Weekday Numbers [Aug 26 - Aug 29, 2024] | Tuesday | 2.22M ALIEN: ROMULUS | 2.15M DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE | 1.86M IT ENDS WITH US

[Cooper Legion]

4 minutes ago, wattage said:

Putting a movie in more theaters doesn't really mean it'll have more success it could just mean a ton of empty theaters

Bingo

[Ryan C]

5 minutes ago, Eric Ripley said:

Will say I do think @Ryan C is onto something that maybe we need to retire the platform/limited theater rollout. Or at least deemphasize them apart from the occasional Licorice Pizza or Asteroid City. All the indie movies I listed were in at least 1,000 theaters on their opening weekend, which made it a lot easier for their target audiences to seek them out, and make it easier and faster for WOM to spread.

 

Plus these types of NY/LA releases really only worked when you could get some big PTAs you could make headlines over. And that was only possible thanks to specialty/boutique theaters like Arclight/Cinerama Dome. In 2018, something like The Fabelmans would have gotten the biggest auditorium, maybe even two auditoriums, in places like the Dome and other theaters specifically designed for arthouse fans/cinephiles. But in 2022, it had to play in some AMC/Regal locations, where Wakanda Forever had all the big auditoriums, and it had to also share space with stuff like Black Adam or Ticket to Paradise or The Menu. That's a problem. And nowadays, those giant 60K+ PTAs are more and more elusive post-COVID, unless you're an auteur darling like PTA or Yorgos or Wes Anderson. And even then, if Spielberg can only barely get to 40K, then what does that mean for newcomers who don't have such luxuries or popularity?

 

I doubt Sing Sing or Didi would have been Big Sick-style winners, but maybe just having them open in 1,800 theaters would have helped them get at least close enough to the 10M threshold.

 

The Fablemans is probably the greatest example of a studio fumbling a release so badly that it made a film that should've at least been moderately successful a bomb. The worst part is that Universal did eventually put the film into just under 2,000 theaters, but that was in late January (long after anyone had cared) and it barely made much of a dent on the box office for it. Just imagine if it was released in full wide release during Christmas of 2022. Even with Avatar 2 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish hogging up most of the screens, it would've served as great counter-programming to those films. Even if it wouldn't have been a massive hit, it would've certainly done a lot better than just barely making more than its budget worldwide. 

 

Also, another example I go to on why the platform/limited release rollout is a bad idea is last year's Bottoms. Despite amazing reception and grossing $3M in its second weekend (while expanding to 715 theaters) it never was in more than 1,265 theaters and just kind of faded away into obscurity. At the time and even now, the way that MGM/Orion handled the release of that movie is very frustrating. It could've easily been word-of-mouth hit if they put it in a lot more theaters, but they just kind of gave up half-way through when it was on its way to potentially becoming a decent hit. 

 

Again, every film is different and some are just not gonna click for people (Kinds of Kindness) but if you have a movie that's critically acclaimed and manages to make more than $1M in less than 1,000 theaters, I'd probably try and do whatever I can to put the film in as many theaters as possible instead of just treating it like an afterthought. 

[wattage]

15 minutes ago, cannastop said:

Hmm for some reason I thought it would be September 10th, earlier than 100 days, but I guess a solid date hasn't been set yet. Either way, should be around September 22nd when it's on Disney Plus.

September 10th is the physical release date, blue ray and all that. They might launch the D+ on the same date, so I wouldn't count that out. But that's where that date comes from. 

[Ryan C]

12 minutes ago, wattage said:

Putting a movie in more theaters doesn't really mean it'll have more success it could just mean a ton of empty theaters, we've had two recent wide releases that prove that one lol.

 

True, but if you're bringing up wide releases like Borderlands, Harold and the Purple Crayon, or The Crow, I feel like those are bad examples to use. No one likes those movies and were only in wide release because they had major disturbutors backing them. 

 

I'm mainly talking about critically acclaimed movies (mostly from indie distributors) that need to be in a lot more theaters. Maybe the theaters themselves won't be 100% full, but it's still a better way to build word-of-mouth for your movie than only getting it in a select few a theaters. That's just what I think. 

Edited August 30 by Ryan C

[AniNate]

There's no easy answers for every movie or distributor, but I do think you have to expand more rapidly than Sing Sing did to take advantage of momentum. It stayed in only four theaters for its first three weeks and had lost what tastemaker buzz it had by the time it went any wider.

 

Also what Neon did with Robot Dreams... that should not happen on principle.

 

 

Edited August 30 by AniNate

[wattage]

9 minutes ago, Ryan C said:

 

The Fablemans is probably the greatest example of a studio fumbling a release so badly that it made a film that should've at least been moderately successful a bomb. The worst part is that Universal did eventually put the film into just under 2,000 theaters, but that was in late January (long after anyone had cared) and it barely made much of a dent on the box office for it. Just imagine if it was released in full wide release during Christmas of 2022. Even with Avatar 2 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish hogging up most of the screens, it would've served as great counter-programming to those films. 

