Weekend Numbers | estimates | 45.2M GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE | 17.6M DUNE II | 16.8M KFP IV

[WittyUsername]

Looks like 2024 finally managed to pick up some steam. 

[Bob Train]

https://deadline.com/2024/03/box-office-ghostbusters-frozen-empire-1235865730/

 

Quote

1.) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) 4,345 theaters, Fri $16M Sat $16.8M Sun $12.3M 3-day $45.2M/Wk 1

2.) Dune: Part Two (Leg/WB) 3,437 theaters (-410), Fri $4.5M (-44%) Sat $7.7M Sun $5.4M, 3-day $17.6M (-38%)/Total $233.3M/Wk 4

3.) Kung Fu Panda 4 (Uni/DWA) 3,805 (-262) theaters, Fri $4M (-54%) Sat $7.6M Sun $5.1M, 3-day $16.8M (-44%), Total $133.2M/Wk 3

4.) Immaculate (NEON) 2,354 theaters, Fri $2M, Sat $2M Sun $1.3M 3-day $5.36M/Wk 1

5.)Arthur the King (LG) 3,003 theaters, Fri $1.1M (-61%) Sat $1.9M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.36M (-43%), Total $14.6M/Wk 2

6.) Late Night With the Devil (IFC),1034 theaters Fri $1.1M Sat $1M Sun $733K 3-day $2.833M/Wk 1

7.) Imaginary (LG) 2,513 theaters (-605), Fri $760K Sat $1.27M Sun $765K 3-day $2.8M (-49%), Total $23.6M /Wk 3

8.) Love Lies Bleeding (A24) 1,828 theaters (+466) Fri $484K Sat $630K Sun $472K, 3-day $1.58M (-37%), Total $5.68M/Wk 3

9.) Cabrini (Angel) 1,765 (-1,085) theaters, Fri $410K Sat $576K $432K 3-day $1.4M (-50%) Total $16.1M/Wk 3

10.) Bob Marley: One Love (Par) 1,266 theaters (-1066) Fri $295K (-57%), Sat $490K, Sun $315K 3-day $1.03M (-40%), Total $95.3M/Wk 6

 

Edited March 24 by Bob Train

[Maggie]

Love Lies Bleeding is a major flop. What happened? I thought Stewart had some BO pull

[Eric Furiosa]

13 minutes ago, Maggie said:

Love Lies Bleeding is a major flop. What happened? I thought Stewart had some BO pull

Says who lol

[babz06]

21 minutes ago, Maggie said:

Love Lies Bleeding is a major flop. What happened? I thought Stewart had some BO pull

She’s a well known actress but she’s never had BO pull. It doesnt help they she’s done mostly indies post-Twilight. When she did franchise fare like Snow White and the Huntsman and Charlie’s Angels, they both underperformed.

Edited March 24 by babz06

[filmlover]

17 minutes ago, Maggie said:

Love Lies Bleeding is a major flop. What happened? I thought Stewart had some BO pull

Since when? The Twilight movies and Snow White & the Huntsman were projects sold more on brand name than individual star power.

[Eric Furiosa]

 

[AJG]

1 hour ago, filmlover said:

I'm almost surprised there hasn't been any attempt at continuing Casper as a big screen property in the nearly 30 years since the '95 movie, which adjusts to well over $200M today. Must be a theatrical film rights issue (I would assume Universal still has them but you never know) because one would do pretty well released around Halloween.

 

Universal owns Casper's rights through the Dreamworks Acquisition. 

 

I read there's hesitancy with studios relying on properties as old as Casper. The public domain laws on Casper kick in in 17 years (that sound really far away but remember the Tranformers movies started in 2007, 17 years ago) . Disney spent a lot of time minimising Mickey from the public consciousness so they didn't get shell-shocked once Public Domain kicked in (no Mickey movies, they removed Mickey Mouse logos from things like Disney Channel, no non-preschool Mickey Mouse animated series for 20 year etc.).

[filmlover]

1 minute ago, Eric Atreides said:

 

I wonder if Universal has any concession plans for Twisters. Those could be almost as...creative...as The Dune Popcorn Bucket. 

[babz06]

2 hours ago, Ezen Baklattan said:

Yeah, Ghostbusters is basically a family franchise at this point in case it wasn’t obvious before.

It’s a really small family audience but yes. 

[filmnerdjamie]

13 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I wonder if Universal has any concession plans for Twisters. Those could be almost as...creative...as The Dune Popcorn Bucket. 

 

Shaped like Glenn Powell's head. Cowboy hat, shades and all. Instant best sellers.

[emoviefan]

52 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

Looks like 2024 finally managed to pick up some steam. 

Yes this weekend was a pretty solid weekend overall and the month as a whole has been pretty good and will be up from  last year. April will be rough though with the Mario comp killing it and May with Guardians 3, Fast 10 and Mermaid comps. But fingers crossed the April movies perform decently relative to expectations and the May movies like Fall Guy, Apes, IF, Garfield, and Furiosa all do as good as possible. 

[baumer]

3 hours ago, JimmyB said:

If you are studio head and you see what's making money Dune 2, Panda 4, Ghostbusters 5 and soon another Godzilla Kong movie....you have to be typing up an email asking for more sequels of known IPs.  Doesn't seem like audiences are changing what they like.....they like being feed the same thing....like going to McDonalds everyday for lunch....you know exactly what you are getting for your money.  

 

Because you want to know what you're getting yourself into before you decide to drop 60, 70 or 100 bucks on movie night out with your family.

