Weekend Estimate By Klady – Incepted
WB is pushing out an estimate on Inception that is probably a bit high. $60 million sounds like a nice round number. But even a bit lower than that, the opening is the fifth best start this summer. It’s strong, but it’s pretty much as expected.
It’s an interesting thing, how people position these openings. This is lower than any of the guesstimates by our “Box Office Hell” sites. But was that a function of reality or of the hype? Would ouitlets covering this as a big opening be slamming it as The Dreaded Disappointing if they didn’t see the movie as being of quality? Are these pronouncements ever well considered?
What we know is this… even with very good legs, a multiple of 3x, (though super-legs are always possible, albeit unlikely for any non-family film these days) Inception will not pay for its worldwide marketing costs with its domestic gross and will have to do significantly better overseas to over the cost of production.
I tend to celebrate a guy like Nolan using his leverage to get the studio to make a movie that was such a gamble. Others will give it all a pass because they love the film and will claim any direct comments on the finances of the film are just Haters being Haters. And some will, just be happy that a challenging film can do $400 million-plus worldwide, which is where I think its headed.
Anyway…
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice seems to have recovered a little on Saturday, but the movie still is not a pre-teen hit, really. Having not seen the film, I don’t really know what Disney had to work with. But it seems to me that they almost looked for a tweener in the film… and got the results a tweener gets.
Nice hold for Despicable Me. It now looks Like Twi3 is actually going to do a little better than Twi2, as opposed to worse. We’ll see how it all plays out, but 10% either way is still the call. Grownups is also holding well, now looking like it could be Sandler’s biggest hit in the last decade, with The Longest Yard‘s $158.1m not out of reach. Foreign and Sandler is always weak… so we’ll see there.
Predators dropped a shocking 73%. You don’t see that every week. And if you listen to Hot Blog commenters, the movie is worthy of decent genre buzz. It’s not a record drop, but for movies opening on over 2000 screens, it’s #7 all-time, if it holds.
A drop of 73% would often lead one to believe that a movie is awful, but Predators is above 60% at RT and seems to be generally well-liked by most who have seen it, myself included. Did it just not expand beyond those who were psyched for it from the beginning? I guess not too many are on the fence about something like Predators, and the reviews don’t matter one way or the other. Does this mean the sequel is DTV with, say, Nick Stahl in the lead?
“Predators” only got a C+ from CinemaScore. It means that this film is loved by smarter cinephiles but hated by mainstream audience, just like “Splice”.
2010 is not a very good year for Adrien Brody (at least in US market). Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group has also decided to send “The Experiment” straight-to-video in US in September 2010. (“The Experiment” gets very positive review from Screen International, so it looks like the film won’t be as bad as I expected.)
Most of big-budget films did not recover their worldwide marketing costs with their domestic box office gross. So it would not be unusual if “Inception” can’t do so.
Anthony D
SB, I am going to go with this for the Predators drop: it simply does not mean anything to teenagers who only know the Predator through those crappy AVP movie and not the two classic Predator movies. Seriously, some of these kids have no history and expecting them to go see a movie that revolves around two crap films they did not like in the AVP series, is just asking for trouble. It should find a home on video and cable because it’s a great Predators film.
I also find it funny that the average cinemascore for Inception is a B+, while with kids who are 18-25, it’s an A. Seriously, that’s just weird.
Oh yeah David, haters like you have got to eat! The fact that you do not get that a regular def movie winning a weekend these days is a good thing, demonstrates that you got to eat and that you are in denial of THE BUMP BUMP BUMP! Triple B from here on out.
Marychan…. those are some seriously rose-colored glasses.
It’s a $200 million movie with massive effects, the director of The Dark Knight, and DiCaprio and it opened worse, mid-summer than 2012.
I think the opening is fine and about all they were going to get. But no other studio took that kind of chance this summer and the idea of trying to turn it into some “other studios wish” crap is just dumb. WB wishes it had a single film this summer that grossed its weight, much less a cash cow like Karate Kid.
I am not down on this movie and I wish it $500m or more. But I hate that kind of bullshit-eating grin stuff about how the movie underperformed it’s cost but every studio wants one.
And IO, this 3D defect in your brain… methinks Khan left a bug in your head.
David, ha ha but you are the one living in denial and suppressing rage motherfadder. Triple B is real, you just like to ignore it because it messes up your metrics, and you are a hater of the highest order when anyone ever gets excited about something that does not excite you as much. This is who you are.
Funny thing about Sorcerer’s Apprentice is that after seeing it, I felt like it was a movie that could appeal to all the quadrants. Yet they marketed it to appeal to none, somehow.
Despicable Me’s marketing was initially all over the place too, but they found their footing in time for it to open big.
It’s a $200 million movie
It’s a $160 million movie. Nolan came in way under budget.
The 2012 comparison mystifies me.
WB wishes it had a single film this summer that grossed its weight
Jonah Hex is an unqualified flop, but Sex and the City 2 is @ 280 million, off a $100 million budget. It’ll hold it’s weight in the end.
“Inception will not pay for its worldwide marketing costs with its domestic gross and will have to do significantly better overseas to cover the cost of production.”
Just as well then that the worldwide marketing costs were used for marketing the picture to the world.
I must be the only one who noticed all the shit blowing up in every ad.
I think we are in a space on this movie where the reality of media and close watchers is quite different than civilians. All these versions of the tale have been told and sold and about 10% (or whatever %) cares. For the rest, ads and trailers.
The urge to mythologize on this film is breathtaking.
If you believe the budget came in at $160m, I have a Superman Returns sequel to sell you.
And if the final worldwide on S&TC 2 is $275m worldwide, that’s about $140m in rentals, which covers marketing. The post-theatricals may get it to breakeven, but that’s not it grossing it’s weight.
And IO… you are the one who is delusional on 3D. Not only do I get it, I called it out as nothing but a revenue play before anyo else I read and called the backlash before it became popular to do so. I look at what it is, not at what it makes me feel. You’re the Chucky of 3D.
I’d love to see Focus get The Kids Are All Right up to Little Miss Sunshine numbers. What a pleasure to sit and watch that movie in a packed house.
Cyrus sure hit a wall this weekend, huh?
David wrote; “And IO… you are the one who is delusional on 3D. Not only do I get it, I called it out as nothing but a revenue play before anyo else I read and called the backlash before it became popular to do so. I look at what it is, not at what it makes me feel. You’re the Chucky of 3D.”
You want to know why people hate you and root for you to fail? This is why. You simply act like such a pompus jerk in responses that bare no resemblance to fact. Just the other week you discounted the Triple B and it was because of how you feel about Avatar. Seriously, you do not know your own self, you never get when you are being a hating jerk to something like you are to people who loved Inception, and you never get that you act the same way when you like something. You are the absolute biggest jerk anywhere on the net, when you love something, and feel it’s getting attacked.
Come on, look into the mirror, figure yourself out, and hopefully the people will root for you to succeed in the future, and not root for you to fall on your face in an epic fail sort of way. It’s your choice but you seem to lack to humanity to make it work that way, which is what makes you very fascinating.
IO: Before you get banned from the blog here again, just wanted to say: Happy trails!
