Thanksgiving 5-days Weekend thread | BOSS: 42.2m, Napoleon: 32.75m, Wish: 31.6m, Trolls: 25.6m, Thanksgiving: 10.9m

[BadOlCatSylvester]

1 hour ago, Issac Newton said:

 

 

Opening below the fucking Penguins of Madagascar movie is especially awful news when you consider what consequences that movie resulted in for DreamWorks. And I'd argue they never really recovered from them.

[Issac Newton]

Friday estimates:

1. Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (LG) 3,776 theaters Fri $11.4M (+88%) 3-day $27.7M (-38%) 5-day $41.1M/Total $97.3M /Wk 2
2. Napoleon (App/Sony) 3,500 heaters, Fri $8.4M (+94% from Thurs), 3-day $20.8M, 5-day $32.9M/Wk 1
3. Wish (Dis) 3,900 theaters, Fri $8M (+111% from Thurs) 3 day $20M, 5-day $32.3M/Wk 1
4. Trolls Band Together 3,893 (+23) theaters Fri $7.1M (+170%) 3-day $17.7M (-41%), 5-day $25.5M Total $64.7M/Wk
5. Thanksgiving (Sony) 3,204 theaters, Fri $2.7M (+36%) 3-day $7.4M (-27%) 5-day $10.5M,Total $23.5M/Wk 2
6. The Marvels (Dis) 4,030 theaters Fri $2.4M (+95%) 3-day $6M (-41%) 5-day $8.8M Total $76.5M/Wk 3
7. The Holdovers (Foc) 1601 (+123) theaters Fri $1M (+96%) 3-day $2.75M (+2%), 5-day $3.75M Total $12.9M/Wk 5
8. Taylor Swift: Eras Tour (AMC) 938 (-635) theaters, Fri $900K (+245%) 3-day $2.4M (-11%)/5-day $2.7M Total $178.4M/ Wk 7
9. Saltburn (AMZ/MGM) 1,566 (+1559) Fri $622K (+106% from Thurs) 3-day $1.7M (+426%) 5-day $2.68M, Total $3M/Wk 2
10. Next Goal Wins (Sea) 2,240 theaters Fri $665K (+40%) 3-day $1.69M (-32%) 5-day $2.55M/Total $5.7M Wk 2
11. Five Nights at Freddy’s (Uni) 1,754 (-1075) theaters, Fri $640K (+146% from Thurs) 3-day $1.7M (-52%), 5-day $2.45M Total $136.1M/Wk 5

[WittyUsername]

Good for Rachel Zegler. 

[Issac Newton]

Napoleon

 

Made more in its first five days at the box office than Apple’s 3 1/2 hour Killers of the Flower Moon which did $28.2M; admitted, yes, that’s because of the holiday. Those PLF and Imax screens are driving 34% of ticket sales so far with the AMC Lincoln Square Theatre in NY the best in the country with a running total through Friday of $80K.

 

Audiences not entirely over the moon about the movie with 72% positive on PostTrak, a 46% recommend and guys still outpacing women, 65% to 35%. Best grades for the movie come from the 18-24 set (80%, but only 17% of the crowd) and men under 25 (77%, 15% of ticketholders). Close to half of the audience was between 18-34, with 25-34 being the biggest demo at close to a third. Diversity mix was 57% Caucasian, 21% Latino and Hispanic, 9% Black and 12% Asian/other.  

[TwoMisfits]

27 minutes ago, Flip said:

HG can probably hit 140m, only November release above 100m

 

Trolls 3 will also probably clear $100M...so, 2 releases might get over $100M...

[M37]

 

 

1 hour ago, keysersoze123 said:

Wish even at 41m would be just meh. BO.com projections even this week was at 39m for 3 day weekend and around 55m for 5 day. I think anything below 50m for a holiday long weekend is meh. 

 

Hunger Games prequel is doing good but would be lucky to hit 150m unless it continues to have great holds. That is still not a great November. At least 1 movie should have hit 200m. It was not due to lack of content either. 

Top 10 Gross for the 10-day Thanksgiving Period (Friday before through Sunday after)

• 2021 = $236M
• 2022 = $253M
• 2023 = $290M+

So up maybe 20% or more from previous two years, though still way down from the $480-$500M level of 2018 & 19.  But the Thanksgiving period is usually dominated by animated films and adult dramas - two genres which have been particularly struggling post pandemic. We're just not likely to see a $125M 5-day from Ralph + Grinch combined, or $100M+ 5-day from a grouping of adult-skewing films. The market just no longer supports that, so maybe around $300M or $350M or so should be the new expectation level for this holiday period, and this year isn't all that far off (absent whatever Dune 2 would have brought in during this time frame before moving and not being replaced)

Edited November 25, 2023 by M37

[Avatree]

I had assumed Napoleon would flop, but I just went to look at times for next week and seen there are multiple sold out showings this weekend. Even the one I'm going to see on Tuesday is already 40% booked.

