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

[emoviefan]

8 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

$5 GA tickets.  Empty schedule.  Those 2 things explain the entire difference.

Do we know that Monkey Man will not those 5 dollar tickets yet?It's still 2 weeks away. 

[ZeroHour]

Oh we’re really in denial if we’re still trying to sell 2024 as a post-COVID recovery period. Business at restaurants and live entertainment has been booming. There’s no post-COVID hesitation anywhere else. People’s relationship to movie theaters has just changed. 

[Bob Train]

I think it's clear original movies do better when there are no big blockbusters to suck up the money. This March there was KFP4, Dune 2, and GxK still coming so audiences probably saved their money for those movies. So audiences weren't willing to pay for dumped original movies like Arthur the King. Even still Immaculate opening is pretty good for a small distributor.

 

If you look over the Holiday season, when there were no big blockbusters, the original movies did a lot better. The Boy and the Heron did very well, ABY did great, and The Boys in the Boat and Iron Claw also did well. Even Beekeeper did pretty well on MLK weekend.

[Eric the IF]

9 minutes ago, DAJK said:

We really did have it good in 2014. Looking back a decade later, it might be my favourite year movie-wise since I started “getting into movies” in 2012.

It was really the end of an era box-office wise. 2015 was when we got the major split between the haves and have nots, where you make 300M+ or sub-200 with no in between, as well as the beginning of the decline for all movies that aren't nostalgic toy commercials. 2014 was also obviously blockbuster and sequel heavy, but American Sniper would have only done 1/6 of its box office in today's era at best. It's sad, ain't it?

 

2 minutes ago, AniNate said:

 

There's a difference between acknowledging the current reality and assuming that it can never get any better. That's where the line is for me with a lot of the box office dooming. Yes, right now these movies still struggle, but we are still in the post-pandemic environment where the audiences are gradually returning, and I think that's a reasonable context to evaluate box office performances now in. Granted, these last few months have not been exemplary of the kind of gradual improvement I'd like to see continue, and I'm not expecting April will be either given one of the biggest movies of last year opened at the beginning of that month, but there is a pretty robust slate of modest studio fare starting in May and continuing pretty much through the rest of the year, so I still think there's potential for this year to continue the upward trend.

Here's the thing: it's been three years since theaters have reopened. And outside of some minor strides here and there, very little has changed. The box office is even more divided between the haves and have nots, with only one movie between 225-300M. And Little Mermaid's only just barely behind that number. The numbers show that movies designed to skew towards Gen Xers and boomers still have crazy high 18-34 percentages. The numbers show that most movies that aren't NTCs are unable to gross much of anything even compared to the standards of a few years ago. Three years is a long time, and when very little has changed? I think it's fair to think this is the current reality.

 

But you know what? I'd love to be wrong. Maybe this April will be full of solid performers. Maybe stuff like Horizon or IF or Sing Sing could do very well this summer. We could be predicting things too early. But with how little has really changed in these last three years, I kind of have doubts.

[AniNate]

4 minutes ago, ZeroHour said:

Oh we’re really in denial if we’re still trying to sell 2024 as a post-COVID recovery period. Business at restaurants and live entertainment has been booming. There’s no post-COVID hesitation anywhere else. People’s relationship to movie theaters has just changed. 

I'll be in denial as long as this last rolling year is still an improvement on the previous one. It's probably not gonna ever be roaring back the way concerts were (although that market now is kinda contracting again) but even with these bad last few months we're still trending ahead of the same 2022-2023 frame. 

 

 

Edited March 23 by AniNate

[Maggie]

This all coincides with the downfall of Marvel...

[John Marston]

33 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Just for fun I took a smattering of movies from 2014, which btw at the time was considered a weak year at the box office.

 

Neighbors did 150m.

Lucy did 126m.

Noah did 101m.

Non-Stop did 92m.

The Imitation Game did 91m.

Fury did 85m.

The Other Woman did 83m.

The Grand Budapest Hotel did 59m. 

No Good Deed did 52m.

 

Look at those totals. Come on folks. You guys know none of those movies would have done even 25m domestic today except maybe Neighbors, which would have gone straight to Apple like Rogen's recent films, and maybe Budapest because Wes Power. And when they flopped, you know what people would have posted - "oh, of course a movie with those reviews/length/concept/stars flopped, they always would have!" But the fact is, they didn't always. Not remotely. And people who have been on these boards awhile just know that to be true. Which is why I think the Clays and CJohns and others of the world are more negative. 

What this shows me is Hollywood is making less appealing films and star power today is not as strong as it used to be 

[emoviefan]

1 minute ago, Maggie said:

This all coincides with the downfall of Marvel...

Yeah nobody is mentioning that. The MCU was really propping up the box office well before Covid and throw in Star Wars movies from 2015-2019. Those bubbles burst and here we are. Nothing has replaced those on a consistent basis except for the random TG Maverick, Way of Water, Mario, and Barbenheimer. 

[AniNate]

We do need a stronger selection of mid range IPs which on paper I think is something 2024 provides consistently from May through December. If a lot of those disappoint too then I'll join the dooming.

[filmlover]

The Imitation Game is the only one of those listed above that stands out as being given the green light under dramatically different conditions today than it was a decade ago out of all those movies (although The Other Woman is an obvious Netflix dump now). Limited series is generally considered to be the way to go for projects like that these days.

[Maggie]

I'm gonna say next year looks fantastic for mid range (?) movies with Tarantino, PTA etc

 

This year suffers because of the strikes last year

[DAJK]

13 minutes ago, Maggie said:

This all coincides with the downfall of Marvel...

