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

[el sid]

Blink Twice, counted today for tomorrow, had 319 sold tickets (now with shows in 7 theaters). 

Best presales by far in the two AMCs in California (136 & 124). 

Up pretty good 77% since Monday. 

 

Comps (always counted on Wednesday for Thursday): Thanksgiving (1M) had 260 sold tickets = 1.25M. 

Smile (2M) had 306 = 2.1M. 

The Invitation (775k) had 176 = 1.4M. 

Prey for the Devil (660k) had 140 = 1.5M. 

Abigail (1M) had 248 = 1.3M. 

And Tarot (715k) had 114 sold tickets = 2M. 

 

Average: 1.6M. 

 

The same situation as on Monday: overall nice presales but very very uneven sales. And to me its hard to predict its walk-ups but very probably the Thanksgiving number (1.25M) is more realistic than that of Smile (2M). 

[Mojoguy]

3 hours ago, vafrow said:

Last year NCD was on the 27th, and earliest announcement of that I can find is on August 21st. From a theatre perspective, it's a staffing nightmare, so we'd know by now if it was happening this weekend.

 

The logical date is still Sunday, September 1st. Sunday is better than Saturday. I don't think anything is up for pre-sales for that weekend, at least through MTC4.

 

If chains are going through with it, and follow similar patterns as last year, we'll get an announcement early next week, but you probably will see rumblings about it a day or two before.

 

The fact that this hasn't become a regular and predictable event after a few presumably successful efforts means we can't assume it's taking place. But I can't see why theatres wouldn't be 100% game on this. Concession sales are likely through the roof. There's limited sales that you're really diverting away from regular priced sales at this stage. The bulk of tickets sold would be going to things that have been in theatres for weeks or months. 

NCD will be this weekend or next weekend for sure. Definitely not the weekend Beetlejuice opens or the week after.

[misterpepp]

NATO hasn't set a date for National Cinema Day yet. Nobody within exhibition that I've heard from has gotten word of it. I wouldn't count on it being soon.

[ringedmortality]

30 minutes ago, misterpepp said:

NATO hasn't set a date for National Cinema Day yet. Nobody within exhibition that I've heard from has gotten word of it. I wouldn't count on it being soon.

Guessing itll be after the release of Transformers One

[wattage]

42 minutes ago, misterpepp said:

NATO hasn't set a date for National Cinema Day yet. Nobody within exhibition that I've heard from has gotten word of it. I wouldn't count on it being soon.

I feel like this weekend or next would've been the perfect time, I'm not completely sure why they didn't do it now. Is it the theater chains holding this up or the studios? Is there any word on the potential problems making it possibly not happen? 

[wattage]

14 minutes ago, ringedmortality said:

Guessing itll be after the release of Transformers One

Wild Robot is the week after so definitely not 

[keysersoze123]

Why even have NCD if BO is thriving. It should be done during lull rather than when BO is booming. May be during SB day next year they should do it 🙂

[AniNate]

Labor Day would've been the time to do it, looks like the weakest weekend for the rest of the year

[Mojoguy]

8 minutes ago, wattage said:

Wild Robot is the week after so definitely not 

Joker is the week after Wild Robot. Lots of movies coming out 

[misterpepp]

16 minutes ago, wattage said:

I feel like this weekend or next would've been the perfect time, I'm not completely sure why they didn't do it now. Is it the theater chains holding this up or the studios? Is there any word on the potential problems making it possibly not happen? 

 

Too late for it to be this weekend, theaters are already prepped and tickets are already on sale. In fact, there's already pre-sales up for a few movies for next weekend as well. In the case of the past two years, most studios and exhibitors held off on putting tickets on sale for the proposed date for NCD. To get an event like this going for this coming Labor Day weekend, they would have to rush something together really fast, much quicker and with less time to prep than they did for the past two NCDs. You'll know for sure by the 27th, but I'm feeling pretty certain it isn't happening. Again, nobody on the exhibition side has been told anything is set so far.

[ringedmortality]

Kind of a shame if it doesn’t happen. One of the more interesting things to come out of the pandemic.

[JonathanMB]

Yeah, NCD was great for cinemas two years ago when everything was below $10M, and even for last year when the double-strike was ongoing and limiting the market potential. While nothing is opening above $10M this weekend or next weekend (heck, will anything crack $5M?), we do have three holdovers still doing boffo business with strong WOM, so they'll probably all be above $10M anyway for the holiday weekend (maybe even $15M for the 4-day?).