Joe, seriously, he forgets arguments we had a week ago and he even seems to ignore that other posters have called him out on his denial of the TRIPLE B. If he wants to keep carrying on about things as if they are cool and if he also wants to downplay an original movie that’s not in 3D getting to 60 million, then that’s just how he is. Go read his twitter feed. It’s like 24/7 pompus Poland each and everyday! It’s fantastic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcYsO890YJY
Hey, again, if he can refer to me as Chucky. I can respond to him as a pompus jerk in certain circumstances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6cMQ6kBm0k
“Predators” will easily surpass $100 million worldwide…no reason the sequel should be DTV.
BTW to tie up loose ends from a few weeks back, DP…”A-Team” will finish with less than 140 million worldwide…not a bomb, but a big money loser.
Also DP, it’s official after this weekend: “Toy Story 3” is not going to become Disney’s biggest hit. Oh well.
Ethan, we have no idea how well Toy Story 3 is going to play in places where it’s not open yet. It can easily be a billion dollar movie thanks to the 3DB… 3DB… 3DB… GET THE TABLES!
I’m glad the worldwide gross will save Predators 2 from going DTV. I should have checked to see how it was doing elsewhere before declaring any potential sequel DTV.
I never expected Inception to break any real records, so $60 million feels just about right (for what it’s worth, I really liked it but didn’t love it). The people screaming for an $80-100 million weekend were setting the movie up to fail, so its good that such predictions didn’t become the conventional wisdom. As it is, it’s the sixth-largest opening for a live-action original property, and three of the larger openings had Memorial Day or Independence Day holiday weekend buffers.
As for the cost, Warner either believes that it will be a long-term profit maker or that the $160-200 million film is a small price to pay, even if they lose a few bucks in the end, for Nolan signing on for another Batman film (and I would have to agree with them). Besides, I’ve always admired Warner for taking these kind of hail Mary gambles. Giving gobs of money to talented people and more or less leaving them alone to make big-budget entertainments: sometimes they get Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or The Dark Knight, sometimes they get Watchmen or Speed Racer (I like all four of those films to varying degrees, but I digress). But Warner seems to be smart enough to know that the home runs are worth the occasional whiff or mere ground-rule double. I can only hope that their intervention with Terminator: Salvation and Clash of the Titans was just a panicky response to Watchmen and not new policy for films not made by Nolan.
TS3 might be able to get to a billion though I doubt it…it is not going to get to 1.066 billion though…or 423 million domestic. Period.
So you are saying it will have a hard time getting to 60 more million in the US and overseas with all of those 3D screens, it does not make 1b six? I will take at bet.
Hey, give IO some props! When he mentioned “Aliens vs. Predator” 🙂 he brought up a nice, trashy movie that Fox5 in NYC ran on a Sunday afternoon last fall as a lead-in to an NFL game.
I’m glad DP pointed out how “Inception” was released: Non-stop hard sell, emphasis on “From the director of The Dark Knight”.
All together now, 1, 2, 3 …
It’s fun to beat your meat, beat your meat, beat your meat
It’s fun to beat your meat, beat your meat, beat your meat
Drive along I-95 through Philadelphia and the endless “Inception” ads with the endless name-checking become a public wanking.
Luke gave in to the dark side – covering Comic-Con for Nikki. 😉
Horror films, evens ones that are well-liked, typically have poor Cinemascore grades. The Ring scored a B- and look at the legs that film had. A C+ doesn’t mean anything toxic for Predators.
Luke undoubtedly will get much razzing and teasing from people about his new gig. I don’t suppose I need to tell him that most of the people doing the teasing and razzing are insanely jealous, do I?
Meh… tell him anyway.
Sure I’ll take a bet. It’s done 270 million overseas and has opened in about two-thirds of foreign markets. It needs to do about 400 million more overseas to top Pirates 2. Simple math.
Simple math that 3DB can overcome any day of the week and twice on SUNDAY!
Ethan… did someone say TS3 would be Disney’s top movie ever? If so, I haven’t seen it.
All I have ever said is that it would be the #1 animated title domestic and have a real shot at worldwide, though it might be hard to overcome Nemo’s $868m. Right now, about $240m away… no lock.
Somewhere I missed it, Joe… Luke got a gig? (Not meaning to speak to you in third person, if you are reading, LYT.) Where?
In all fairness to LYT, I think this is the third year he’s been doing Comicon coverage for Deadline Hollywood and he’s always done a bang-up job. I think it didn’t attract as much attention before, because Nikki Finke wasn’t quite as ubiquitous or divisive as she is now (NOTE THE USE OF THE WORD “QUITE).
Sorry IO, it’s unlikely to get that extra $60mil domestic. At week five it’s already pulling in less than How To Train Your Dragon at the same point (TS3 Week5 – $11.8mil, HTTYD Week5 – $15.3mil). Despite having one of the best holds seen in a LONG time HTTYD only pulled in an extra $40mil after week 5. Similarly, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (another movie with better holds than TS3) pulled in another $30mil after its $11.5mil weekend (which was Week 4).
As a point in TS3’s favor, when new 3D fare arrives (and it’s looking fairly light from here out) Airbender screens are going to be yanked before TS screens, but it’s going to have to drop less than 20% each week from here on out to get an extra $60mil.
Well, I missed his byline on the first two years of coverage, obviously. D’oh. But there are certain things, I must admit, I usually gloss over and pass by, even on blogs I read on a regular basis. Guess I need to pay more attention to Comic Con coverage.
On the other hand: I did catch LYT’s memorable performance in Wicked Lake.
@Shillfor (and LYT) – True! I shoulda picked up on that, but I was always previously distracted by Nikki adding “I DON’T DO GEEK” on all the DHD geek coverage.
Foamy, I am still taking that bet just to see if it can happen.
“Toy Story 3 becomes the biggest domestic grosser in the history of Disney? You don’t care? Fine. Everyone at Disney will care. A lot.”-David Poland
I guess you should be more careful? And if “biggest animated domestic grosser at Disney” was what you really meant…puh-leez. If that was really your point, it’s ridiculous.
Anyone with any sense knew “Toy Story 3” was going to top $339 mil domestic from the moment it was greenlit in 3D….even if the reviews were worse than “Cars.” You’re telling me Disney execs are freaking out because Toy Story 3 made 47 million more than “Up”?…
If “TS3” passes “Shrek 2” domestically or worldwide…or “Ice Age 3” worldwide, then let the champagne fly, but topping a 7-year old in-house domestic record with a 3D steroid to boot? Uh, no.
Ethan, as someone who always thought TS3 could go Trans 2 level or higher (I am holding out Geoff… HOLDING OUT… even if I could indeed turn out to be wrong), why would anyone know where it would top out? Fill a brother in.
The trajectory doesn’t work…Tran2 wasn’t thought to have great legs, but it dropped less than Ts3 in its 5th weekend…the following two weekends it had even smaller drops. TS3 is already 17 million behind Tran2..it doesn’t have enough breathing room to make up the lost ground at this point, and it’s already shedding theatres (almost 600 this weekend).
