Weekend Estimates by Klady
For me, the lead needs to be, from Klady’s analysis, “Weekend revenues climbed 31% from both last weekend and the comparable frame in 2009.”
Irrelevant number. Just as irrelevant when it’s up 31% as when it’s down 31%. I am an equal opportunity “bullshit” caller. Ironically, this is the same problem I have with the ticket counters and the adjusted grossers… it’s not that history has no value, but when offered as some kind of strict interpretation of the broad idea of what is happening in the industry, it’s a load.
I continue to anticipate, in a few weeks, the stories – that I don’t think will happen – about how the bottom has fallen out on ticket pricing. A few idiots will likely do the story with the angle that the studios and exhibitors got scared and lowered prices, when in truth, story of ticket prices “rising” has little to do with normal tickets and everything to do with 3D and 3D IMAX pricing and what percentage of tickets sold those premium tickets represent.
Oy.
Solid number for Toy Story 3, second best opening of this summer and has a real chance to be the #1 grosser for Summer 2010, though the $310m (or so) for Iron Man 2 reminds us yet again about how powerful being first is in the summer when you have a movie that is capable of opening huge. As noted yesterday, not doing 3x Friday is not unusual for Pixar’s summer films. But 4x the opening weekend isn’t unusual either. The only mysteries are whether TS3 will be the first Pixar film to rack $340m domestic and if it can bear Nemo’s other Pixar record of $530m overseas. The film is opening in many markets internationally this weekend, but the big money markets are all waiting at least two weeks, some, like the UK, four.
I made a mistake yesterday when saying that Jonah Hex would be a worse studio opening than MacGruber. Apologies. It’s the #2 worst of the summer. That said, Universal didn’t pay for MacGruber, Relativity did. And WB only will eat half of Jonah Hex.
Why did Hex open soooo poorly? Well, the studio clearly gave up on it. Happens 2 or 3 times a year at each studio. They weren’t going to push the marketing, throwing more good money after bad. But what happens in many of these cases, as it happened here, is that it feels like the exasperation gets into the crevices of the film’s marketing plan… in this case, not even making a real choice about what the story they were going to tell the public about this movie was. Is it a straight action movie… and let’s pretend Brolin isn’t scarred up? Is it supernatural? Is it a western? Is there sex to sell with Megan Fox? There is only one thing worse than picking the “wrong” thing to sell (which you find out as the movie fails to get traction)… it’s not picking anything to sell.
If I was inclined to see Jonah Hex, for whatever reasons, I would not be able to anticipate what I might see in that theater from any combination of the trailer, the TV spots, and the clips shown on TV. It’s movie hash. And people tend to be more resistant to going to movies when they have no idea what they are getting themselves into than when they don’t quite like the idea being sold.
And I have to say, beautiful as all the materials on Inception have been so far, if WB keeps hiding the foundational idea of the movie, expect a surprisingly weak opening. If the film is great and great fun, they can make it up with legs. But with all respect to Chris Nolan, the fact that he had a mega-movie with Dark Knight doesn’t assure him more than $20 million or $30 million for this next opening weekend. You can’t just expect audiences to come see trippy, beautiful images because “The Director Of The Dark Knight” directed the film. And you don’t have to give away the twist. You just have to make it clear to audiences what kind of ride they are in for… and “trippy” isn’t an answer and “you know this guy” isn’t either. And yes, I know that virtually everyone reading this is anxious to see this movie. But we are part of that core, 75% of which were going to see this film without any marketing push at all… for Nolan.
I am amused that some would make virtually the same drop for Karate Kid and A-Team good… and then bad. Both are okay. Neither is world-beating, though Kid had a bigger problem with the Toys landing in town. One thing I imagine is true… the folks at Columbia have to be kicking themselves for their release date on Kid now. It will still be a great success, but the competition of TS3, followed by Airbender, will likely shave $30 million or more off the final domestic gross of the film.