While I don’t disagree with some of the negativity of posters like @Cmasterclay (and I’m not saying negativity like it’s a bad thing), I do think that the box office, and audiences themselves, simply is in a state of transition. The Marvel dominance is coming to an end, and we are in this transition period before another franchise or genre fills the now-open niche.

 

The 2000’s were when CGI finally caught up to fantasy storytelling, and you had big blockbuster franchises emerging from that. The 2010s was the proliferation and continuation of those franchises with endless sequels and reboots. But now since the pandemic, those franchises are mostly played out. Audiences need something else, and Hollywood hasn’t quite caught up yet (makes sense since movies do admittedly take years to make). I do hope we are going back to a 1990s era where prestige filmmakers get to make high-concept films with big budgets, and in doing so bring in big box office and awards. But we’ll see how the next few years go.

[JonathanMB]

April is definitely looking sketchy right now, but I'm holding out hope that it ends up being another September 2022, where we had four original films (Barbarian, Woman King, Don't Worry Darling, Smile) all over-perform either in their opening weekends, legs, or both. I currently have Monkey Man, Civil War, Abigail, and Challengers all opening in the $14-18M range, but I think they all have an outside shot at $20M+ if their distributors nail the marketing in the final stretch. 

[TwoMisfits]

51 minutes ago, emoviefan said:

Do we know that Monkey Man will not those 5 dollar tickets yet?It's still 2 weeks away. 

 

No, we don't.  So, we'll see what happens if it does.  We should know, at minimum, a week before release if a deal is coming from TMobile (normally 2 weeks, but Ghostbusters just showed last minute decisions are made)...Fandango (or corporate ones, which KFP4 got) are much more random...

[MightyDargon]

Concerts are a sucky analogy whenever Taylor Swift tours. "Real" concerts are people in some dump in Iowa refusing to show up for Night Ranger.

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, AniNate said:

 

There's a difference between acknowledging the current reality and assuming that it can never get any better. That's where the line is for me with a lot of the box office dooming. Yes, right now these movies still struggle, but we are still in the post-pandemic environment where the audiences are gradually returning, and I think that's a reasonable context to evaluate box office performances now in. Granted, these last few months have not been exemplary of the kind of gradual improvement I'd like to see continue, and I'm not expecting April will be either given one of the biggest movies of last year opened at the beginning of that month, but there is a pretty robust slate of modest studio fare starting in May and continuing pretty much through the rest of the year, so I still think there's potential for this year to continue the upward trend.

 

Blaming the  pandemic? Really?  I feel like this is just the excuse Hollywood is using to excuse away their bad/unappealing films failing 

Edited March 23 by John Marston

[Whippy927]

BoxOfficeTheory users on their way to have the same fucking debate about whether theaters are dead every single week: 🏃‍♂️

[emoviefan]

10 minutes ago, Whippy927 said:

BoxOfficeTheory users on their way to have the same fucking debate about whether theaters are dead every single week: 🏃‍♂️

And that's the thing. I include myself in that. The regular folk or GA as we call them don't give a shit about all this and would be weirded out a place like this even exists.

[Cmasterclay]

1 hour ago, AniNate said:

 

There's a difference between acknowledging the current reality and assuming that it can never get any better. That's where the line is for me with a lot of the box office dooming. Yes, right now these movies still struggle, but we are still in the post-pandemic environment where the audiences are gradually returning, and I think that's a reasonable context to evaluate box office performances now in. Granted, these last few months have not been exemplary of the kind of gradual improvement I'd like to see continue, and I'm not expecting April will be either given one of the biggest movies of last year opened at the beginning of that month, but there is a pretty robust slate of modest studio fare starting in May and continuing pretty much through the rest of the year, so I still think there's potential for this year to continue the upward trend.

I hear you. I was starting to feel quite optimistic in December, actually, as everything from platform on up was overperforming. But so far in 2024, the air is way out of the balloon. We are going to be about a billion under 2023 by September, and while I do think fall looks much better, it's an open question of whether this kind of gradual growth and improvement is going to continue. I am not buying this summer slate at all. It's clear that adult movies need both an empty market and a holiday corridor like in 2023 to really break out like they did in December, and that environment is going to be tough to replicate.

 

Reason why I'm being so pessimistic - the other day, I was talking with a bunch of coworkers about going to the movies. These are educated, professional adults in the government sector, lean white but not exclusively. They were literally laughing at the idea of seeing a movie in theaters. They treated it like I had just told them I have a horse-drawn carriage or a blacksmithing business. I tried the same convo at the more diverse crowd at poker the other night, and got the same reaction. Incredulous laughter. They did all see Oppenheimer, fwiw. This is anecdotal evidence, but the data we are getting seems to back it up - adults over 35, especially middle-class and up, are the ones that haven't come back to the movies. Theaters won't die, and young people going is actually a good sign in many ways, but yeah, problematic as it may sound, it isn't great that the audience demographic that drove business for the films I actually like and support is the one departing the movie going public.

 

Speaking of poker, naturally, we talk about the movie Rounders alot. Not an Oscar winner, not a brilliant film requiring a Master's degree to like, but a fun adult movie for older people that permeated the popular  culture. Today, that movie probably doesn't get made, and if it does it gets lost on streaming with no impact. On the off chance it does get a theatrical release, it'd do 10m and disappear to VOD after two weeks with no lasting cultural impact. Those are the films I'm worried about. Not the Killers of the Flower Moon types. The Rounders type is what I'm worried about. Normal movies for adults that entertain for a couple hours without a bunch of CGI bullshit, make a solid bit of money, and become a cult classic. 

[Cmasterclay]

17 minutes ago, Whippy927 said:

BoxOfficeTheory users on their way to have the same fucking debate about whether theaters are dead every single week: 🏃‍♂️

Oh, theaters aren't going anywhere. Just the movies I like!