I saw Sorcerer’s App and really didn’t think there was anything endearing about it. The effects were a snooze, Cage figured less in his role than Donald Sutherland in Buffy the Vamp Slayer and everything else was generic. earlier after Prince of Persia came out I thought it had no heart. Sorcerer was even worse in that regard. I think the all the supposed backstory they tried to cover w/voice over expo would’ve made for a more compelling story than the few standard faire items they tried to include. It’s was almost like a medley of mentor/apprentice elements, they didn’t go deep enough for any to be that engaging. I’m a bit surprised it opened so low. I could’ve imagined a bigger opening w/significant drop but I guess audiences could sniff the truth about this one out.
Speaking of drops, I sorry Predators didn’t do better. On the one hand, as I think about it I’m not sure there was too much that was really memorable. At the same time I thought it was just straight forward action and entertainment. A real back to the basics type. Now I fear it’s back to more of the contrite. Booooooo!
Triple, it seems that the whole back to basics thing just does not work for a certain age group. Again, that’s just a far flung guess but you have this and A-Team just sort of wither on the rose and it makes me wonder; do kids today understand how awesome action films when their parents were teenagers?
“I can argue with you, mdana. Projecting worldwide on Friday, however generously and however many exceptions noted, is not a good practice.”
I appreciate you responding. In regards to “projecting worlwide”, is that in reference to me or to you? If it was to me, I am unsure exactly what we are arguing. I didn’t really project anything beyond the domestic opening weekend and state it had the potential to have very good legs in that specific market. I based this on my interpretation of its ratings on IMDB, Yahoo, and Flixster, in addition to its surge on Facebook and Twitter. Anecdotally, my brother and friends in their thirties got texts all weekend from their friends recommending the film. I am a luddite and don’t do the whole texting on account of my unopposable thumbs. The amount of recommendations were abnormally high according to them. In addition, I noticed a very strong hold for this movie on Saturday compared to Friday for a movie that had a substantial amount of midnight showings. If the Saturday actual is higher than the Friday number, that will be a first for a movie that opened on a Friday with a substantial amount of midnight showings.
Now what this exactly means I am uncertain. It could just be that the movie is recapturing filmgoers previously inclined to see it three weeks ago when tracking seemed to indicate a $70m+ opening. Similiar to a struggling politician recapturing voters at the last minute he should have locked down a month ago. Perhaps, those previously inclined were scared away by the last minute flurry of negative reviews that gave the mistaken impression that critics were more mixed in their reception of the film after the uniformity of early positive ones. Another possibility is estremely positive word of mouth has already started.
For me it is too early to know what exactly is happening. Now long term legs for this film are a biggger question mark than I think even long term observers realize, because films released in the late July early August time frame don’t have great legs compared to films released earlier in the summer or in the Thanksgiving-Christmas time frame. Since 2000 for all films that opened wide released between July 15-Sept. 1, only The Wedding Planners had an OW multiplier of 6.2. Signs had the biggest OW multiplier of 3.7 for an OW $45m+.
Even with that caveat, I think $170m for its domestic total is absurdly low at the moment with the current information, unless there is something abnormally odd with this movie’s reception, that I am just not able to notice from the usual indicators. Worldwide lets revisit that when it opens in the majority of OS territories. I have no problem with you pointing out that it will not break even if you count the OS and domestic box against the production and marketing costs of $360m. I would like you to have more hard numbers to make that determination.
I was glad to see you upgraded your description of Inception’s opening from solid to strong which I think is a much more accurate assessment.
“I believe I was very cautious on Pirates 1. But the hum on Pirates was quite different.”
First off, thanks for not pointing out I typed the wrong POTC in my comment. On TDK’s opening weekend, I remember your assessment of TDK’s final worldwide #s being extremely low in my estimation. You got it right by the second weekend, although it read like you were being generous or optimsitic in your assessment.
“The Dark Knight does $600 million worldwide.”
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/07/bat_bucks.html#comments
“The only $100 million-plus opening that has failed to gross at least $799m worldwide was X-Men 3: The Last Stand, which did $460m worldwide. The flipside for TDK is that the only comic book movie to do better than that is Spider-Man (all three) and Iron Man, which is going to do close to $600m worldwide. Batman Begins did $372m worldwide and even if it doubles its domestic gross, it would still have to double its gross internationally as well to get to $700m..”
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/07/friday_estimate_79.html#comments
“For The Dark Knight to be the fourth film in history to crack $1 billion will be a big achievement
Yeah, that’s game set match for mdana. Switch sides!
Those are some entertaining statistics mdana.
however, explain the poor box office for films aimed squarely at that demographic.
If they are the biggest percentage of frequent moviegoers, why do you guys only get garbage like Eclipse.
Hispanics buy more movie tickets than any other ethnic group. Why do they only get movies like Nothing Like The Holidays?
So by Stella’s Boy and Mdana’s logic, the biggest movie this year should have been Our Family Wedding.
And yet, it isn’t.
“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.” – Homer Simpson
Why Our Family Wedding didn’t make $200 million is one of life’s great mysteries.
Short answers to mdana…
1. Social Media is the most overstated play of the day. It’s the same circle that goes back to Bye Bye Birdie, just with newer tools than princess phones. 3x opening is now pretty good.
2. On Dark Knight, I, like pretty much every sane person who covers box office (IO doesn’t count), were looking at Batman Begins and extrapolating, when we should have been looking at Batman and every sequel but the last, though B&R had something to tell us too. Batman is one of the most powerful franchises in film’s history and that should have been my touchstone. Has nothing to do with Inception.
3. The industry has replaced the minor losses in tickets sold – about 2% a year – with other, higher grossing cash streams… the cannibalism expected. The only change at the moment is that DVD leveled off and the price has been pulling it down even faster, so the value of the secondary streams is being reconsidered, even as the industry is having a hard time thinking about slowing it all down instead of continuing to speed up.
MPAA stats are based on polling… and younger moviegoers are famously hard to poll. Look at the annual numbers. The market hasn’t changed much… but how the release revenue is shaped has. Again… not by mistake. Covering this for over a decade, I have been writing about the intentional shortening of the theatrical window and the dumping of ticket sales, as such, forever.
Second-run alone, now mostly dead, would increase tickets sold by 15% or more… and revenues by – very roughly – about 4%. And that is why the industry killed second run in favor of DVD sell-thru.
4. The idea of 3D screen monopolies is very 2008. By 2013 or so, more than 80% of screens will be 3D capable. But not the point… 3D has other problems.
Being screen short has hurt many 3D movies… to to the tune of $10m – $40m. That doesn’t begin to explain away Avatar or any other success.
5. I think the biggest problem I have with people arguing What Hollywood Thinks, professional and non-pro, is that people tend to underestimate how in control the studios are of what goes on. They have real control problems with choosing to make films that audiences want and are marketable. But in terms of the structure of the business, everytime I allow myself the delusion that it’s remotely random, I am reminded by how collusive and considered things are… even if there are battles between factions about how to proceed.
3D is free money right now. That is why the studios are all running to it. It is, seems to me, one of the least dangerous obsessions “they” have had.
Massive changes to the post-theatrical market are coming. Changing theatrical at the same time would be suicidal. But it might happen. But not because of Tickets Sold.
6. Women do not always want “women’s movies.” The market for bad women’s movies is strong now. But if you started seeing 50 a year, it would be a bloodbath.
