Weekend Estimates by Contractual Obligation
I’m not sure of the last time we had a weekend without a $10 million movie… and really don’t want to know.
You ugly… ya ya… you ugly!
I have learned over decades not to make events of any single weekend (or two) into a symbol of the entire industry. Bias confirmation is often incorrect, whether positive or negative.
More significant than any theories about the sky falling is the lack of new releases from majors (or their Dependents) or even serious hopefuls from indies. Obviously, the blame for the low high-end can be blamed on the weakness of holdovers from the first two weekends of August. Fox might be wishing they held Apes until August and one wonders whether Baby Driver could have added $20 million to its domestic total if it had stuck to its original slot.
But in terms of this specific slot and new movies, a new release has grossed more than this weekend’s #1 in each of the last three summers: Don’t Breathe (WB), War Room (TriStar) and If I Stay (WB).
Warner Bros has no regular slots for the Conjuring films and this, the fourth of the group, is the first in August. Had it opened this weekend, it would have likely delivered the $35m it opened to a couple weekends ago. Likewise, logic would suggest that either Paramount’s mother! or WB’s It would have slotted in here rather than in back-to-back weekends in September. My guess is that WB wanted to leave room for Annabelle: Creation to run and that Paramount, which moved mother! into September late in the game, couldn’t get a full launch together in time for this weekend. The current record for a late August opening is about $10m less than for a September opening, so with WB feeling very ambitious with It – projections are now looking at a $70m opening or more – September looks like the better berth.
Anyway… the answer to the current “slump” – which will get worse next weekend – is that unless The Dark Tower was a hit that almost no one thought was going to happen in recent months, there is nothing really surprising about where we are now. It’s not the industry… it’s the movies in release.
Look at last August, where you had five major studio holdover August releases over $7 million on “this” weekend… Suicide Squad, Kubo, Sausage Party, Pete’s Dragon and War Dogs which joined the two new releases in the Top 7. This weekend’s Top 7 consists of two Weinsteins, a Lionsgate, and a Bleecker Street/Fingerprint Releasing, plus three major studio holdovers, only one of which was released in August, the other two in weekends 6 and 8.
If you are serious about wondering why this weekend sucked liked a starving baby, look to the schedule, not alternative entertainment opportunities. Wasn’t the fight, although the $100 price tag could have slowed some plans to leave the house. Wasn’t Netflix. Wasn’t pre-season football. The simple truth is, with due respect to some terrific indie films, nothing out there that would draw big box office numbers.
And next weekend… NO wide releases. Tulip Fever, which pushed out a red-band last week to assure some small part of the ticket-buying public that you will see Alicia Vikander naked, and the Close Encounters re-issue in 4K on 700 screens or so. There is no reason to expect even an $8 million top-movie over the three-day next weekend. (I will be in Telluride and trying to avoid the cataclysm projected by the trades when that happens.)
And you know what would KILL next weekend, breaking every kind of record even more dramatically than it appears to be heading towards a weekend later? It.
As for the rest… Wind River expanded decently. By next weekend, Logan Lucky will be the biggest Bleecker Street release of all time, albeit co-released by Fingerprint Releasing.
Three-digit per-screens for Detroit, The Only Living Boy in New York and Good Time are greatly disappointing. Worth noting that all three have title problems, in terms of marketability.
The Chinese market is re-opening for foreign business and should give worldwide gross boosts to Dunkirk, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Valerian.
Have a lovely holiday. I will be in Telluride, and if there is any box office commentary from me next weekend, it will be via Twitter.
Death Note could have made a lot of money had it gone theatrical and before people realized how bad it is. I see Wingard hasn’t taken criticism well. Apparently It was screened for genre friendly writers who were allowed to share thoughts on social media. I want to love the movie bit those tweets sound like they were written by the studio.
I agree with just about everything Dave said here. It’s the product not the market. Yes the Summer box office is way down, but are there more bombs or more underperforming movies than usual? Not really. If you look at last year’s schedule the obvious difference going into the season was Finding Dory vs Cars 3. Disney had to hope/expect Cars 3 would do $175 million. It underperformed by $25 million. Dory made $485 million. That’s a big piece of the decline right there.