 

Also, another example I go to on why the platform/limited release rollout is a bad idea is last year's Bottoms. Despite amazing reception and grossing $3M in its second weekend (while expanding to 715 theaters) it never was in more than 1,265 theaters and just kind of faded away into obscurity. 

 

 

I don't know how to link two different posts but to your point, the big studio backing is why those other bombs get those wide releases. And they're not good for theaters in the end, they're losing money on that but they were already locked in to contracts they usually set with a big/midsize studio. I think studios like Focus for example have less of that type of pull so they use this model as the way to sell  a smaller film.

 

But sometimes it does feel like they're just doing things a certain way because that's what they're used to and no other reason. I don't know how hard they're trying on their end to get it into as many theaters as possible as quickly as possible. That's the frustrating but I suppose, on our end we don't know how hard they're trying on these expansions. 

 

These two films are actually examples of why the studios need to be more flexible with the slow release model. The Fablemans was just too slow even for a slow rollout I was wondering what they were doing but I assumed they were trying to drag it out to coincide with the voting windows, not just nominations but the actual voting for the awards. There was a very stupid logic to it. 

 

But Bottoms was just baffling to me, that was not an indie play. That was an R-rated comedy that was aiming heavily at young adults. And it was putting up good numbers. The PTA was still good when it was above 1k. I could see it before it even happened that they were going to lose momentum and they did. It was so frustrating even though I do think the movie did still do decent for itself but it could've gotten a lot more money imo. I don't know how aggressively they were pushing to get it expanded so its possible that some theaters just wouldn't bite but I honestly think they just trapped themselves within the model for no reason and screwed themselves over there. They should've known the type of movie that was and known they needed to expand as quickly as possible and that should've been part of the plan. 

[wattage]

3 minutes ago, AniNate said:

 

Also what Neon did with Robot Dreams... that should not happen on principle.

 

 

That wasn't even a slow rollout they just dumped it. It's awful what they did, I legitimately don't know why they would've done a release like that beyond just not giving a fuck. Not even an awards seasons rollout, I don't know what they were doing. 

[Ryan C]

2 minutes ago, wattage said:

But sometimes it does feel like they're just doing things a certain way because that's what they're used to and no other reason.

 

This, this is 100% the truth. 

 

Releasing a film a certain way because other films were released that way and being either too afraid or too lazy to spend the extra money on something that isn't an automatic guarantee for success. 

[AniNate]

Ghostlight and Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds are other really good films that their respective distributors decided they didn't have much interest trying to get an extended theatrical run for. I don't know what GKIDS in particular is thinking because it doesn't seem like they have many other hopes for awards attention this year.

 

I pride myself on attempting to maintain a macro perspective and not giving into doomerism, but I have to admit this has been a big source of anguish for me in this summer of overall "recovery". The future for indie theatrical cinema does indeed feel pretty bleak if this is the kind of treatment that's going to be the norm now.

 

 

Edited August 30 by AniNate

[Migs20242]

Day 34 domestic box office numbers between DPW and Inside Out 2

 

DPW - $1,623,388 ($582,732,869)

 

IO2 - $2,786,697 ($581,091,939)

 

It's getting close.

[PlatnumRoyce]

What happened to the ~2022 theory that the pandemic shuttering some particularly high value theaters (e.g. LA Arclight) would significantly hinder these sort of theatrical releases? 

 

Speaking of litigating specialty box office, I recall the CW in ~2022 was that number of films got completely burned by opening wide early. Does that hold up?

[keysersoze123]

2 hours ago, cannastop said:

it will be on streaming pretty soon.

its not releasing in Disney plus in September. Digital release or even DVD has that much impact to stop this from beating Jurassic World for sure. 

[wattage]

22 minutes ago, Migs20242 said:

Day 34 domestic box office numbers between DPW and Inside Out 2

 

DPW - $1,623,388 ($582,732,869)

 

IO2 - $2,786,697 ($581,091,939)

 

It's getting close.

If this wasn't a holiday weekend Deadpool would be getting lapped and it would stay there but we have some more time to go before that officially happens. 

[AniNate]

One other factor that I think has been mentioned before is because so many multiplexes did shutter in the wake of Covid, arthouse theaters have been finding it more lucrative to pick up those theaters' former clientele and exhibit mainstream movies more regularly, which limits the theaters that platform indie stuff can expand into.