[Pinacolada]

1 hour ago, Avatree said:

I had assumed Napoleon would flop, but I just went to look at times for next week and seen there are multiple sold out showings this weekend. Even the one I'm going to see on Tuesday is already 40% booked.

Yeah I always had faith there was inherent interest in Napoleon, and the recent floppage of great movies like The Last Duel and The Northman had no correlation to a movie about Napoleon's potential.  

 

I just wish Ridley made a better movie. It's frustrating. If he had, I think we could be looking at a $300m+ WW number, which would be solid given the times. He's such an efficient filmmaker, to the point where it really feels like he doesn't really care much about the scripts. I still liked the film, but I can totally see why people don't, or are bored by it. Just hope it can easily cross $200m WW at this point. Kingdom of Heaven and Exodus numbers

[Cmasterclay]

Nice for the Holdovers, wish it got a little bit of expansion and no VOD so it could hit 25m. Movie is beloved by audiences.

[Brainbug]

5-Day 32,5M estimate for Wish. Horrendous. I actually really wonder how many crashes Disney is willing to take before they maybe realize that they need to change their creative strategy, like for example, beeing creative again.

[titanic2187]

4 hours ago, JonathanMB said:

 

 

I think that's a pretty decent expansion? Post-COVID platform releases haven't really tried 100-500 theater weekends because their PTAs have been crumbling in that range, so they've preferred going straight from the 50-100 theater range to 500+. Dream Scenario's PTA should be above $4,000 this weekend, which is better than TAR ($3,546) in a similar amount of theaters (141 theaters). It's not quite as good as Past Lives ($3,608 in 296 theaters), but that had Best of the Year level raves, whereas this has mostly solid reviews without an ounce of awards buzz that most platform releases thrive on. I don't think Unbearable Weight is quite the right comparison, as this is more of a Pig performer, being from a hip indie distributor  and all, so I think any total above that movie would be respectable. 

 

Pig was a pandemic release in 2021. Comparing DS to Pig is basically admitting that we made no progress after all the reopening. Also, when come to mid-small sized movie, I don't think major studios like Universal and WB , have possessed much advantage over A24 anymore. Massive Talent target isn't ambitious at all, it was just 20m, even Priscilla is taking over that mark pretty soon. There is no reason not to target a 20m for a high concept audience friendly comedy, starring Nicholas Cage.  

 

I am still hoping for a 5k PTA at 124 theaters this weekend as long as there can be some slight jump (not impossible for an adult movie over TG) and 38% drop on Sunday.  

 

 

[MysteryMovieMogul]

Regarding Disney's Wish, Illumination's Migration, and even Universal's Trolls 3, the biggest problem children's films have today is that there's no more direct marketing to young children like there once was.

 

You would plop a kid in front of the TV and they would see a commercial for the new movie or for the toys from a new movie, but these days, parents turn on YouTube videos or Netflix series and children don't get bombarded with ads for anything related to children's films.

 

A good movie still matters, as we can see by the failure of Disney's Wish, but even Trolls 3, which is doing well, isn't doing amazing for a third film in a series.

[VanillaSkies]

5 hours ago, JonathanMB said:

 

It should end up staying flat with last weekend despite only adding 123 new theaters. This feels like the first platform release to perform like a pre-COVID release in a while, it's annoying that it's getting the PVOD release next week already. That should hurt it too much while it's still $20 at least, so hopefully it holds well enough through the holidays to get above $20M, maybe even stays in theaters through Oscar season to get to $30M?

I sure hope so. Not only is it such a good film, it’s also a heartwarming Christmas themed movie. It’s perfect for the holidays. 
I don’t know what they were thinking with VOD so soon (maybe contractual) but I’m hopeful the reason they are slowly

expanding it is so that in December they can go 2400+ screens to coincide with the Golden Globe nominations (for whatever those are still worth) as well as critics circles awards. If this was pre-Covid, this would definitely be one of those really leggy Oscar runs. Now? Well, we will have to see. 

[MovieMan89]

Good for THG. Won’t lie, don’t think there’s any ways legs would be nearly as good if every other big release wasn’t tanking, but hey good on LG for releasing when they did and maybe reading the signs nothing else looked like a big hit. 
 