It’s still the lowest grossing weekend since the days following 9/11. Has the scheduling been weaker at any point in the last 16 years? Who knows, but I suppose it couldn’t be much worse.
In milestones, WW became the leggiest $80 million+ opener ever this weekend, topping INSIDE OUT (it already had the $100 million+ record). You have to go to AVATAR, which opened with $77 million (26% less than WW) to find longer legs.
And WOLF WARRIOR 2 overtook WW worldwide. It will likely finish as the #12 overseas grosser of all-time.
Stella, not sure why you think Death Note would have made a lot of money if it had opened this weekend. It’s a mess of a movie, and while the manga does have some fanboys, it’s still not that well-known in the U.S. The movie isn’t remotely scary or intense, nor is it anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is.
I’m not so sure that Baby Driver would have increased its gross as an August release. Mainly because I think part of its success was as a reaction against some perceived heavy hitters (Mummy, Transformers) which were adjudged to be so bad that Baby Driver became a hit almost as an act of audience rebellion.
I know it’s bad as I watched it Friday night, but opening weekend is about marketing and not the movie itself. On a late August quiet weekend like this one a horror movie could have opened pretty well. I don’t think that’s an outlandish claim.
Yeah. IT, should be releasing now. I have no idea, why they are holding it, because we all know it’s probably cakewalking to 200m domestic. It’s hopefully, cakewalking to at least 200m domestic. Of course, Warners are putting it, in a crowded month, and Mother!’s stupid ass, may just fuck up that cakewalk… IT should have.
Before I insult the studio heads… let’s not forget what happened this weekend. We had a major fight, that a lot of people watched. There’s only so many entertainment dollars to be had, so people paying $100 for that fight. Probably didn’t even think about going to the damn movies.
This still, doesn’t make this weekend look any less embarrassing, for the goddamn studios. The studios should be better than this, but guess what? They aren’t. We just have to accept, that the people running shit all over Hollywood, who aren’t associated with Disney, are lucky enough to make what they make. Seriously, the industry needs some fucking genius, to learn how to fucking program. Or… I don’t know… make interesting movies at a smaller cost, and hope they blow up.
There’s also the not-so-trivial matter of Texas — especially Houston, 4th-largest city in the US — receiving a flood of biblical proportions from Hurricane Harvey.
As to Mayweather-McGregor, Fathom Events syndicated the fight to select theaters for a gross that would’ve placed among the weekend box office top 10.
JS, I don’t see how Disney gets a free pass for the BO shortfall. Their down abou 29 percent off last year and the dollar amount is almost identical to what overall BO is down. That doesn’t mean I should exempt MGM for putting out a whopping three films the entire summer, one of which was a documentary. Oops I meant Paramount, they are starting to look so similair these days.
But yes this current weekend is just a lack of product, nothing big should have been moved but a screen gems release or a small teen romance would have done well in the wide open field.
what a relief wingard his two more big chances to prove what a shitty director he is. mediocre fuckers failing upwards, will it ever end
(thinking of hooper today, on his worst day 100x the artist these brendan blandos could ever hope to be, blech)
hoping everyone is safe in the flood
(oh and the “president” is a sadistic mental case, just fwiw)
“Kingsman 2” also could’ve done quite well as a late-August release.
@HCAT, we all knew going into this year that Disney would be way off given it had just 4 features in 10 months, so how I look at it is that if they have a light schedule, it ends up producing an historically bad year for the whole industry. WB and Fox between them are doing about average, Universal is having another stellar year, but Paramount is an all-time low. Sony is bouncing back but is still well off what we used to expect from them.
Lionsgate is doing great, but other non-majors are struggling as a whole. So bottom line a slightly below average year now=historically bad if Disney doesn’t gross 60%+ of what they did from 2010-2014. Because Universal and Lionsgate are really the only studios that have grown since 2010.