Like the foreign market, the issue is balance. All genres can work. Studios just have to find a workable balance between testosterone and estrogen, while still making some all-boy or all-girl movies at a price that fits the niche.
And plenty of “women’s movies” manage to fare pretty well at the box office each and every year, like Valentine’s Day ($110 million), Dear John ($80 million), and Letters to Juliet ($52 million). Not to mention over half of Alice in Wonderland’s audience was female and I have to imagine that is also true for Date Night, The Bounty Hunter, and Killers.
Also who do you think is taking all the kids to see TS3 and Despicable Me? I would think that the desparity in the gender of the adult chaperone would eat at least half of the balance in the difference in the statistics.
Also what makes a “womens movie”. PLENTY of women went to see the Iron Man movies, there is no way Marvel did not have an eye on the female audience when making those. And everytime I have seen a movie from one of the dependents or an indie the women have outnumbered the males at least two to one in the theater (including films like Eastern Promises, There will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men which you would expect to skew male).
As far as Toy Story’s domestic gross: Here’s hcat’s handy dandy non-scientific BO predictor. Double the weekend gross, then add to the total (based on a attendence drop of 45%, adjust higher and lower from the drop in attendance. So TS3 should peter out in the high 380s, 185 for Despicable Me, 282 for Twilight.
I do not count in terms of following box office? Really? Unless you are piped into something I am not, then we are both prognosticating. I would wager that given a year, my predictions would be closer than yours. If you want to play the game let me know because it would be kind of silly and a fun time to be had by all or at least to entertain me.
IOv2-
I am pretty sure he insulted you and implied you are not sane. Or perhaps, I don’t understand the give and take in your relationship?
“Hispanics buy more movie tickets than any other ethnic group. Why do they only get movies like Nothing Like The Holidays?”
Because they’re only going in order to annoy Jeffrey Wells?
Are they succeeding in said goal?
INCEPTION’s actuals are $62.7, significantly above the estimates. A couple of signs point to very strong (and developing) legs and growing word of mouth: a very small drop from Saturday to Sunday, and a Sunday which actually outperformed Friday (minus midnights), which is another rarity.
Obviously we need to see the weekday results and how well it holds against SALT, but unless it shows much weaker staying power than these early numbers indicate, it should comfortably coast past $200m. Good weekday numbers and a strong hold next weekend and $250m+ is well within grasp — which would be a phenomenal result for this type of movie.
Mdana, who knows with that guy. He does not believe in the 3DB, he gets mad at anyone for being overly excited for something unless he’s excited for it, then everything is cool. I could go on but if he thinks I am the looney then he’s apparently playing a horrible version of SPOT THE LOONEY!
Tele, ssssssssshhh. You are going providing to much information that goes against David’s very sound reasoning. How dare you, sir! How dare you!
Short answers to mdana…
1. Social Media is the most overstated play of the day. It’s the same circle that goes back to Bye Bye Birdie, just with newer tools than princess phones. 3x opening is now pretty good.
2. On Dark Knight, I, like pretty much every sane person who covers box office (IO doesn’t count), were looking at Batman Begins and extrapolating, when we should have been looking at Batman and every sequel but the last, though B&R had something to tell us too. Batman is one of the most powerful franchises in film’s history and that should have been my touchstone. Has nothing to do with Inception.
3. The industry has replaced the minor losses in tickets sold – about 2% a year – with other, higher grossing cash streams… the cannibalism expected. The only change at the moment is that DVD leveled off and the price has been pulling it down even faster, so the value of the secondary streams is being reconsidered, even as the industry is having a hard time thinking about slowing it all down instead of continuing to speed up.
MPAA stats are based on polling… and younger moviegoers are famously hard to poll. Look at the annual numbers. The market hasn’t changed much… but how the release revenue is shaped has. Again… not by mistake. Covering this for over a decade, I have been writing about the intentional shortening of the theatrical window and the dumping of ticket sales, as such, forever.
Second-run alone, now mostly dead, would increase tickets sold by 15% or more… and revenues by – very roughly – about 4%. And that is why the industry killed second run in favor of DVD sell-thru.
4. The idea of 3D screen monopolies is very 2008. By 2013 or so, more than 80% of screens will be 3D capable. But not the point… 3D has other problems.
Being screen short has hurt many 3D movies… to to the tune of $10m – $40m. That doesn’t begin to explain away Avatar or any other success.
5. I think the biggest problem I have with people arguing What Hollywood Thinks, professional and non-pro, is that people tend to underestimate how in control the studios are of what goes on. They have real control problems with choosing to make films that audiences want and are marketable. But in terms of the structure of the business, everytime I allow myself the delusion that it’s remotely random, I am reminded by how collusive and considered things are… even if there are battles between factions about how to proceed.
3D is free money right now. That is why the studios are all running to it. It is, seems to me, one of the least dangerous obsessions “they” have had.
Massive changes to the post-theatrical market are coming. Changing theatrical at the same time would be suicidal. But it might happen. But not because of Tickets Sold.
6. Women do not always want “women’s movies.” The market for bad women’s movies is strong now. But if you started seeing 50 a year, it would be a bloodbath.
Like the foreign market, the issue is balance. All genres can work. Studios just have to find a workable balance between testosterone and estrogen, while still making some all-boy or all-girl movies at a price that fits the niche.”
Short and long responses to Dave Poland-
Again thanks for responding, but you did not address my first question.
In regards to “projecting worldwide”, is that in reference to me or to you? It certainly wasn’t me…
1. I guess this is in reference to using internet rating systems. I have found them very useful in tracking the strength of certain films and the weakness of others. They are better the longer out, so they leave much to be desired. For, instance they were quite helpful in films like Transformers, Shrek 2, Batman Begins and numerous others in suggesting performances outside of their expected runs.
I am not making the allegation that this film is taking off due to some technological communication breakthrough, because of Twitter, etc., that drive you insane when some incompetent at the LA or NY Times writes a facts free BS article touting such marvel as speeding WOM or whatever they are peddling. I will leave the anecdotes out next time, but they seemed to suggest strong WOM that I have not noticed outside of Avatar recently.
The theater monitoring is valid, if making the proper adjustment. It was for Alice, Avatar and others. Alice and Avatar showed strength in that their sellouts got stronger (selling out earlier than the show or week before) or were so intense to suggest good holds; IM 2. However, in this case it was to be expected due to the sheer volume of shows.
If you think these tools are voodoo and chicken bones, it is your prerogative.
Sorry for peppering you with questions, but here is another about media reporting on box office news. Is it designed to confuse the consumers? I mean it seems to elicit only what the studio wants released or some axe to grind by the writer. For example,
“Younger audiences seemed to love the movie’s plot, praised by some critics as complex and criticized by others as confusing, as well as its novel visual tricks, but older adults were more mixed. Moviegoers under 25 gave “Inception” an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore; those over 25 gave it a B and the over-50 crowd gave it a B-.
The highest-ever opening for a film not based on source material was $77 million for “Avatar” last winter. “Inception” failed to reach that stratosphere; it seems, because of its narrow appeal. With a PG-13 rating it couldn’t get children, while adults over 35 simply didn’t turn out in large numbers, representing only 27% of the audience.”