Get Him To The Greek is running about $3 million ahead of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Shrek 4 took the biggest hit from Toys 3, off an estimated 65%. Ouch. And Prince of Persia had an inexplicable 19% drop. Hmmm…
Iron Man 2 doesn’t seem likely to catch its predecessor domestically, though it will get within a stone’s throw. But it’s already topped the first by over $35 million overseas.
Fox is claiming that Knight and Day drew “85% overall capacity.” I’m not sure what that really means, but it is a chance for the film to get some needed word-of-mouth for a movie that works pretty darn well. What they have to feel is a Six Days, Seven Nights opening (circa 2010… $27million?), which should be improved on by Cameron Diaz over Anne Heche, but carries the same danger of an aging (and tabloided) Tom Cruise. (For was 56… Cruise “just” 48) They are quite unlikely to do less than $150m overseas… and could a lot do more. But there is pressure all around on this one. Fox got the movie that can relaunch Cruise for another strong box office run. Will it?
A nice opening for Cyrus, though I am always fearful of 4-screen openings coming off of full-on national campaigns. What it assures is that there is a run of, probably, $6 million – $10 million in this film. Could always be more. Could always be less. The dream is that it turns into Amelie or One Hour Photo, doing more than $30 million domestic. But we are really weeks from knowing how real that could be.
Pixar should be disappointed and fire their marketing people! 110 million? SHAMEFUL! ABSOLUTELY SHAMEFUL!
Silliness aside, this film should go on to make TDK the third highest grossing film of all-time. It should have legs for days and lord knows the Summer needs it.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that freaking movie with the boat, which means TDK will move down to fourth. Of course all of this stuff is going to be up for grabs in a couple of years with Bats in 3D and the last Potter in 3D but for right now, the possibility of third all time for a Pixar film is pretty cool.
Milestones:
*Biggest June opening ever
*The Toy Story franchise reclaims its domestic title as the 2nd biggest animated series domestically (still 4th worldwide).
*Tom Hanks becomes the 3rd person to ring up $4 billion in receipts at the domestic box office (trailing Sam Jackson and Frank Welker.
Why is Prince Of Persia suddenly the best hold in the top 10? Makes you wonder if people aren’t buying tickets for it and sneaking into the higher priced 3D theater for Toy Story 3.
Prince of Persia has the best hold because it didn’t have that much to hold on to.
Fantastic opening for Toy Story3, but one statistic strikes me a bit odd. Normally family films, and especially well reviewed family films, experience a Saturday bump. The much maligned Shrek4 rose by 38.9%, and if you say that was due to the underwhelming opening, then Shrek3, which had terrible legs, had a 22.5% bump, and Shrek2, with a similar size opening and opened on a Wednesday had a remarkable 58% bump.
And looking at other Pixar films we get these numbers for the Saturday bump:
Incredibles: 44%
Nemo: 38%
UP: 23%
WallE: -4.5%. Coincidentally the Pixar flick with the worst legs.
Cars: 18.1%
Ratatouille:3%
Toy Story 2: 25%
But here’s the kicker,
Toy Story 1: -6.3% after opening on Wednesday.
Obviously IO believes that TS3 will have fantastic legs, but what do the others think. TS1 went on to have better legs, even with the Saturday decline, than TS2 did. Granted I believed some of that was due to it being the novelty it was at the time. Lets not forget, TS1 started this whole thing. Where’s the end game for TS3? What say you?
400-ish.
Overseas…Toy Story broke records though it wasn’t released wide.
Disappointing drops for “A-Team” and SATC2. Best case scenario is probably 300 million worldwide for SATC2 and $150 million for “A-Team” but even that may be generous for the later (it’s at 75 million worldwide and its domestic gross this weekend was inflated by “Knight and Day” sneaks.)
I would agree with the 400ish if it were not for Dragon. Dragon had an amazing hold and you are not going to tell me (figuratively) that Toy Story 3 is not going to hold better and run longer than Dragon. Yes I know it’s the Summer and all but this is Toy Story 3. It should hold and win the Summer going away.