@Leah, I’m not sure “failing upward” is accurate for Wingard given his first 12 features were pretty shit (I saw maybe 5). Since then he did YOU’RE NEXT and THE GUEST, so I think he’s gotten better…
er, and since then he did ‘blair witch’ and ‘death note’, which are both fucking dire, what about those?
(him packing a massive douchecanoe sad when his shitty movies are criticised is the icing on the cake, what a tool)
I remember liking A Horrible Way to Die, and You’re Next and The Guest are great. But it’s hard to believe the same guy directed those along with Blair Witch & Death Note. He is regressing quickly and severely. Getting legit budgets and studio support has helped his checkbook but not his work. And yeah he does seem like a major tool.
meant to mention simon barrett above, he figures into it too, tho i checked and he didn’t write ‘death note’ so can’t blame him for that one.
ETA the thought of their re-do of the rather superb ‘i saw the devil’ is giving me sphincter factor 9.5
EtGuild: I am willing to cut Disney a little bit of slack since they should get credit for at least half of Homecoming, and the smaller schedule might have been in anticipation of not competing with that property, but that just makes Sony look even more anemic. Fox is having an off year and without DreamWorks Animation providing some heft they would look as punchy as Columbia (Though I think Fox will turn it around they certainly have the most interesting Fall and Holiday slate).
I just took a little exception with JS’s statement that Disney was genius while others were fumbling in the dark. For all their genius Disney is only 80 million over Universal domestically and is likely behind WW. Yes Disney has a smaller slate but their four was pricier than Uni’s nine. Disney’s only big plays nothing but net strategy seems to be working better this year but isn’t that great for the industry on a whole if they are taking less shots.
And the thought struck me that there is a certain paradigm shift that has happened where the age old Sullivans Travels-The Player scenario of writers or producers coming to the studios with pitches is being overtaken by the corporate office deciding what properties to exploit and approaching the filmmakers. If this current trend of suppressed returns for sequels continues the reliance on recycling could lead to a few years of rough going.
and one last note, I have never heard of Death Note, will never seek it out, and will never see it but am very glad for its existence for without it I would have never heard the term “Douchecanoe”
Re: Wingard, yeah not great, though I think you’ll get pushback from many on DEATH NOTE (I haven’t seen it). Wingard definitely seems like a tool, but I think he just needs to slow down. This is a comparison that will probably enrage people because Wingaard at his peak isn’t nearly as good, but Takashi Miike has made 15+ movies since THIRTEEN ASSASINS, including a number of completely unwatachable pieces of shit. But! He’s also made some really good stuff. Wingard just seems like Miike in that he’ll throw whatever at the screen that strikes his fancy.
I agree on I SAW THE DEVIL though :/
@HCAT, definitely agree with all you said. This year will probably be forgotten and Disney will lap up the headlines next year by shooting for $3 billion domestic again (three Marvels they’ll get credit for, Incredibles 2, Han Solo, Mulan, Mary Poppins, etc). I hope that isn’t the case for various reasons.
I was underwhelmed by Thirteen Assassins, was very excited to watch it and then thought it got a little repetitive. My take away from that film was that for guys on a suicide mission these guys got way to upset about seeing one of their members slain.
I liked it personally, but regardless he’s done some good work since then (Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai, Blade of the Immortal) while also making absolutely awful crap (Tera Formers, which happens to be based off a much loved manga like Death Note). He, like Wingard, seems like an ADD “oh that sounds fun!” director, just operating at a higher level (James Franco also comes to mind, but not in a good way whatsoever).
Not that it’s any comfort to exhibitors, but has anyone given thought to how relatively little money the studios have put into their August selections this year? It’s possible that the budget of Suicide Squad is equal to the collective budget of this August (not to mention Turtles 2).
