Friday Estimates by Kladytron
It’s the second best opening day (by estimate) in North America. It will likely be the biggest opening worldwide, breaking the $500 million mark for the first time ever (though it is worth keeping in mind that this is a very new category and #2 all-time happened just a month ago with Furious 7‘s $398 million. Like the $100 million opening (A2 will be the 30th in 14 years), $300 million worldwide openings are an eye-popping stat that once seemed impossible and is now expected annually (14 since the first in 2005, though this one relies on worldwide day-n-date openings, which are less rare than they were, but still not ubiquitous).
Although this opening day is estimated to be $2 million higher than the previous Avengers, the trend in these last three years has been to more front-loading. So Avengers‘ $207 million domestic opening record may be safe. But if so, A2 will still be #2 all-time. And the worldwide opening record of $484 million will almost surely fall.
It is absurd to discuss any notion of disappointment to come with numbers like this, but… Avengers did 3.85x worldwide opening. And the real challenge for Avengers: Age of Ultron will be to manage that kind of multiple again. And even if it does, after a record-beating $500 million worldwide opening, that would still be short of $2 billion. In that rarefied air, there is Hulk-sized profit. Even a less-than-generous reading of all the numbers says that A:AoU will be hundreds of millions into profit in theatrical alone. But at this level, studios turn into “size queens” and want to threaten every record. And this does not seem to be where this one is going. It will just have to settle for being the #3 film of all-time and only the fourth to crack $1.5 billion. Let the tears flow.
Nothing else is likely to gross as much as $7 million this weekend domestically.
Opening on just 10 screens, Carey Mulligan’s fireworks show Far From The Madding Crowd will do about $15k per-screen, well off of A:AoU‘s per-screen, but beating out all others.
And Ex Machina is now on the descent, adding a few more screens, but off 58% against the Avengers onslaught and likely off in the high 40s for the weekend. Still, the film will pass the $10 million mark today, only the second A24 release to do so.
“Maddening?”
You are going to some some stupid multiplier today. This thing is going to kill today, because you have people who wanted to miss the first day opening, so get ready for stupid shit today. Hell. It could go into Sunday as well. Just wait.
If not? Well. Here’s to Ant-Man eeking out a cool 500m!
It’s “Madding.”
“Iris” is such a delight. Nice to see it putting up okay numbers.
Why the dump for “Welcome to Me?” Is it a whole lot darker/more subversive/less accessible than it looks?
I shall apologize for Len’s mis-sprell today and hope he gets it right tomorrow.
And JSP… possible… but the truth is, the way things are now set up, sell-outs are rare and it is unlikely today’s A2 number will be anywhere close to the Friday/Thursday night number.
Dave, the culture has changed, but not everyone is about the first day. Especially those people who have kids, and want to make seeing the Avengers on the weekend a big deal. If it doesn’t happen, then we look to Infinity Wars Pt. II, and see what happens when every character in the MCU are in the same movie, and how many people will pay to see it.
“sell-outs are rare”
Funny you say that, just came back from a theater with showings at 1, 1:40, 2:20, 3, 3:40, and they were all sold out (I got there at 1245). Kinda surprised me actually. Gonna try again at another theater in a lil bit.
What city, Chris?
JSP – Obviously not everyone is about the first day. But first days are front-loaded with must see people and that has only grown. No sign of it falling off.
And as for Infinity Wars 2… probably about as many as were willing to pay to see Avengers… if the trailer is good.
Apparently “Welcome to Me” is now getting sent to VOD next week…I don’t believe this was the original plan as I just got an iTunes notification regarding its release TODAY. Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Cusack and more in a well reviewed movie is getting a token release?
I guess it’s reminding the studio a lot of “Observe and Report,” which was SO dark that it bordered on off-putting. Anyone seen it?
Re: INFINITY WAR 2, if Gunn hits another home run with GUARDIANS 2 in a way that grows the domestic box office like CAP 2, it’ll top AVATAR in the states.
I like the movies, I don’t care about the noises over merchandising and shared universes ad infinitum really, but the one thing that’s always kept me from really being in the tank for The Avengers is the fact that their group dynamic embodies nothing more perfectly than a bunch of people from different walks of life thrust together for long term jury duty.
