

Edited Friday at 07:51 PM by Menor the Destroyer

[TomThomas]

31 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

 Horizon on the other hand would be big time skewed towards older white male audience. 

My grandma loves The Bodyguard and watches it every time on TV. I would say older audience in general.

[Grand Cine]

1 hour ago, keysersoze123 said:

if its "diverse" audience then the presales tend to be backloaded as have seen for Zilla and Apes. But if its targeting the white demographics then the final week surge tends to be meh. We have to see how demographics for Twisters will go. Horizon on the other hand would be big time skewed towards older white male audience. 

I think from the marketing point of view they seek to attract the white demographic , we see it with the released music. Ca peut freiner les autres démographiques d'être attirés par le film . The trend we see for films this year is that it is family films that attract a larger and more public audience or outperform on ethnic demography that work the most

[vafrow]

56 minutes ago, AniNate said:

Are we just defining walkup as a literal walkup? Because if that's the case I don't think many people of all ages really do that these days. Everyone looks online first to make sure there's seat(s) and a time available that they like and they buy then before putting the effort in of getting presentable and driving to the theater, it's just a matter of how long in advance they do that. 

 

This is very specific to one chain, but I thought I'd use your post as a jumping off point.

 

Cineplex put in an online booking fee last year of $1.50 a ticket. It doesn't apply to it's Cineclub members, which is your heavy user base.

 

So walking up and actually buying at the theatre can save a fair bit for people. It went in quietly about a year and a half ago and they got a lot of flack for it , and are currently facing a lawsuit from Canada's Competition Bureau, so more people are aware.

 

I've wondered what impact that's had on actual walk ups. If someone is cognizant of the fee, it's not hard to check online before you head out if it's full. If it's fairly empty, you can take your chances. And for movies that are not huge blockbusters, it might push people to delay and buy on site for that reason. I also think it feeds into the feast or famine in some of my tracks recently.

 

Anyways, just some musings that I've had for a while but felt it fit into this conversation.

[vafrow]

Off topic, but someone pointed this out on Reddit, but Adil and Bilal gave an interview with Variety, and they said that they were following the box office tracking of BB:RoD, even talking about how it's compared and tracked against other similar films. They cite Reddit, but as Reddit gets the bulk of it's info from here, that's a pretty direct shoutout to the work being done here.

 

Good work gang. And to any other filmmakers that end up here, I hope our little nerdy hobby has some value to you.