The only Wingard joint I’ve seen is The Guest, which unlike many I didn’t care for much at all. But if you really want to hate on Wingard and frequent collaborator Simon Barrett, check out their performances in Joe Swanberg’s 24 Exposures. They not only lack charisma, they suck it out of anyone standing nearby. Wingard, playing a fetish photographer under suspicion when models start getting murdered, looks like a guy in his sixth year as a resident advisor, and Barrett may be the least convincing homicide detective I’ve ever seen in a film. The choice to make him depressed about his divorce seems designed to account for his inability to play other emotions that require facial movement. Even if their films are dire, we may be better off when they stay behind the camera.
Actuals placed Hitman’s Bodyguard above $10 million, but just barely.
I still love Blair Witch. COME AT ME!!!!
But Wingard is very very defensive on Twitter. I have to cringe for him. I’ll watch Death Note as a newcomer so maybe I’ll get something out of it.
As for remaking I Saw The Devil….bad, bad idea. Almost as bad as remaking Maury and Bustillo’s Inside.
Maybe they should rethink the upcoming The Greatest Showman and recast PT Barnum with Connor McGregor. With no professional boxing matches to his credit, he’ll rake in close to $80 million, and crack the Box Office Top Ten.
Not bad to more than double your entire UFC career earnings in one night. I guess trash talk pays off.
Hcat, that’s all well and good, but Disney has… Coco, Thor, and Star Wars left this year. So that’s what? A possible 3 to 4 billion dollars, left for them to make?
The fault, that can be put on them, is how they couldn’t fucking sell Cars 3, as a female character driven film. Other than that? Beauty made money, Guardians made money, and Stranger Tides made money.
And seek out the anime/manga of Death Note, hcat. It’s weird and whacky stuff, that deserved better than all of this shit getting crammed in one film.
Correct. As I’ve said before, Disney wussed out by not playing up its Latina character (Cristela has a sizable following among Hispanics). A little more creative marketing in that direction could have brought millions more into their coffers–not that they’re hurting at all, but still…
CARS 3 still has another $50 million to take in, so between that and the toys it’ll make moolah but yeah, marketing fail here in the states on that front.
I’m still skeptical of COCO’s BO power. Hopefully I’m wrong!
I wasn’t claiming that Disney wasn’t successful, just that they weren’t the only successes out there.
They have two of the three canaries in the winter coalmine. Its tough to gage what the increase to Thor should be, if they add the Hulk and the grosses remain steady that would be a cause of concern (not just for Disney but the industry on a whole). If Jedi drops below 75% of Force Awakens take, that bodes poorly for every blockbuster of next year. Even if Pitch Perfect 3 fails to cross a hundred this is going to change the question for these tentpole sequels from how high can they go to how low.
@ Hcat: “If Jedi drops below 75% of Force Awakens take, that bodes poorly for every blockbuster of next year.”
So you’re saying if Jedi makes less than $702m, when only one other film in history has made more than that, being Avatar at $760m that that bodes poorly for the industry? Please explain.
The studios have invested the majority of their resources into sequels and shared universes. We have seen in the past two years a shrinking in the returns of these franchises. The Marvel Universe (along with the Dory sequel) has been mostly exempt from the speedbumps that Star Trek, Bourne, Apes, and Fast and Furious have hit.
Star Wars itself is the most bulletproof of franchises, now there was assuredly pent up excitement for Force Awakens whose gross would be nearly impossible to match, but I would suggest that if studio that has been the most immune to the sequel malaise releases a followup to the biggest movie of all time in the biggest film series of all time that marks the return of the central hero and the last appearance of Carrie Fisher and it performs like just another blockbuster that would be cause for concern.
If a star wars sequel can drop significantly I would think that would make Universal more worried about the ground beneath the Dinosaurs feet, or Paramount about Impossible Missions. I am not saying it would be apocalyptic if Jedi only became the sixth highest grossing film of all time, just that it would be worrisome.
I actually thought I would be called crazy for underestimating Jedi’s chances. What do you think Jedi’s prospects are?