David, Infinity Wars Pt. 2 brings in everybody, in a battle scene that will probably be worth the price of admission alone. Also, there do seem to be Avengers sell out, because some people stayed home on Friday, thinking everyone and the mother would be seeing it, but they saw it today.
I pay attention, and know these things are front loaded, but this is the follow up, to one of the biggest movies of all time. If any movie has to ability to change the dynamic for a multiplier over a weekend, then it would be this movie. It also has a cinemascore of A, so it’s working for a lot of people.
No, Hal. They are a group of people, that want to save the world. If you equate that to jury duty, then good for you. Very smug and snarky line though.
12 Angry Superheroes
I’m not going to argue one way or another, but how does David know a movie’s gross potential based in a single day? Seriously, can you at least wait until the weekend estimate? This kind of box office forecasting is silly after a single day gross.
Poland made a point on twitter, about the fight this weekend getting in the way of the possible gross. There isn’t shit going on sports wise tomorrow, so if this goes up above sixty tomorrow. If Sunday helps it beat Avengers, then that could be the reason.
195 is nothing to sneeze at; but it’s just not a good optic for this franchise. It’s not a good optic at all, but I have a feeling Ant-Man might be the little engine that could.
How is the 3D in Avengers? I generally try to avoid it these days after realizing 3D made everything this side of Avatar and one or two others look worse. Problem is the 3D eats up all the Imax screenings so you can’t see it in Imax if you want to avoid 3D. So how was it in Avengers?
What in the world does a good “optic” mean?
The fight had little, if any effect, on yesterday’s gross.
Err…it made $400 million Tracker Backer. If you assume five people were watching every PPV purchase (there were 20+ people at the party I was at), which is a low figure, that’s well over 5% of the American population. If you’re being realistic, and include the people watching on Periscope and Meerkat, probably 35 million people saw the fight last night. If only 7% of that number chose to go see AVENGERS this weekend rather than dedicate the night to boxing, that’s another $25 million in box office.
So yes, it had an effect.
Do you know anyone who actively made a decision to watch the fight instead of seeing Avengers? People who really wanted to see it could have gone Thursday night, Friday, Saturday afternoon or early evening, or today. It had little effect. People are just looking for an excuse.
The fight is a weird excuse.
1. The crossover of fight fans vs avengers audience feels minimal to me
2. The fight didn’t even start until 9pm PST/12amEST — so it didn’t affect anything other than midnight shows for vast majority of country. If it affected them at all
Yes. Just my opinion.
But my sense is there isn’t the excitement and specialness around this installment that there was with A1. That’s why it’s not a record breaker.
Still a massive opening, but is this the marvel ceiling? (And yes a very high one)
I’m not a comic book guy… So something called “infinity war” doesn’t mean anything to me.
The only crossover trick it feels like left in their bag is Spider-Man.
Isn’t he in the next captain America movie?
Not sure how you amp this.francise up more… How does it become a must see for all demos again? Can it?
Once it peaks, how long before marvel peters out… 5 years? 10?
I imagine within 5, they lose Downey, hemsworth and Evans.
To me so much of their success has been casting vs the actual quality of the movies. Do they reboot? Recast? Does anyone really want to see a Sebastian Stan captain America?
Jerry…huh? The fight was scheduled to start at 11 EST. Assuming not a single person in the country wanted to watch the pre-show/pre-game/party before the fight, that means no one would have gone to see AVENGERS, a 141 minute movie, at 8pm or later east coast, or after 5 in the evening Pacific in order to rush immediately from the theater back home to watch the match. It reality, it probably changed the gross dynamics going back hours earlier.
Aka, anyone who wanted to see the fight would have not gone to theaters after 8pm EST (and probably much earlier), and given the late start it basically wiped out the whole night in CST/MST, and everything from 5-1030pm on the West Coast.
But where’s the evidence that there’s huge overlap? Again, the movie was playing on thousands of screens virtually around the clock. It’s not like the choice is watch boxing or see Avengers, period. I stand by my assessment (and also think you’re vastly over-estimating the number of people who watched the fight in the US).
I figure the Guardians of the Galaxy will be in INFINITY WAR PART 2, which would make it a huge event.