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-boxoffice-20100719,0,2730800.story
Why or how? He doesn’t know x is the reason for having a narrow reach, which it didn’t have, since it most likely pulled more people to the theaters. Leaving out the difference in one film being released in 3-D and the other not seems misleading, although I am guessing this superfluous information.
Avatar had most of its over 25 audience in the 25-34 yo group. We don’t know what the scores in each group were for Avatar or the % of those groups. He does not report those numbers for Avatar, so he is either making a faulty assumption he can’t support or he is failing to inform his readers. It may be true but he does not report or explain it.
For example, hypothetically if he had reported Avatar had an A- with the over 25 audience and over 35 represented 30% of the audience, then we could draw some conclusions. If he states what is considered an opinion or analysis, he can’t just make it up; he has to base it on facts. Why does he report just with Inception the Cinemscore for two groups and then the attendance % for another group? It would be like stating 50% of those over 45 will be voting for Obama, and 55% of those over 55 will be voting. You have not explained the baseline, so I have no idea what is good or bad. Even in this vacuum I have no idea how many are voting for Obama over 45 or over 55. I just have two sets of data points that don’t correlate. The job of a reporter it to inform not mislead or confuse.
I see this shoddy work all the time in mainstream reporting and it may not be the reporters fault in each instance, but either the reporter or editor has to catch the mistake, unless it is a system feature.
I would like to know more about Cinemascores and demographics, but the media reporters never give much info. I guess they don’t bother to ask or are afraid to ask the studios due fears of loss of access? It is almost impossible to compare movie A with B or C. One week they give female demo, or over 50, or under 12 etc. Then it seems like the grades even for the same movie never match the age group, like with Inception.
2. I take you at your word, and it makes sense. It just seemed like you were very dismissive of TDK’s run at first. Then you eventually came around. I mean it seemed pretty significant that TDK made the leap from grossing half of SM 1 and SM 2 OS to at least being in the ballpark of SM3, but that just might be me. Coupled with your underestimating Inception constantly, it would seem like Nolan (1st week only?) bias to a neutral observer, with only that information to make the judgement.
3. I have read many of the articles or threads you have written on this topic. However, as the country gets older, I question the validity of the same business plan. I have read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. So I am an expert now, give me a studio. It seems to this outsider like the industry has been continuously in these dysfunctional swings form one extreme to another in failing to meet the demands of the nation as a whole in terms of films people actually want to see. From my understanding, up until the late 1960s the film industry left untapped the huge baby boomer market. Then with the success of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider, they swung into gear. In the 1970s, there seemed to be a good balance between adult films and youth oriented films, I don’t know how successful that plan was. If I remember, it was more the break-up of the studio system to the independent players creating bidding wars and overpaying talent that caused much of the financial stress of the period.
Anyways, my sense is they have ridden the current system into the ground.
I remember when you were defending Leno in the Case against Team Coco (which should be the finale of Law & Order). I turned against Coco the minute he acted like hosting The Tonight Show was his birthright. When you stated Leno deserved the show back because he had a bigger audience, I completely agreed. However, what struck me in the whole proceedings (perhaps you addressed it some point that I missed) was the shortsightedness of Zuckerman, in the first place, to purposely go for a cheap show at 10:00 that was designed to lose ratings to make more money. I don’t follow the TV industry that much so if I got the name horribly wrong sorry, whoever made that decision. It struck me as pennywise and pound foolish, because all forms of media are fighting to retain eyeballs and this person was giving up something that was DESIGNED to lose 10-15% of its audience. You are surrendering while others are fighting for them. They aren’t coming back.
I question your only -2% audience loss per year, if the dollar theaters have shrunk as fast as you claim, unless the shrinkage has been over the past 7-10 years, then it makes sense. Mathematically, if it was over the past 2-3 years from 15%-4%, that would be over 2% just from those theaters alone. I don
Ok, you know what this proves? Name-checking can work! Think about it – over the past 14 months, The Hangover, Avatar, and now Inception launched off it in spades.
Yes, it helps to have other marketing elements and a good trailer, but….for months, all we heard about Avatar was “From the Director of Titanic” and for Inception, “From the Director of The Dark Knight” – strangely, I think the teasers for both were launched around the same time, last August.
And I have a strange feeling that if Inception had opened in mid-December, it REALLY could have played for weeks and weeks – serious buzz on this one, but there are limits to what you can do in the middle of a competitive summer.
I just checked it out and mdana’s last post has a higher word count than the shooting script of Machete.
A couple of things on statistics.
Population statistics tend to assume a degree of homogeneity that doesn’t exist – demographic segmentation especially. Anyone talking about “The 14yr old boy” should go take a look at a high school some time – if the social cliques, all with their own distinct music and artistic tastes, don’t jump out at you in the first 2 minutes then you’re probably not cut out to be a researcher. There’s subgroups who wouldn’t touch content targeted for other subgroups in the same demographic with a bargepole – the 14yr-old emo boys probably have more in common with the 25yr old emo women than the 14yr-old jock boys.
Targeting the largest segment size is also not always the best strategy. For one thing, a lot of other people are targeting that segment too – while it’s always nice to hear of hits, there are dozens that fail (many that never make it through development) because the market is just too crowded. Segmentation targeting is more about availability (uncommitted to rival content), value (how much money they can contribute), accessibility (can the marketing reach them effectively), and most importantly appropriateness (would they relate to the content). As DP mentions, there’s plenty of scope for non-mainstream movies because there’s a fair amount of viewers whose needs aren’t being well met by “traditional” fare and they’ve got money burning a hole in their pocket.
As a slight social aside, “14yr-old boys” are most often targeted because they have the best scope for overlap with other social groups. As Leah has noted many times, it’s more socially acceptable for girls to watch “boys” content than vice versa, just as it’s easier for adults to relate to “kids” fare. It’s like a shotgun approach – throw it at a wall, see what sticks, tweak as appropriate from there based on which population groups respond.
Getting to the MPAA data specifically, there are a couple of issues with the coding – most notably the “occasional movie goer” segment. This same segment includes people who go 11 times a year (just infrequent enough to avoid the “frequent movie goer” segment) and people who go twice a year (just frequent enough to avoid the “infrequent movie goer” segment). Although the divisions have to be drawn somewhere, there’s far too much intrasegment differentiation for my tastes.
Similarly to my first point, the data implies that this distribution holds constant for all content – which blatantly isn’t true. For example, I’d be willing to bet good money that “Frequent Movie Goers” made up around 3/4 of the ticket sales for something like Kick Ass. As the gross of a movie gets bigger and bigger, so does the proportion of Frequent Movie Goers get smaller and smaller – those Frequent Movie Goers might be “concentrated” over 100 movies or more, while Occasional Movie Goers will tend to only turn out for the top 50, while Infrequent Movie Goers will only turn up for the top 5. Suddenly for a movie like Avatar, Harry Potter or Up, Infrequent Movie Goers are almost as valuable as Frequent Movie Goers, and both pale in comparison to Occasional Movie Goers.
If you’re planning anything to gross more than $100mil, you HAVE to move beyond the base, you HAVE to do more than attend Comic-Con and trend on Twitter, because the bulk of your money is going to come from people who pay no attention at all to those channels.