The Prince of Persia thing is interesting – the per theatre number is practically flat. I can’t imagine that people are using it to sneak into TS3, since there are plenty of other candidates (Marmaduke) and given how packed the TS3 theatres are they’d be kicked straight out again.
Killers, for how maligned its opening was, is also holding pretty well which probably is letting Kutcher and Heigl breathe a little easier (although Greek is still performing better).
Not saying you’re wrong, IO (and I hope you’re right), but “Toy Story 3” will have much more competition than “Dragon” did.
Chris that’s why I stated it’s the Summer and I know things are different, but this film seems to resonate more than I thought it would, so I can see it carrying on for another weekend or two.
Yeah it’s hot and I get absent minded in heat and I mean I can see it winning the next two weekends and then having good legs for the rest of the Summer.
“Why is Prince Of Persia suddenly the best hold in the top 10? Makes you wonder if people aren’t buying tickets for it and sneaking into the higher priced 3D theater for Toy Story 3.”
The flaw in that argument is they’d be sneaking in without the glasses, wouldn’t they? So unless they want the mother of all migraines, it’s a non-starter.
As impressive as the Toy Story number is, it’s still about $6m less than the opening weekend for Alice back in March, and you can bet that Disney were hoping to beat that number.
“I am amused that some would make virtually the same drop for Karate Kid and A-Team good… and then bad.”
I am amused that you continue to cite holds like A-Team that are artificially inflated by sneak previews (Knight and Day).
“Yeah it’s hot and I get absent minded in heat and I mean I can see it winning the next two weekends and then having good legs for the rest of the Summer.”
Id think that a big factor is also…again…a possible 3D glut with “Last Airbender” and “Despicable Me” in the next 3 weeks.
I’m in that group that can’t wait for “Inception” but, even if I weren’t, I’d argue the trailers have done a great job of gradually revealing more about what kind of a ride it will be — it’s a noirish mystery with an antihero protagonist. I guess you’re saying that message may only be enough to get it a “Zodiac”-type audience, but “Inception” has a star who can open movies in addition to its scintillating director, which “Zodiac” didn’t. And it has some women in it. The marketing/pr — getting out this message that there’s a lot of action, for instance — has just kicked in. I think “Inception” will be much bigger than 20 and even than 30.
Just saw TS3. Its beautiful. I wonder if the lack of Sat bump is due to a must-see factor that trancends its genre.
…or maybe Father’s Day picnics? Don’t Pixar movies generally open the last weekend in June, when their competition is Gay Pride, instead of the second-to-last, when their competition is a big family holiday that’s really on Sunday but is often celebrated on Saturday?
Ethan, we have to have more 3D screens now. We just have to have them. If Shrek and Toy Story can co-exist, there just be enough screens for Toy Story, Despicable Me, and Avatar. Oh no Mr. Cameron, you are not going to win that battle with me! HE IS… AVATAR… THE LAST AIRBENDER, you schmuck.
‘
That aside, anyone up in here besides me interested in Despicable Me?
“Overseas…Toy Story broke records though it wasn’t released wide.”
What records? Or do you mean the first Toy Story?
Potential legs for a movie that opens to $110 million are different than legs for a movie that opens to $45m. The same is true for a movie that opens to $110m+ while others of its same grouping have opened in the 70s at best.
My read is that the film has a bigger wanna-see and a better safety factor than any Pixar movie other than TS2… and that film’s opening was skewed by the release pattern, which combined a week of exclusives with a 5-day Thanksgiving release. The TS2 opening is very comparable to the TS3 opening… just spread out and 11 years ago.
And this Saturday bump business… oy. The fact remains that the last four summers, Pixar’s movies did opening 3-days vs opening Friday of:
Up – 3.2x
Wall-E 2.7x
Ratatouille – 2.9x
Cars – 3x
The estimate for this weekend is 2.6x… which is still an estimate, more likely to be higher in the “actuals,” and accounts for Father’s Day, no doubt. But high 2s is not in any way a negative here… especially with the fact that the opening Friday is so much bigger than they have had before.