 

I dunno what the solution is or if there even is one, just been hard to watch it all falter especially with the wide major releases coming out largely consisting of forgettable slop.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

1 hour ago, Eric Ripley said:

 

Plus these types of NY/LA releases really only worked when you could get some big PTAs you could make headlines over. And that was only possible thanks to specialty/boutique theaters like Arclight/Cinerama Dome. In 2018, something like The Fabelmans would have gotten the biggest auditorium, maybe even two auditoriums, in places like the Dome and other theaters specifically designed for arthouse fans/cinephiles. But in 2022, it had to play in some AMC/Regal locations, where Wakanda Forever had all the big auditoriums, and it had to also share space with stuff like Black Adam or Ticket to Paradise or The Menu. That's a problem. And nowadays, those giant 60K+ PTAs are more and more elusive post-COVID, unless you're an auteur darling like PTA or Yorgos or Wes Anderson. And even then, if Spielberg can only barely get to 40K, then what does that mean for newcomers who don't have such luxuries or popularity?

 

For the LA market, the studios started using the AMC Burbank campus sometime in 2023(?) to juice the platform release numbers: 30 auditoriums total over 3 buildings with different addresses, but it's counted as one location. A new specialty movie gets showtimes on multiple screens in multiple buildings and the per theater average for Los Angeles gets a nice boost. Not Arclight nice, but better than the 2021-2022 days.

 

I was lucky to see Sing Sing as a Monday Mystery Movie in July, but the actual rollout has been positively glacial:

 

Wk 1: 4 theaters

Wk 2: 4 theaters

Wk 3: 4 theaters

Wk 4: 18 theaters

Wk 5: 39 theaters

Wk 6: 112 theaters

Wk 7: 191 theaters

Wk 8*: 149 theaters

 

vs Past Lives:

Wk 1: 4 theaters

Wk 2: 26 theaters

Wk 3: 85 theaters

Wk 4: 296 theaters

Wk 5: 906 theaters

 

And 906 theaters is as wide as it ever went, but A24 didn't just let Past Lives stall out of the gate. I think there's still a place for a platform release but not whatever is going on with Sing Sing. Maybe A24 wants a lengthy theatrical window and the only way to make it work in 2024 is minimizing its footprint until awards season really gets going? It's very odd.

[AnthonyJPHer]

Speaking of Inside Out, it’s not really a matter of if it surpasses Jurassic World but when. I think people were under the impression that there would be a similar increase in gross to Elemental last year, but this is making way more than every other Pixar film ever, especially the ones released in June like Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, and Elemental. 

[JimmyB]

The smaller distributors/studios dont have the marketing budgets for wide releases.  It cost a lot of money.  Lionsgate paid 10 million to distribute The Crow plus 15 million for marketing domestically.  25m to get The Crow in 2700 theaters in the US and Canada.

 

Neon got Cuckoo booked in almost 1500 theaters and after open weekend that movie played in empty auditoriums.

 

You will continue to see small films like Didi get platform releases because the marketing costs to open it wide arent worth it. It's already playing to a small niche audience.  In dead periods of the release schedule you can Lisa Frankenstein (3144 theaters) or Drive Away Dolls (2,280 theaters) in a bunch of theaters but no one knows these films are out or playing near them because they cant market them like a big wide release and you'll end up with just a bunch of empty screenings.

[Krissykins]

We also have the strictly digital only ad campaigns (Cuckoo, Tarot) vs pretty high theatre counts. 
 

Neon are still finding their feet, which explains some of their decisions. Sony seem to be trying something new with smaller films. 

[Eric the Marxist]

9 hours ago, AniNate said:

One other factor that I think has been mentioned before is because so many multiplexes did shutter in the wake of Covid, arthouse theaters have been finding it more lucrative to pick up those theaters' former clientele and exhibit mainstream movies more regularly, which limits the theaters that platform indie stuff can expand into.

 

I dunno what the solution is or if there even is one, just been hard to watch it all falter especially with the wide major releases coming out largely consisting of forgettable slop.

Will say that this is a very concerting and disheartening aspect that I do think is hurting indie releases. My local arthouse never was against showing wide releases, but they were almost always stuff like Orient Express or Downton Abbey or James Bond. And I mean these are wide releases that skew towards the olds and have a PBS/BBC style prestige, so I guess it isn’t the worst thing ever.

 

But post-COVID, they’ve been dipping way more into tentpoles or stuff that really skirts the line. For something like the Dune movies or even Barbie, you could maybe argue they are auteur, artistically-driven products, so…sure. And even Crawdads and It Ends With Us are based on popular books that likely have a lot of older/senior viewership.

 

But now my arthouse has shown stuff like The Batman and Twisters and Beetlejuice 2, and it’s like…y’all have no excuse other than you have nothing else to show. And that’s just bad for the smaller movies if even what should be a safe haven for them is rejecting their presence. I can already picture stuff like Conclave or Nightbitch getting rejected in favor of Gladiator 2 or Wicked or Mufasa, and like…I guess it would sell more tickets, but I still don’t like it.

[keysersoze123]

 

 

Flattish thursday considering nothing worthwhile released.