I’m pretty sure that 90% of the Machete shooting script consists of: “Danny Trejo roars”.
And just to respond to one of the points of the above manifesto, the change in box office in the 70s was not due to marketing to Baby Boomers as it was to the rating system doing away with the Hays Code so more adult content could be seen onscreen, and most notably something that could not be replicated by movies greatest competition at the time, television. That was probably the most significant gamechanger in movies since Cinerama. It was before my time but I would imagine that however awestruck we have been in the past few years by 3D is nothing compared to seeing nudity in a mainstream film (and when the hell are they finally going to combine the two?).
And I thought he went a little overboard comparing Valentines Day and Dear John with Rape.
MDana: my favourite Dana since Dana Hall. Seriously, his ripping apart of the stupid blue cat movie just made my heart grow three more sizes! Oh snap! Everything is moving so slow. Damn. TIME TO GO INTO BULLET TIME AND STOP SOME BAD GUYS!
There’s a good reason Avatar stayed on screens for so long. By mid Feb, 2 months after release, it was still pulling in almost $7-8k per screen. Look at the list at the top of the page. Count how many films are pulling in more than that per screen. Now count how many are doing that 2 months after release.
If you were a theatre chain operator would you be pulling that from your screens?
The ‘but there was no competition’ arguement was used against Titanic as well and was equally weak then. Avatar faced two $200 million grossers a week into its run and they didn’t cause a dent. Even after Alice was released it continued humming right along with low drops each week.
Avatar was not the best movie of last year, let alone all time, no one is argueing that. But it was a significant moviegoing experience for much of the nation (as well as the world) in that it was the first 3D tentpole for someone other than kids. This caused a must see factor as well as plenty of repeat viewing. This is not some head scratcher or sign of impending doom. Simply a movie that experienced a zeitgeist moment.
Last weekend, after being on Blu-Ray for two months, Avatar’s per screen still outgrossed seven of the top ten.
Hcat, no competition helped Titanic as well. If Avatar were put out in the Summer like it was supposed to be, it makes less. The same with Titanic. You add in competition and the Yankees just can’t win everything. You eliminate competition and the Yankees win 140 games easy. Referring to it or Titanic as zeitgeist moments when they were clearly taking advantage of no competition and the dead time of the year, just plays into the taint all over Cameron’s MEGA BLOCKBUSTERS! Nolan at least plays in the Summer with the big boys.
Or to put it another way; “CHRISTOPHER NOLAN IS A MAN!”
Seriously Hcat, who cares about per screen average? It’s per screen got the 3DB as well. Seriously, when are you people going to realize that there’s a taint thanks to the 3DB on this flick? Titanic took advantage of no competition like the Houston Rockets. Fine. Avatar just took the 3DB, hogged 3D screens for months, and we are supposed to go ZEITGEIST MOMENT FOR THAT? Nah. Twilight… Zeitgeist. TDK… Zeitgeist. I might even give you Titanic (like that cares to anyone but come on, it’s Titanic, that movie has aged as well as Nikki Cox!), but Avatar is as dirty as they come. If Eddie Guerrero were alive, he would were a Na’Vi shirt to the ring, then use a lead pipe in his trunks to take out John Cena while counting to three in Na’vi! LIE… CHEAT… AND STEAL!
Oh yeah, just to cause some popped veins or anything, I hate Avatar for the six hour headache it gave me but mostly I am just talking… figuratively… smack. I have let it go like Barry Bonds ripping off Hammering Hank, it is what it is, a lot of people know what’s up, but here’s to Nolan doing what he needs to do to take that record down. The same goes with someone besides Arod beating Bonds record.
A lot of interesting stuff, mdana. But I will try to be brief.
1. The “shrinkage” has really been since DVD sell-thru… under 15 years.
2. I don’t know what to tell you about 3D screens. Avatar was not an average 3D situation and was not treated as one. It had 11 play-weekends until Alice… when it took its worst drop in its run and lost 300 theaters. Thing is, Avatar, unlike Titanic, took in 90% of its domestic gross before its 10th weekend ended. Up took in 90% of its gross by the end of its 6th weekend.
At the end of six weekends, Avatar had taken in $551 million. Up, $265… less than half.
Honestly, I don’t know what you are actually upset about. Of course, Avatar took advantage of January/February and the lack of big competition. Every movie chooses dates. I responded to your comment about 3D… which was not the same issue as summer competition vs winter competition.
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Thinking you were suggesting more movies targeting women and that this is not a good idea is akin to rape? Huh?
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Zucker’s mistake wasn’t a cheap 10pm show. It was that he was making a move to end the affiliate system and he didn’t have the juice or balls to see it through. Leno at 10 would have been fine for the network… not good for local affiliates. And O’Brien was a financial disaster at 11:35. I am enjoying all the ass licking he is getting now and will be curious to see if he can beat Adult Swim when his show launches. He’ll beat Chelsea Lately, but only because of E! clearances.
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Film Journalists have a soft wet spot for the early 70s. And for good reason. But it was more Vietnam than the end of the studios. And it ended as soon as the studios were reconstituted.
There will be more pain in the studio business and particularly the unions in the next few years and then we will see a reconfigured industry reassert itself. It will be much smaller with a much longer tale.
And crap will be made. And great movies will be made.
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Cinemascore is bullshit. It’s an outpoll of people who see movies on opening weekend. Biased survey. Unreliable.
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Money is left on the table by studios not because of the competition, but because of the shortened window. There is a lot of money in weeks 12 – 30. But they don’t want them. They want to get to the DVD sell-thru and boost the next quarter. That made sense when DVD was GOD… but now, I think it’s a huge mistake.
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Hollywood leaves underserved demos sitting because it costs just as much to serve a bigger demo.
When the project is right and it hits the zeitgeist, great. But when you start thinking you have a niche under your control, you get Watchmen and Sex & The City 2. Oops.
The “3D screens” argument puts a cap on the upper limit, not a lower limit. They’re perfectly capable at showing 2D films as well – if a 2D film had come in with better prospects, Avatar would have been yanked.
Plus I know how you love to imply that the 3D bump contributed 60% or more of the gross, but it’s a $5 markup on a $10 ticket (approximately). Even if 100% of the tickets sold were 3D, that’s still only a 33% increase at best. Then you have to factor in all the people saying “$15 for a movie ticket? Screw that!”. It’s a bump, but it’s not a game changer.
A 5 dollar mark-up? Nah. More like DOUBLE in a lot of places. Those Imax tickets are expensive. Again the 3DB is hard to figure because the prices are not level across the board. You also have to figure in that while Alice and Avatar were in theaters, theater owners jacked up 3D prices across the board, so, yeah, the 3DB is real and not a part of Paranormal Activity two. It will be in Paranormal Activity 3… in 3D!
“Hollywood leaves underserved demos sitting because it costs just as much to serve a bigger demo.”
To be fair, that’s changing a fair bit. In the last 20 years or so, if you wanted a solid double you needed around 10million people to show up, and the only way to do that was with mass-market comms tools – tv spots, radio, newspaper ads. Those are pretty blunt instruments to target niches, and you’re wasting millions in advertising hitting people with no interest in the content – doubly if you’re targeting underserved demos.
