Weekend Thread | October 18-20 | 23M SMILE | 9.3M TERRIFIER

[Cmasterclay]

Glad to see We Live In Time breaking out but funnily enough after months of begging for a mid-sized breakout while I watch these movies in empty theaters, this is absolutely the one adult drama I was planning to skip and wait until streaming myself. Guess my tastes are truly broken compared to the audience.

[efialtes76]

Deadline:

Paramount’s Smile franchise is keeping up its staying power as Smile 2 is set to open to $22M after a $8.8M Friday that includes previews. The pic is booked at 3,610 theaters. Others see it at this level too. No RT audience score yet.

Busting its way into the top five is A24’s romance drama We Live in Time with around $1.75M today, about $4.3M for the weekend and a running total of $4.6M by EOD Sunday — and that’s at 955 theaters. Rotten Tomatoes critics are 79% certified fresh on the Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield kleenex movie. That means a per theater of $4,5K. Thank, God. For a minute there after three critically acclaimed movies —The Apprentice, Piece by Piece, and Saturday Night– deep sixed, the concern was that the future of adult-driven movies looked bleak. Saturday Night only did $1,4K per theater last weekend off its wide break at 2,308 theaters or $3.4M.

 

DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s The Wild Robot won’t break down, still in second place in weekend 4 at 3,820 with a $2.65M Friday, $10M 3-day, -29%, and a running total of $101.6M; DWA’s second movie after Kung Fu Panda 4 to pass the century mark this year. What’s up with this original animated movie? “It’s emotional and audiences connect with it, and know the book very well,” compliments a rival distribution studio head.

Cineverse’s Terrifier 3 booked at 2,762 is seeing a second Friday of $2.5M, and second weekend between $7.5M-$8M, -58%, for a high-end ten-day total of $34.9M.

 

Fourth goes to Warner Bros’ holding-like-rock Beetlejuice Beetlejuce at 3,251 sites, with a seventh Friday of $1.4M, seventh weekend of $5.1M, -30%, and running total of $284M. The movie is available to rent or buy digitally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 10:25 PM by efialtes76

[kayumanggi]

Can BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE still crawl past 300M?

[lorddemaxus]

44 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Glad to see We Live In Time breaking out but funnily enough after months of begging for a mid-sized breakout while I watch these movies in empty theaters, this is absolutely the one adult drama I was planning to skip and wait until streaming myself. Guess my tastes are truly broken compared to the audience.

I mean it’s the most boring, vanilla idea for a mid-budget movie. Like it looks no different to that Zach Braff movie Pugh was in last year (or two years ago?) but this just has the A24 name all over it

[AMC Theaters Enjoyer]

7 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

I mean it’s the most boring, vanilla idea for a mid-budget movie. Like it looks no different to that Zach Braff movie Pugh was in last year (or two years ago?) but this just has the A24 name all over it

Given that A24 is trying to break into the mainstream that might be what’s needed for them. In fact Their fall slate is mostly more traditional studio fare outside of their acquisitions like The Brutalist.

[AniNate]

I guess we're now in the "but it's not the original movie I wanted!" phase of dooming

[Cmasterclay]

I'm not dooming, I just thought it was ironic! 

[AniNate]

Anyway, 2.65 would be a 31% even Friday drop for Wild Robot, still slightly better than the Cloudy post holiday hold but not the fourth weekend Friday hold. Cloudy will likely briefly get close this weekend with its holiday bump, but Wild Robot should be able to pull away for good after that with better weekdays and no competition.

 

 

Edited Friday at 09:53 PM by AniNate

[Eric is Smiling]

Not buying anything with We Live In Time being a breakout just yet. I just know that when it expands further next week, it will only have a third weekend of like...6M in 2,500 theaters, and then we're back to square one. That's just how these movies roll now.

[AniNate]

If it follows Saturday Night's multiplier that would be $4.6 mil right there. I'll take a $6mil wider expansion after that if that's how things go.