Empire did two-thirds the gross of Star Wars back in the day. Attack of the Clones did roughly two-thirds the gross of The Phantom Menace. You mentioned the dinosaurs? Well, Lost World did roughly two-thirds of Jurassic Park’s gross. Let’s dig a little further. Batman Returns? Roughly two thirds the gross of Batman. Age of Ultron compared to the first Avengers? You can see where this is going. The point is, it’s not uncommon, and its certainly not worrying, for the sequel to a phenomenon to merely be a blockbuster. That being said, I’d suggest the most likely base for Last Jedi is $700 million. $600 million would be solid, $800 million would be cause for celebration. Less than $500 million would be unthinkable. Getting near to The Force Awakens and $950 million, is, using the metric I just outlined, very unlikely.
Here’s the thing: a lot of people like Luke Skywalker more than Han Solo, and we are finally getting a Luke Skywalker movie. Sure. He’s going to be Yoda angry, but he’s still Luke Skywalker. If anything, The Last Jedi should hold, or do slightly better. How it does overseas, has everything to do with the Chinese actually getting excited for a space property. Nevertheless, it’s still Star Wars, and not everyone hates TFA. Some of us, really love Rey and Finn and Poe, and want to see where they are going.
Empire was certainly a different time when sequels were expected to drop by a certain amount, whether it was Star Wars, Superman or the Bad News Bears.
By the time that Clones came around people had gotten over their initial Phantom Menace euphoria and recognized that it wasn’t a very good film, Force Awakens was much better received and Jedi wont have its lunch eaten by a Spider-Man sized Juggernaut opening a few weeks prior.
Batman Returns was seen as underperforming (and too dark and kinky) and that’s why you had the course correction with Batman Forever.
And I don’t recall all that much teeth gnashing over Lost World’s final number but given that summer also provided Batman and Robin and Speed 2 it might have been graded on a curve. But I cant imagine that Universal was pleased about being beaten for the top spot by Men in Black.
I am sure that Universal is hoping for 400 million for Jurassic World 2 and would be more than happy with that. But if Jedi can land in the 600s than World can land in the low 300s or even high 200s. I agree with most of what you guys are saying and am just pointing out that franchises have not been the guaranteed moneymakers that they used to be and if the most loved franchise of all time, you know people are absurdly nuts about these films, can hit a hurdle than there is certainly no guarantee for your normal garden variety blockbuster. The feelings prior to release will have a little apprehension mixed with the anticipation. And Fox will be ulcerous looking at what they have invested in the Avatar sequels.
The odds of Last Jedi doing the same or better than Force Awakens is almost zero. China doesn’t care, and beyond that a drop of these event movies (particularly for a middle chapter) is almost the rule. Dark Knight was a special case. And all of that is fine. It will still make insane cash.
I honestly don’t think Disney/Lucasfilm would completely flip out if it does 2/3 of its box office, but I also don’t think they’d be happy. It should be higher than that, absolutely.
Now if Han Solo only manages 2/3 of Rogue One’s box office? That should worry them, particularly if they are going the character stand alone route going forward.
The expectation game at it’s best. When TFA was announced, most prognosticators pegged it anywhere from $300m – $600m. Those who forecasted higher were viewed as being overly exuberant. Did anyone foresee nearly $1b domestic as a realistic expectation?
I’m not sure I completely agree with JS that more people liked Luke more than Han, but original Star Wars trilogy was Luke’s journey so he was Star Wars, and the return to his story in this next adventure can only bode well for the series. But now a Star Wars movie is not that rare anymore plus with announcements of a shitload more to come, I don’t see if these things settle between $400-$700m as the norm that anyone should be doing chicken little impressions.
TFA I think would be the anomaly as I think it represented a pent up demand for a Star Wars movie that was a course correction for the ill received last trilogy. Anything beyond that is gravy and IMO should not be what is expected.
Nobody is doing chicken little impressions, no one is predicting bellyup bankrupt studios littering the countryside. In a post about a down box office I merely said people would be worried if it remained down. I don’t see how that was inflammatory or unreasonable.
And you are correct that people had no idea what the final gross of Force would be, as I recall we were still guessing a month into its release. But now that we have a benchmark that is only two years past isn’t the sequel a little easier to handicap?