The comms channels are becoming much more segmented now if you look at some of the data coming out of cable and on-demand, so that’s changing somewhat, but these channels have their own teething problems as they can’t guarantee eyeballs like traditional mass-media tools.
Geoff-Does this $200m for The Town? It sold me, I loved Gone Baby Gone.
Foamy Squirrell- A really good post that I agree with mostly (especially the passivity in making choices for films seen together), but I don’t think people’s needs are being met by crap like Kick Ass, etc. I am not really knocking KA, although it sure sounds like it. It just seemed really sick to where I am now, but 2 decades ago I probably would have been a fanatical supporter about it. I guess my question is why can
“More like DOUBLE in a lot of places.”
IMAX screens accounted for about 15% of Avatar’s revenue. Even at double the price, that’s still a grand total of 7.5% bump.
The fact remains, if you converted every 3D ticket sold down to 2D pricing Avatar still clears around $2bil worldwide.
Geoff-Does this $200m for The Town? It sold me, I loved Gone Baby Gone.
Foamy Squirrell- A really good post that I agree with mostly (especially the passivity in making choices for films seen together), but I don’t think people’s needs are being met by crap like Kick Ass, etc. I am not really knocking KA, although it sure sounds like it. It just seemed really sick to where I am now, but 2 decades ago I probably would have been a fanatical supporter about it. I guess my question is why can
thanks for the update DP-
Are the cinemscores where they get the age group breakdowns or is that a different service?
I find that stuff fascinating, sorry.
What I don’t get is the inconsistency in the reporting week after week. Is that a function of the studio only letting out the info they want released and hiding the bad stuff or something else entirely?
Foamy, it gets to 1.8b. If you make it higher. It falls a wee bit short of Titanic. Still impressive but again, the Houston Rockets only won two championships when Michael Jordan was on suspension in Baseball. Good on Avatar getting that high alone but we still have no definitive numbers for how much the 3DB effects things. It could be anywhere from David’s low 25 to 40 percent. Again we have like five movies coming down the pike, all in 3D, that have the chance to kill that record. Do not even get me started on Bats 3 in 3D because if that happens, every Avatar fan and James Cameron better sit down and write this letter;
“Dear Mr. Nolan.
You and your team’s unbelievable use of 3D blew off our socks. You rock and you are truly a man.
Sincerely,
Fans of The Dances With Wolves Remake in 3D.”
Here’s hoping Poland’s hatred of Nolan (That’s right I am calling it!) is once again proven wrong and some way some how, Inception becomes Nolan’s second billion dollar film.
“Will theaters feel burned if they don
That’s Basketball not Baseball, duh.
Foamy you are a smart brother from below the equator, so I ask you this question; how long does 3D have left?
“Plus I know how you love to imply that the 3D bump contributed 60% or more of the gross, but it’s a $5 markup on a $10 ticket (approximately). Even if 100% of the tickets sold were 3D, that’s still only a 33% increase at best.”
This is why all 3-D arguements are pointless, the extent of innumeracy in the discussion. This is a 50% increase under your scenario. If it went from $15 to $20, that would be a 33% increase.
If you paid $100k in taxes, you think having to pay $150k, is only a 33% increase? The percentage would be 33% of your new bill (total), but a 50% increase nonetheless. I hope enjoy your “only” 33% increase.
Movie T 150 tickets sold at $10.00=$150
Movie A 100 tickets sold at $15.00=$150
You are asking movies that did not have this special feature to do 50% more than a movie that did have this to be equal that is…innumeracy.
Then I changed the tickets from 15 to 150 and forgot to change the total…innumeracy has incepted me.
Movie T 150 tickets sold at $10.00=$1500
Movie A 100 tickets sold at $15.00=$1500
“Two issues here. First is that there are benefits to theatre operators from the shortened windows – it’s better to have a continuous stream of new content that’s pulling in $3k+ per screen than having older content sitting around $1k for a month or two. That’s balanced out somewhat by the shift in rentals – the proportion of ticket money that the studio/distributor collects changes depending on how far into release the film is. So it’s a mixed bag, but not a definite negative.”
I think that is a viable plan for the summer and Thanksgiving season to New Years weekend, but 50% of those screens are practically worthless outside of those time frames, because there should only be a Dragon or Clash most of the time in the offseason. I hope they have lerned their lesson from this spring.
Studios have got to get back to running films for 12-30 weeks or whatever the figure Dave posted. Has he explained how that is possible with pirating, audience expections, etc? I think the goal if they could do that would be do have DVD sales released one year on the date they were released in theaters. I think it conditions people to buy the dvd when they enjoyed it in theater a year earlier or they saw the ads for it.
Doh, yes – that was a stupid mistake on my behalf. Although keep in mind that $10 is an underestimate – AMC quotes ticket prices at $9.50 for children off-peak to $13.50 peak for adults with the 3D surcharge being $3-5, although as IO mentions that’s not the nationwide standard. Plus standard supply/demand economics says that fewer people will agree to fork out the $5 surcharge, so everything else being equal you would expect a 2D-only movie to sell more tickets than a 3D one.
The economics of windows is similarly pretty hazy. As DP mentioned earlier, the bulk of the revenues comes from the first few weeks, and extending the window an extra month or two will pull in an extra $10-20mil at the cost of not releasing another movie during that time which could pull in another $100mil. Plus you have the behavioural impact on frequent moviegoers – if the level of new content drops, then those attendees might find another “habit” to consume their time, and the attendance drop may be exacerbated.
That’s not to say that lengthening windows is a bad idea, just that it’s not obviously a good idea.
And to IO – I don’t think 3D is going anywhere soon, but its public perception is taking a bit of a battering with shoddy 3D conversions like Clash and Airbender.
It’s one of those situations where the better long-term strategy would be to keep its usage to a minimum. The ideal situation is where it doesn’t scare off moviegoers and provides a premium product for those who have extra dollars burning in their pocket, but bringing it “mainstream” will hurt smaller films when entertainment budgets are burnt through faster. However, it’s hard to persuade execs and producers that “free money” from a 3D conversions for their current project is a bad idea. Standard new product cycle will probably apply – initial burst, oversaturation followed by inevitable pain, then a 2nd wave of resurgence.
(A similar summary for the game industry is given by David Edery, who used to head up the MSoft games portfolio http://www.edery.org/2010/01/a-game-developers-catch-22-market-timing/ )
mdana – I don’t remember anyone singing the praises of Persia or Titans. But they were pitched to a wider audience than Dear John. The Dear John male equivelent would be something like Predators or the Expendables and since they are going toward a smaller part of the overall audience and have budgets that reflect that.
There is almost nothing decent from the major studios aimed at the female audience (though I did enjoy Blind Side and Complicated last year). The crap like Mamma Mia and Sex in the City is making huge bank though and why would they change their template when dollars are coming in?
Overall I think we are pretty similair (I also lived 15 minutes from DC, which by car means 8 miles into Maryland and 2 miles into Virginia), I wish there were better romantic comedies (perhaps even a few directed toward males? something like Roxanne maybe?). Being in a metro area you are actually quite lucky, just see what they are playing at the AFI in Silver Spring at any given time and take a shot, you will usually be pleased (plus they have beer and ice cream for concessions)
So Inception grossed $10 million on Monday. Does that mean its trajectory is going to be like Toy Story 3? Or even higher? Salt may not really hit it that bad and we’ll have another Avatar/Sherlock Holmes type weekend.