[DAJK]

Not having National Cinema Day anymore since the industry isn't in "dire need" at the moment, but really marketing the hell out of it the past 2 years genuinely feels like an icky move to me, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

 

You go through all this effort to get people excited, you try to market it as "an affordable way for you and your family to come to the movies" and now that Inside Out and Deadpool have done well this summer, there's this sentiment of "well we really don't need money right now so... bye!" It's gross honestly. Whatever.

 

Next time the box office is in a slump...

[JimmyB]

Sunday November 10th for NCD.  That weekend has nothing big coming out. 

[AniNate]

The week after Thanksgiving would be a reliable perennial choice for a date. It's always a down week regardless of the movies that are out.

[wattage]

2 hours ago, misterpepp said:

 

Too late for it to be this weekend, theaters are already prepped and tickets are already on sale. In fact, there's already pre-sales up for a few movies for next weekend as well. In the case of the past two years, most studios and exhibitors held off on putting tickets on sale for the proposed date for NCD. To get an event like this going for this coming Labor Day weekend, they would have to rush something together really fast, much quicker and with less time to prep than they did for the past two NCDs. You'll know for sure by the 27th, but I'm feeling pretty certain it isn't happening. Again, nobody on the exhibition side has been told anything is set so far.

I figured it was too late to put it on those dates, I'm just confused as to why they didn't lock down a date months ago. I'm not sure where the breakdown happened that caused it to just not happen, were there discussions and they fell apart or was it just not really on the table in the first place to do the event this year? I was wondering if someone had some inside info on that part. 

 

We'll probably never know though beyond the fact that it's just not happening, at least not anytime soon if they even decide to do it. I'm a bit sad about it. 

Edited August 21 by wattage

[filmlover]

1 hour ago, DAJK said:

Not having National Cinema Day anymore since the industry isn't in "dire need" at the moment, but really marketing the hell out of it the past 2 years genuinely feels like an icky move to me, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

 

You go through all this effort to get people excited, you try to market it as "an affordable way for you and your family to come to the movies" and now that Inside Out and Deadpool have done well this summer, there's this sentiment of "well we really don't need money right now so... bye!" It's gross honestly. Whatever.

 

Next time the box office is in a slump...

It could work for an early year frame like in January or February since those are traditional "dump" periods like late August has always been. Hard to say what that time period will look like early next year when most of the movies scheduled haven't begun promotion yet (Paddington 3, Captain America, Snow White, and F1 are the only '25 releases so far to have formally kicked off their marketing campaigns), but I'm sure stuff like Lisa Frankenstein and The Book of Clarence (I had to look up what came out earlier this year, that's how swiftly forgotten these movies were ) are wishing they could've had something that would've boosted some level of consumer interest in them above what very little of that they had.

[misterpepp]

40 minutes ago, wattage said:

I figured it was too late to put it on those dates, I'm just confused as to why they didn't lock down a date months ago. I'm not sure where the breakdown happened that caused it to just not happen, were there discussions and they fell apart or was it just not really on the table in the first place to do the event this year? I was wondering if someone had some inside info on that part. 

 

Right, apologies, I intended to respond to the latter part of your post but got sidetracked!

 

I don't have very much info on the particulars of "why", but based solely on my own speculation from how the previous events were handled, I think it just comes down to the difficulty of making everyone happy. I don't think the studios particularly like having to work around it on the release schedule, the exhibitors aren't always in agreement on when it should be or how it should be conducted (there have been rumblings in the past about disagreements among theater operators on the price of NCD tickets, I'm sure there are good reasons the price went up last year), and lower-level management and staff don't enjoy the problems that working this day has brought.

 

This is my own opinion, but I wouldn't even count on it being on the second weekend of a big blockbuster. If Joker 2, Venom 3, and/or Moana 2 are huge, they won't want to undercut their potentially big second weeks, regardless of if they're otherwise deserted on the new release front.

Edited August 21 by misterpepp

[filmlover]

If this is the end of the line for NCD, at least they will have gotten two good years out of this experiment. Maybe they can resurrect it in a couple of years if there is an overall notion that movie theaters need to be "saved" again.

[vafrow]

On 8/20/2024 at 7:23 PM, vafrow said:

The Crow, T-2, Western GTA (southern Ontario)

 

Theatres: 4

Showtimes: 8

Tickets Sold: 21

 

Comps:

0.724x The Bikeriders for $1.1M

 

The Crow, T-1, Western GTA (southern Ontario)

 

Theatres: 4

Showtimes: 8

Tickets Sold: 29

 

Comps:

0.674x The Bikeriders for $1.0M

0.604x Borderlands for $0.8M

 

Average: $0.9M

 

Not great.