There are plenty of sequels that out-grossed the original films. Just this summer we’ve had GotG2.
Yes, typically the second film earns more when the first is a surprise hit and lays the tracks for the second film’s sense of familiarity. So the already-familiar Star Wars does have a harder road ahead if it wants to grow.
But I think grosses tend to go down for sequels because people get the feeling that the second one is just the same as the first except with more money or bigger explosions. If the marketing and the film itself can convince people it’s something really unique and different from the first one, then there’s a good chance it could get close to or surpass TFA.
other than T2, Austin Powers 2 and Lethal Weapon 2, oh yeah, and Empire Strikes Back, I have never been overwhelmed by a major studio sequel … that goes for the indie 1974 film Paul & Michelle that was a sequel to the 1971 Elton John scored romantic flick Friends
How about…
Godfather 2
Spiderman 2
X-men 2
Aliens
The Dark Knight
Star Trek 2
Superman 2
I would throw in the second Apes in the recent cycle, the first Bourne sequel and even though it is too far back to be relevant I like to throw the occasional shoutout to A Shot in the Dark.
“Empire did two-thirds the gross of Star Wars back in the day. ”
This is not a good comparison because SWs “original run” includes re-releases that actually took place years after the opening date. EMPIRE’s first run made nearly as much as SW did over the course of an entire year following its initial release, before it went wide again in summer 1978 and summer 1979. EMPIRE, as far as I can discern, had no such “rolling re-releases.” Different, strange times.
More tellingly perhaps is the 1982 release data totals: EMPIRE was down about 15% from SW.
That’s a good point about Empire’s gross relative to the Star Wars re-releases. It’s nuts that the ‘special editions’ of the Original Trilogy are older now than the originals were then.
One other point- in the run up to TFA, many were having the same conversation about flat box office after Mockingjay 2 and Spectre didn’t come close to their predecessors. Several major star vehicles (Bridge of Spies, Black Mass) were just getting by.It, Blade Runner, Thor, Coco and JL could all kick the box office into life well before Jedi drops.
And in other news we now have a Robin Hood origin story to look forward to. Have they learned nothing from King Arthur? Sheesh. Who wants to watch Robin Hood not be Robin Hood. Isn’t every Robin Hood movie essentially an origin story?
This is the actual description from Comingsoon.net: “Described as having a “gritty tone,” the film finds Robin Hood returning from The Crusades to discover a Sherwood Forest rife with corruption and evil. Teaming with a band of outlaws, he takes matters into his own hands to set things right, with very little merry-making along the way.”
Every fucking Robin Hood movie. EVER.
The Robin Hood cinematic universe that was originally discussed may finally be upon us. I’m still excited for MARIAN: SUPERHERO OF THE SHEPHERD and FRIAR TUCK AND THE CONVENT OF DARKNESS personally.
Tagline: This Tuck doesn’t give a f**k!
Hold on. WHY THE FUCK DO WE NEED ANOTHER ROBIN HOOD? Did we not just get this fucking… SEVEN GOD DAMN YEARS AGO? Seriously? WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS WRONG WITH FUCKING HOLLYWOOD? It’s not like this shit is a riddle. Do what TV is doing, but do it with movies. Take some fucking chances, on a much smaller scale, and hope they take off.
Seriously. We have all of these stories, dropping this week, about the shitty box office this Summer. Of course, they do not seem to be taking international box office into account with these stories, and here is the crux of the problem. Unless Hollywood starts selling shit to the US more, or stops chasing that Chinese Dragon. They are going to have to deal, with all of these stories about failing box office. It is staggering to me, that these motherfuckers, do not grasp how easy it is to fix this shit. But no! WE ALL NEEDS THAT MARVEL MONEY! Can we get to the Fall already? September 22nd in particular? WOOOOOOO!!!!!
I agree, but I’m kind of loving the cast for this one. Then again, I was loving the cast for the last one until I saw the trailer and realized they were shooting for blockbuster instead of prestige.