JONAH HEX will have a HUGE uptick tonight because a guy’s movie and old dudes love Westerns and all men love the Fox so an ENTIRE NATION will take their dad to see the Hex tonight. It will do 15mil tonight alone.
Get out there and support Megan Fox. Do it for Megan.
Dave, you make a good point about Sony and their placement of Karate Kid, but who could have predicted this scenario: just about everything opening in the four weeks leading up to ‘Kid completely underperformed. I have to think they thought Marmaduke would be bigger. One more week earlier could have helped, for sure, but then I’m not sure the opening would have been big – could this have really cracked $50 million against even Marmaduke? Hard to say – all you can control is when you release your own movies and that said, why is Sony only allowing two weeks between Kid and Grown-Up – THAT will probably cost it some money. Grown Ups is being aggressively marketed to families and it’s going to open, for sure – that will probably hurt Karate Kid’s final total more than anything else.
Not crying for Sony, though – I doubt any one was predicting even a month ago that this was going to end up grossing about the same as any of Jaden’s dad’s movies ($175 domestic) and on a budget of only $40 million. It’s a big win.
And I don’t know what to make of the Inception campaign – Warners is sure showing a lot of confidence in this thing and you do have Leo in an adult-themed thriller just a few months after opening Shutter Island to $40 million.
But no doubt, it’s a campaign HEAVILY reliant on name-checking and visually referencing the previous hit – worked with Robin Hood somewhat, didn’t work at all with Green Zone.
I guess a question I can put out there: is this how Fox opened Avatar? I mean, name-checking was all they did for about three months – “From the Director of Titanic” – with no stars, some money shots, but also some shots that got people laughing. I know the film had amazing legs, but it DID open to $77 million, a number that I am sure Warners would love to have for Inception and not likely. Curious as to whether people think this really works.
INCEPTION will open to 100 mil first three days.
Take that to the bank. Guaranteed.
Geoff, the Inception marketing to me has always been about Chris Nolan. If you love TDK, if you love Memento, then you are going to love Inception. Sure, Leo as the lead is never a bad thing, but they are selling this film based off of Nolan and it should pay off. While it might not do 77m opening weekend. I would wager 60 is in the realm of possibility.
Here’s another question: Trans 2 opened up with 55 million dollars on a Wednesday last year. How much more will Eclipse do on the 30th this year?
LexG ought to see “Solitary Man” … the principal character is very similar.
As much as I love Memento, I’m not sure how referencing a movie that did $25mil domestic enhances your chances of box office success. TDK, sure, but I’d be interested in knowing whether mainstream audiences identify Chris Nolan as a primary motivator for seeing that movie as opposed to Heath Ledger.
Foamy, the primary motivator for seeing TDK seems to be it being an awesome freaking Batman movie. Seriously. Heath’s passing may have got some more people interested but going into 2008, that movie was the movie to see for a lot of people who wanted to see a really awesome Batman film and it paid off. I guess the payoff may be attribute to Nolan now and that’s why Inception is being sold off of Nolan more than Leo. Again, that’s a guess.
That kinda supports my point – they’re namedropping TDK more than Chris Nolan himself. But Nolan’s credit in the trailer is just as big as TDK’s… so it would be interesting to see if “From Chris Nolan the Director of TDK” (“Who?”) would cause the same response as “From the Creators of TDK” (where the emphasis is definitely on TDK).
This isn’t an “OMG PHAIL” musing so much as “I’m curious if there’s any psychological difference”.
dpoland wrote: beautiful as all the materials on Inception have been so far, if WB keeps hiding the foundational idea of the movie, expect a surprisingly weak opening.”
At first when I saw this it read like you were already making excuses to undercut potential uproar of “analysts” saying the that it was due to the ticket hike. But then I thought maybe there hasn’t been enough. Like, I’d be happy to see anything w/Nolan & Leo but is that enough for the gen pub? Matrix kinda springs to mind, even though they weren’t released at the same time, I know. But swap out Keanu for Leo, show some cool lookin’ sh#t in the trailer and that got people out, right? People weren’t really concerned w/the level of geekdom the film’s story tapped into, I think they initially thought it’d look like a fun ride.