Or are you still sticking to the statement that WB’s 60 estimate was inflated even though it was actually 62?
Foamy very good points. If only they could maybe give us 10 3D movies a year. It’s not like I do not enjoy 3D, especially with animation, but anything more than 10 is just a bit much and that will indeed hurt the marketplace.
Jtag and Winston… ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Do not challenge David with the possibility of Inception doing better than he thought.
IO, I just want to know if you’ve pre-ordered your AVATAR:SE tickets yet.
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/days/nonholiday.htm
#23 Non-Holiday Monday gross…bodes well for north of $200 million.
Tele,I am finished with Cameron. I will never ever pay to see another one of his films ever again.l
You might want to check out the brief normalized graph I threw out after 3 weeks of Avatar.
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2010/01/box_office_hell_66.html
Mdana:
Might wanna consider adopting a pet or volunteering at a soup kitchen or something, bro.
FS-Which color is which and what did you normalize? I find it very confusing. Interesting, but I am lost.
Lex-I still have time to bang your imaginary girlfriend.
Don’t worry I won’t post anymore.
I was waiting for Lex to say something like that. 😉
The lines are normalized for gross, to remove size effects. The point isn’t which is which, the point is that for the first few weeks, all three movies exhibited almost identical patterns – suggesting that the “holds” were more a function of release date than 3D or competition.
It’s only after Jan 1 that Avatar starts deviating significantly from the patterns of previous years.
Why do people always pick on 3D films? I paid $16.50 for my Inception IMAX ticket which is the same price I paid for my Avatar 3D ticket. Am I misinterpreting something hidden in the price? If not then the argument seems trollish to me.
“Why do people always pick on 3D films? I paid $16.50 for my Inception IMAX ticket which is the same price I paid for my Avatar 3D ticket. Am I misinterpreting something hidden in the price? If not then the argument seems trollish to me.”
The difference in number of screens is the biggest difference. 3000+ screens for 3D v. 200 max for IMAX. Where I live there is an extra charge when it is 3-D at some places, some places not. Inception/TDK have a small advantage due to IMAX compared to a big movie that doesn’t have it. However, most of them have it now, so it isn’t much of an issue in comparing blockbusters.
Correction: I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D for $16.50. When I saw it again in digital 3D it was $11.00 compared to $9.00 2D. If I had gone on a weekday digital 3D and 2D would have been $9.00 respectively. Interesting. In any case mdana thanks for clarifying.
INCEPTION has a great hold for Tuesday: $9.7 million. Second weekend should be high 30s/low 40s, and look for it to get close to, if not surpass $300m now. (It’s early early legs are comparable to the first Pirates of the Caribbean).
WHERE IS DAVID POLAND TO REFUTE YOU TELE? WHERE IS HE? David, come out and explain yourself, please :D!
While DP was wrong about the actual weekend number being lower than the estimate, he called the opening strong but as expected, falling a little below the Box Office Hell guesstimates. So what’s the beef?
I think the beef is that only a few weeks after posting a screed about how irresponsible it is when journalists jump on Friday’s estimated figures and predict a movie’s entire box office future, Poland did exactly that. On Saturday he was estimating 170 million domestic for Inception, and here we are on Wednesday with 250 looking like a virtual lock.
And like Dark Knight, he did it with a Chris Nolan movie that he had already taken, arguably, a contrarian stand on via twitter flame wars, etc. So the perception is he’s reading the numbers subjectively, like he did with Shrek 4, like he did with Train Your Dragon — like we all do, all the time.
But as usual with Poland, the beef is in the hubris and hypocrisy — feeling the need to slap others down for something he does himself.
OK thanks Biscuits. I didn’t realize there was more to it than being mistaken about the weekend estimate being high.
Agreed. My chief complaint about DP, which only emerged after years of reading his stuff and noticing certain long-term patterns, is his pretense of expert objectivity coupled with his inability to cop to ever making mistakes or having biases.
I’m sure he will now ask why I continue to read him…for the eggs.
It’ll make a BILLION MILLION ZILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!! And without a 3-D bump. But with plenty of name-checking.
mdana, where can one find your blog?
DP acts like this all the time with cult fanboy hits that usually peter out. But Inception seems to genuinely broken out of that…
“mdana, where can one find your blog?”
It should show up on my signature, but if not here it is…
http://districtvibe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=201:july-16-18-weekend-box-office-actuals&catid=36:movies&Itemid=60
It is basically Inception analysis and will be for the coming days, but I will try to add some content on the rest of the top ten. My Avatar/3D manifesto might have to shelved until next week. What I posted is about a third of what I have written, which I estimate is approximately a third of the final piece. In other words, what I posted should be about 10-15% of the final piece.
I actually thought Inception would have a POTC ($250-300m) type run at least domestic. However, when estimates came out around $60m I did not want to go too far out on a limb. Even though I thought they were underestimated, and it would end up $61-62m. I didn’t want to sound like some Inception/Nolan crazed fanatic. In my mind I was thinking, well I am arguing the estimates are low and on top of that conditional, it will have 4.5-5 multiplier which is very rare, perhaps I should lay some ground work for a fallback.
I am usually not a crazy type of guy who posts “$500m for movie X!” For Avatar, I waited and waited until the first Monday to pronounce
“Avatar is on track to make $680 million. I thought we all agreed on that before the New Year’s number came out. No surprise there. Except, I could see it finishing in the low $600m or the high 700m, perhaps even higher. I can’t think of a movie that I was so in the dark about this late in its run. …
I like to wait until a movie plays about 10 days to make a “serious” pronouncement about how much it will gross. When Shrek 2 opened though, I thought once it had played 8 days, it was obviously headed $400m+, and I projected around $430m. However, that was a sequel that was released on the exact same date as the previous film so it was much easier to extrapolate a final gross if assuming certain likely factors.
However, my monitoring of Mid-Atlantic theater sell-outs, internet ratings, and the feedback I was hearing from friends led me to believe this was on some level the “phenom”, DP was denying. I thought $250m was very much still on the table Saturday and Sunday and DP’s dismissiveness was just not based on anything other reflexive snap judgement (which serious analysts must never do). In his mind Clash or movie x did this, and I will bump it up a bit for summer, so I am bending over backwards to this fanboy cult film. You have to call into question someone’s motivation or judgement when someone misses a moment like this so quickly. Then when brought to attention flaws in his pronouncement will not even pretend to be open to the possibility he made a snap judgement based mostly on his faulty assessment of said movie.
I appreciate his time to answer my questions and respond to my points, so I don’t mean to harp on him. However, he is like Cobb in his adherance to “the Rules” which are for others to follow, but not exactly him. Perhaps that explains his consistent underestimating Nolan’s films on OW, he can’t stand Nolan using his schtick (confusion drawing eyeballs). 😉
Overseas I have no idea, although OS trackers I respet think it will do fantastic in Asia and very well in most of the world. Their only concerns are S. America and Eastern Europe.