@Tracker, I don’t think one in 15 people is much overlap at all, is it? If you want, cut my estimate of the number of people watching so only 4 people watched for every PPV purchase (a laughablly low, borderline insane estimate) and add in 1% of Americans that illegally streamed/used Periscope/meerkatted the fight.
If ULTRON ends at 188 million, that means that 10% of fight watchers off an extreeeemely low-ball estimate of viewers would still be the difference between breaking the record, and driving the inevitable media narrative of disappointment. There were 3 or 4 people I spoke to last night who just didn’t have the time this weekend, because it was structured around a boxing party.
Or maybe I hang out with a bunch of unicorns.
Orlando, FL, David. And the theater in question is right in the middle of downtown, which doesn’t see that much action usually (which is why we went there as opposed to the AMC at the Mall or something like that).
Again, is it really different from any weekend during football season, when the total number of people watching the various college and NFL games probably far exceeds the number of people who watched the fight last night? 15-16 million people have watched the Kentucky Derby the last couple of years (don’t know ratings for yesterday yet), but no one seems to be saying the Derby makes an impact. Why? Because it and most other sporting events aside from the Super Bowl don’t. At worst, they simply slightly shift the time at which people watch the movie.
LA Times just called it at $187.7m.
Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a reason why the three biggest openings of all-time fall on this weekend, why 21 of the 50 biggest openings of all time now exist in the month of May, and why zero of the 125 biggest openings of all-time occur in September or October; we are entering a time of few distractions. Football is off-season, and March Madness has ended. The vast majority of TV shows have wrapped up by the middle of the month. Kids get out of college and are looking for stuff to do.
Other than SKYFALL, there hasn’t been a Top 50 all-time opening outside of the week surrounding Thanksgiving during football season. Not even in December. People are far less likely to rush out to see something when there are other priorities.
Having a major media event take place take place on this weekend since it become Tentpole Central is unprecedented; stuff like the Derby (I’d be hardpressed to think of a sporting event with less demographic overlap with superhero movies than horseracing; Senior Tour golf?) is already baked into the cake.
Except kids aren’t out of college right now, but whatever.
Studios and pundits always look for some reason to shift blame to when things don’t meet expectations (“Call of Duty” being released, bad weather, now a sporting event, etc.). 99 times out of 100, it’s all about the movie itself and the marketing, NOT external factors.
Do you know what you have to do to break the PPV system? It is ridiculous to me, to act as if the FIGHT OF THE CENTURY did not effect the box office of this film. It is an unprecedented event in the history of sport. It really is. This is why I am going with the estimate being wrong, and that Ultron will have a strong, an unusually strong, Sunday. I could be wrong, but it’s a possibility.
You’re making too much out of the whole “breaking the PPV system” thing, too. It’s not really clear how widespread the issues were, and the only reason we’re hearing about issues like that now compared to previous big fights is the increased usage of social media since then.
Tracker, I am sorry, but you are under-estimating how big a deal this is. It’s a huge deal. It’s a huge deal, that this fight had that level of demand. It means it was unprecedented, and it means that this fight was a huge deal. A much bigger deal, than you are giving it credit for in this, and other threads.
Until we have numbers on how “huge” it was, I stand by what I’m saying. You can’t simply say that every person who watched the fight last night would have otherwise gone to see Avengers at a full-priced, evening show. That’s essentially what you’re saying, whether or not you realize it. That’s the only way your math works.
It’s a country of over 300m people. It’s not crazy to state, that there was a lot of overlap between people who would have gone to see Avengers, and people who decided to see it later to focus on this fight/fight parties. Again, it’s conjecture, and there is room for conjecture in math… all… the… time.
brack – none of us know after one day or certainly not after east coast matinees, which is from what the trades now report weekend numbers on Friday afternoon (nasty Nikki ego-stroke stupidity made standard).
But, you can figure multiples for the weekend from Friday within about 20 percent. The big variable is, generally, the audience for each film. Kids films pick up a lot on Saturday. Action tends to play weaker on Saturday. Etc.
I try to make a point to never claim to know what the weekend numbers will be on Saturday. But the smaller the Friday number, the closer to the weekend number you can get from that Friday number.