 

It's not just movies that are expensive, its everything. Everything has gone up to the point of insanity. So when you have original films and they struggle to break even or even come close to seeing black, just realized that people are more than willing to wait for those ones to come on Netflix or prime or Disney or whatever in the next month or two.

 

But you want to pry money from people? Give them something that they at least know they're familiar with. That's why the name recognition, at least the way I see it, is more important maybe that has been ever.

[JimmyB]

26 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

Because you want to know what you're getting yourself into before you decide to drop 60, 70 or 100 bucks on movie night out with your family.

 

It's not just movies that are expensive, its everything. Everything has gone up to the point of insanity. So when you have original films and they struggle to break even or even come close to seeing black, just realized that people are more than willing to wait for those ones to come on Netflix or prime or Disney or whatever in the next month or two.

 

But you want to pry money from people? Give them something that they at least know they're familiar with. That's why the name recognition, at least the way I see it, is more important maybe that has been ever.

I agree, Its a business and its about making money.  It's why we are getting everything from another Apes, Bad Boys, Twister, Alien movies because it's names people know.

[Kon]

46 minutes ago, babz06 said:

It’s a really small family audience but yes. 

If GB is a family film franchise, it could have good legs. 

[JimmyB]

On the independent scene, “Late Night With the Devil” took sixth place and summoned $2.8 million from 1,034 venues, including (and you can’t make this up) $666,666 on Sunday. 

 

https://variety.com/2024/film/box-office/ghostbusters-frozen-empire-box-office-opening-weekend-1235950537/

[von Kenni]

2 hours ago, emoviefan said:

yep this franchise has found it's ceiling or audience level I guess. The original was really lightning in a bottle. The admission levels for that , compared to the 4 follow ups including the 2016 movie,  are insane. 

 

3 hours ago, John Marston said:

Imagine if they actually made a good Ghostbusters movie 

 

I think these ceilings are pretty arbitrary to define because so many variables define them starting from what John Marston said here: "Imagine if they actually made a good Ghostbusters movie".

 

1. So if the writing, story, and execution would be A+ could the GBFE make $55M, $65M, or even more in OW?

 

I'm a fan of the original GB and liked GBA even though I was dissapointed for the ending and how the old gang was involved (or how little) a would give something like 3 or 3.5 stars out of 5. Seeing the GBFE trailer before Dune 2 in cinema made me feel indifference and slightly annoyed like recycling the mayor seen (SWFA vibes) and you can see the poster that has characters like Infinity War without the build up so you already know that this isn't any A+ stuff. Even with the $5 deal me and my partner will pass this in cinema just because the reasons mentioned here.

 

2. How about if the marketing would have been better or the competitive landscape easier today? Would it make $5M, $10M, or $20M more in OW?

 

3. What about that positioning? Is it more comedy, horror with comedic undertones, or stranger things family movie? How those affect the ceiling and if it is transitioning it's positioning (which it seems to be doing) will the ceiling be higher after the transition?

 

4. What if it can hit the zeitgeist cultural demand with the storytelling like Barbie, Oppenheimer, TGM, Avatar, or the original GB "sticking it to the man" (over simplification) that spoke to Gen X. Can the ceiling suddenly go 50% or even 100% up.

 

I'm sure there's more that we can think here but already with this I could argue that GB ceiling can be anywhere between $50M to $100M+. It's a matter of how many things you can get right when producing and rolling it out. No movie is ever hitting its ceiling/full potential but even if we arbitrarily set it around 80% of the full potential it's still varying. So which of the above variables we should treat as constants and how?

 

Same with Dune. If there would have been competition like last time with Bond and Eternals the numbers would be lower. Would be then say that's the Dune ceiling. If Dune 1 would have been better like 2 and less GA alienation would Dune 2 make 10%, 20%, or even more now? If the director would have been Nolan, that would have given 10-25%extra boost with his name. What if the competition would have been a bit easier and marketing worked better?

 

With these I could argue that maybe Dune's ultimate ceiling is $1B instead of $700M where it's now heading.

 

For me ceilings seem quite ambiguous or how should we frame them?

[dallas]

 

[JimmyB]

11 minutes ago, dallas said:

 

1.5b for the 1st qtr of 2024 would be 200m behind 2023.  Dune and Panda saving the year.  

 

2nd qtr of 2023 was 2.678b. Almost a billion of that 2.678b was from Mario and GOTG3.

 

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/quarter/q2/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses

[vafrow]

52 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

Because you want to know what you're getting yourself into before you decide to drop 60, 70 or 100 bucks on movie night out with your family.

 

It's not just movies that are expensive, its everything. Everything has gone up to the point of insanity. So when you have original films and they struggle to break even or even come close to seeing black, just realized that people are more than willing to wait for those ones to come on Netflix or prime or Disney or whatever in the next month or two.

 

But you want to pry money from people? Give them something that they at least know they're familiar with. That's why the name recognition, at least the way I see it, is more important maybe that has been ever.

 

Yup. We've been on this path for a while. It's nothing new, but it gets more heightened every year it seems.

 

That said, Ghostbusters, with it's IP legacy, big cast, and decent sized budget is going to get to probably $100-110M domestic. Maybe it can match internationally.

 

Something like FNAF is a similar type of IP that's squarely aimed at the younger generation that did better with a really low effort and low budget release that had a day and date streaming debut.

 

Studios can probably set themselves up better if they figure out what IP is actually relevant to the next generation, rather than forcing them the stuff from their parents.