Managed expectations should prolly be in order for Inception but I’d kinda believe there may be two numbers WB has in mind. The cover-our-ass/slightly above break-even point and then there’s that number they’ll be hoping to hit. It’s like you don’t fork out some dough on some penny nasdaq stock for 5-7% return.
@IOv2: I think EthanG was saying wasn’t so much the number of screens but number of options. Like people, particularly families, aren’t going to pay the premium to see 3-4-5 3D movies in a row. Granted, I would’ve thought TS3 would’ve been the one you hold off for but maybe people aren’t thinking about that in April or May before they decide to pace themselves.
I kinda wondered about the must-see factor for Toy3 considering the kids who may’ve drove the market for the original, (sure, all ages latched onto it), would now be of age and really may not be amped to rush out to a G-rated film. But then I was talking to someone whose life mirrored Andy, playing w/toys as a kid and now about to head off to college, and he was looking forward to see how it’d end up. I think people get jazzed for a pixar flick in general but there’s been quite a bit to keep the anticipation specifically of a Toy3 I think a bit at bay. I would be interested in what this puppy may do for whatever installment may hit in 6-8 more years when the first generation of kids will have kids to take and those adults already on board wanting to see. Though I’m not really sure how you do this w/a buncha P2P gameboys and X-boxes coming to life.
I will mention that Inception is prolly the movie I’m most looking forward to but even that I’m not way close to being an opening w/e lock. maybe just so I don’t have it potentially ruined by random spoilers flying up from people’s convos around me but overall this summer, well, just about entire year’s releases, have had sort of a ‘meh’ wow factor to them.
Foamy, there always has to be a reason to these kind of things and I am going to go with the basic old school reason that I learned about marketing back in first grade. Nolan has to have a decent enough Q rating among certain key demos, that selling a movie based on him over one of the more bankable stars in Hollywood, makes sense. Hell. If we take it back a bit. Insomnia was sold as a Nolan movie, so someone besides geeks have to know who the guy is out there in… AMERICA or… THE WORLD!
“swap out Keanu for Leo, show some cool lookin’ sh#t in the trailer and that got people out, right?”
Nope.
Matrix opened to $28mil – which is respectable (11th for that year), but what drove it to a hit was three months of 20-30% weekly drops. Certainly the trailer didn’t get people out in any dramatic fashion.
To put that in perspective, 11th biggest opening so far this year would put it behind Robin Hood – which wasn’t exactly celebrated as a huge domestic success.
Insomnia? You mean the movie that had Robin Williams, Al Pacino and Hillary Swank who all have Academy Awards? I’m sure Chris Nolan was the biggest factor out of that crowd…
“That aside, anyone up in here besides me interested in Despicable Me?”
Me. I’m really hoping that it’ll be great because it looks like something that could either be twisted up fun or slow rising schmaltz.
“Hell. If we take it back a bit. Insomnia was sold as a Nolan movie, so someone besides geeks have to know who the guy is out there in… AMERICA or… THE WORLD!”
Really? It might have been sold as a “from the director of Memento”, and probably as a minor selling point at that, but no way was his name alone a serious factor in the marketing. Not like it got used when “The Prestige” came out after “Batman Begins”, which is the movie that put him on the map in permanent ink as far as the mainstream audience is concerned. And even then, I wouldn’t believe you could make the phrase “from Christopher Nolan” ring bells on its own with the vast majority of ticket buyers without also attaching “the director of The Dark Knight”.
Foamy, they still sold it as being a Nolan picture, so Warners may be all about selling Nolan’s films as something special because they are from Nolan, and with that possible sentiment I agree.
Hal that would make two of us. Woo!!!
“What records? Or do you mean the first Toy Story?”