[Eric is Smiling]

lol these captions are so weird. Deadline Anthony, what is the goal here?

[Ryan C]

13 minutes ago, Eric is Smiling said:

Not buying anything with We Live In Time being a breakout just yet. I just know that when it expands further next week, it will only have a third weekend of like...6M in 2,500 theaters, and then we're back to square one. That's just how these movies roll now.

 

This is why A24 needs to expand the film to as many theaters as possible by next weekend. 

 

2,500 may be a good number, but they're really going to need more than that to see higher numbers. Clearly the demand is there, so I don't see why they wouldn't use the extra money to get it into as wide of a release as possible.

 

Good news is that after Venom comes out, there won't be any substantial competition for at least three weeks. I say it has a good shot to clear more than $20M. 

 

 

[Jake Gittes]

More theaters doesn't magically mean higher numbers without promotion, awareness and very strong word of mouth. Expanding it straight to as many theaters as possible would mean nothing because it'd just get a much lower PTA and then rapidly begin to lose those screens instead of gaining them.

[TwoMisfits]

My kid and her boyfriend used my $5 tickets for the brand new DBox seats in my area.  Neither saw Smile 1, but the prospect of fun new seats won out tonight...

 

She did say "who would pay $27.50 for any seat" - so even older teens are price conscious...

Edited Friday at 11:28 PM by TwoMisfits

[Ryan C]

5 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

More theaters doesn't magically mean higher numbers without promotion, awareness and very strong word of mouth. Expanding it straight to as many theaters as possible would mean nothing because it'd just get a much lower PTA and then rapidly begin to lose those screens instead of gaining them.

 

True, but I was specifically talking about We Live in Time's case. 

 

Making more than $4M in less than 1,000 theaters is genuinely impressive, which is why A24 (if they want to keep momentum going) needs to put the film in more theaters. Maybe I would be saying differently if the number was much lower, but this is proof that there's interest in seeing the film. 

 

In this day and age where you really gotta create a FOMO moment to get people in the theater, you have to put the film in more theaters so more people have a chance to see it. 

 

I say it's still a way better release strategy than just never expanding the film beyond a certain theater count and letting it play for weeks and weeks while the needle isn't really moving in terms of its gross. 

[AniNate]

Don't necessarily need to go crazy trying to get it super wide, just can't let it sit in a few big city repertory theaters for three weeks the way they did Sing Sing. I would say 1500 would probably be enough next week.

 

 

Edited Friday at 11:33 PM by AniNate

[Jake Gittes]

2 minutes ago, Ryan C said:

 

True, but I was specifically talking about We Live in Time's case. 

 

Making more than $4M in less than 1,000 theaters is genuinely impressive, which is why A24 (if they want to keep momentum going) needs to put the film in more theaters. Maybe I would be saying differently if the number was much lower, but this is proof that there's interest in seeing the film. 

 

In this day and age where you really gotta create a FOMO moment to get people in the theater, you have to put the film in more theaters so more people have a chance to see it. 

 

Yes, but they also can't overshoot, or they'll simply end up showing the movie in a bunch of empty theaters. A movie can be made available for a wide audience to watch without hogging up screens. It'd be different if this was a Hollywood release with the marketing budget of an It Ends With Us, but with platform releases, as you say, it's about momentum and maximizing attendance within certain confines.

[Ezen Baklattan]

1 hour ago, Eric is Smiling said:

 

This misses the mark so spectacularly it loops back around to being so funny I've been laughing about it for the last hour

[JonathanMB]

2 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

More theaters doesn't magically mean higher numbers without promotion, awareness and very strong word of mouth. Expanding it straight to as many theaters as possible would mean nothing because it'd just get a much lower PTA and then rapidly begin to lose those screens instead of gaining them.

 

Yep, this is pretty much what happened with The Substance, which started in way too many theaters for a tough sell of a film, and it resulted in losing theaters way to quickly for how strong WOM has been. I think if MUBI had taken the approach A24 is with WLIT, the film might be even better off than it is right now. 

[Ryan C]