I can’t imagine we will have another Thanksgiving though where two major openers fail to take #1. Or at least let’s hope not. 

[abracadabra1998]

Anyone had fun Black Friday plans? Actually went to the mall with the SO for the first time in a few years, and it actually felt nostalgic and fun. Also helped that it wasn’t as full as it would be like 10 or even 5 years ago, so it was a lot more pleasant. Ironically the digital age has made me crave these things more lol 

 

(no, we did not go to the mall of America, I’m crazy but not THAT crazy)

[MovieMan89]

56 minutes ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

Regarding Disney's Wish, Illumination's Migration, and even Universal's Trolls 3, the biggest problem children's films have today is that there's no more direct marketing to young children like there once was.

 

You would plop a kid in front of the TV and they would see a commercial for the new movie or for the toys from a new movie, but these days, parents turn on YouTube videos or Netflix series and children don't get bombarded with ads for anything related to children's films.

 

A good movie still matters, as we can see by the failure of Disney's Wish, but even Trolls 3, which is doing well, isn't doing amazing for a third film in a series.

Hmm, I’m not sure finding way to reach them in marketing is as much the problem (kids are more tech savvy than ever and there’s plenty of Internet marketing) so much as new learned movie consumption behavior and habits are. We were talking about this last week too I think, but the new gen of kids have simply not been exposed to going to the movie theater like every gen before them.

 

Covid made that impossible for a few years of their childhood for starters, but beyond that, many parents aren’t willing anymore to spend the money to take kids with the prices. Especially I think if it’s not something the parents also have interest in. Kids are used to streaming for movies, probably so much so that some of the younger ones don’t even comprehend the idea of asking to go to the theater now. 

[MysteryMovieMogul]

8 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

kids are more tech savvy than ever and there’s plenty of Internet marketing

Except, online, these studios are marketing towards people who have kids. 

 

And parents WILL take their kids if their kids are bugging them to see a film. I bugged my parents to see films when I was a kid because I saw ads for them on Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon!

[Killimano3]

Obviously the box office is still performing below the pre-pandemic era, but I feel like most of the year has been at least performing admirably enough, with a few months performing at near pre-pandemic levels. But for whatever reason the only months that have been truly dismal the past couple years has been the holiday season. November and December were basically carried the last couple years but single films making upwards of 60% of the months entire gross (Black Panther 2, Avatar 2, Spider-Man 3), and this year just doesn't have that.

 

The strike certainly hurt this year but I feel like even if it hadn't we'd still have seen a terrible season overall. I also feel like we can't just blame the sad state of the moviegoing industry since we've since seen lots of hits this years. For some reason we're just seeing abysmal holiday schedules...

[Killimano3]

14 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

Hmm, I’m not sure finding way to reach them in marketing is as much the problem (kids are more tech savvy than ever and there’s plenty of Internet marketing) so much as new learned movie consumption behavior and habits are. We were talking about this last week too I think, but the new gen of kids have simply not been exposed to going to the movie theater like every gen before them.

 

Covid made that impossible for a few years of their childhood for starters, but beyond that, many parents aren’t willing anymore to spend the money to take kids with the prices. Especially I think if it’s not something the parents also have interest in. Kids are used to streaming for movies, probably so much so that some of the younger ones don’t even comprehend the idea of asking to go to the theater now. 

 

I love the movies so I bring my kids to essentially ever kids movie that releases, whether they know about it or not, and whether I even want to see it or not. They love going to the movies so they're always happy.

 

But I definitely agree if I hadn't done that they might not have any interest on their own. Even as it is I find that they are very impatient about TV/movies compared to I was when I was a kid in the early 00s. We used to just accept things like having to watch whatever was on, needing to wait til movies released in theaters and then came out on VHS/DVD. But my kids can't STAND the fact that they have to wait until films release on streaming a month or two later XD The second we get home from a movie they liked they'll beg me to play it again on the TV and I'll need to explain to them that no, you can't just put whatever you want on the TV always, sometimes you have to actually wait until something releases. They're too used to thinking "I want to watch this" and then they can just watch whatever it is always instantly

[keysersoze123]

1 hour ago, Brainbug said:

5-Day 32,5M estimate for Wish. Horrendous. I actually really wonder how many crashes Disney is willing to take before they maybe realize that they need to change their creative strategy, like for example, beeing creative again.

When has disney actually created something new. Mostly its tried and tested territories. Either franchises for all their live action flicks or something based on theme park rides or their princess/fantasy stuff for animation. Pixar does  try something new but they have also floundered in the Disney+ era. Disney need new creative team and move from committee driven movies to Director driven ones. For now they are comfortable going in the opposite direction.