My understanding DP was it set the record for animated opening in almost every country in which it opened.
Inception will be fine. Nolan and Leo have capital and those that need it roadmap for the story wouldn’t go anyway.
Would A-Team hit better if it opened after The Expendables?
TS3 Saturday drop…the shit does gets dark.Maybe not for cineastes, but a little WOM among families with real youngsters will keep enough away. A schmaltzy ending doesn’t soothe a kid’s freak-out twenty minutes earlier.
Martin, I’m wondering how word of mouth spreads for Toy Story, too. I was very unsettled for much of the movie, especially during the climax. But I saw it with my three-year-old nephew and he was just fine. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just that kind of material that’s more disturbing for adults than children.
WOM against the same families that saw Dragon and Dragon has a real cost to it’s hero. If they can handle what happens to Hiccup. They can handle a very touching resignation scene.
Oh yeah, it’s not schmaltzy. I will throw down over that ending because after reading a forum about it today. It’s clear some people lack an imagination and the things that go through their lives are just things, and they have no attachment to them. Knowles at least shared a story about his own Woody but that ending is what it’s all about in terms of a kid that gave a story to his toys and passed that story on to the kid who he gave his toys too.
One more thing: if I had a choice between having the Terrordome back or the time I spent with my first serious girlfriend that led to me getting rid of the Terrordome. I’d have to go with the Terrordome now because that thing still rules.
“And Prince of Persia had an inexplicable 19% drop. Hmmm…”
You hear this? This is a sound of Poland realizing that, yet again, his prediction that the movie X won’t make it to X has been wrong.
“Silliness aside, this film should go on to make TDK the third highest grossing film of all-time. It should have legs for days and lord knows the Summer needs it.”
Amm… TDK is already the third highest grosser domestically. You forgot Poland… I mean, Titanic.
Wow, “Pete,” you really hate me! Thanks for the thoughtful input.
Ethan… still not sure whether you mean TS1 or TS3.
Yeah Pete, I clarified that statement because I forgot about that horrible movie starring a boat. Seriously, do not throw Poland under the bus because of something I wrote.
Toy Story 3 could do $350 million or something significantly higher – honestly, anything from that point above is a big win.
IO, it MIGHT be able to make the stratosphere you are talking about, but very hard to tell based on just this weekend – the good news is that there will probably be some early indicators. Sorry, I get geeked out about this box office stuff, sometimes. 🙂
Both Avatar and TDK had amazing runs, starting at very different points and opening at different parts of the year – one thing they had in common were ridiculous weekday numbers off the bat. If Toy Story 3 is able to do a very high Monday number in the high teens or early ’20s, then we will know whether it will reach that stratosphere – setting the bar high, I realize, but I think the movie is going to be a success no matter what. Its floor would now make it the highest grossing film released from Pixar (domestic and international).
Geoff, the weekday numbers will hopefully be as stellar as this weekend but you never know with this thing, but I will wager that Grown Ups gets blown away by Toy Story next weekend. I just want to put that down because Grown Ups needs to be humbled in a very Iron Sheik sort of way.
TS3 is what I mean.
“not doing 3x Friday is not unusual for Pixar’s summer films”
In no explicit terms is this comment not unlike the opposite of confusing writing at its best.
also, what reveal is Inception not giving away? Dude enters dreams. That’s more than we knew re: the “What is the Matrix” campaign 10 years ago, which opened to more than you suggest Nolan is worth in 2010 $, with a less commercial star and director(s).
Dave,
I’d be really curious to know about the financial realities of TS3. What Pixar does isn’t cheap. And it must have been crazy expensive to get Hanks back (probably not so much for Tim Allen, I’m guessing). I don’t know. Can you explain what this film needs to make before it can be considered a windfall?
Remember when Lex speculated that Megan Fox would be blamed for Jonah Hex failing at the box office and wondering why she’d be singled out?
Headline: “Did Megan Fox jinx Jonah Hex”?
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzz-log-bombs-away-jonah-hex.html