Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Friday, May 3, 2024 First weekend of May 2024

In the note Because the new films on the 2nd weekend in May were pretty soft in 2023 (Book Club: The Next Chapter, Hypnotic) and we have a big IP (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) opening, we have a decent shot of at least matching (and possibly beating) the same weekend from 2023.

Friday, May 10, 2024 Second weekend of May 2024

On the chart Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (opening): $58.4M

Expected 'Figure this follows the lead of the preview gross last night and ends up in the low/mid 50's' Actual: $58.4M

In the note We’ve got a good sized tentpole this weekend thanks to Disney (via 20th) and that might actually be enough to get us even with the same weekend last year (Book Club: The Next Chapter, Hypnotic), so we’ll stop the year to year bleeding (for a week anyway). Next week won't be too bad either, I don’t think we’ll match last year's gross, but we shouldn’t be far behind. After that it gets a little ugly for a couple of weeks until we get to Father’s Day and Inside Out 2. But we’ll take these little victories when we can and eventually we’ll get through this strike induced dip. If you read the fine print in the trades lately when they talk about the Thursday night preview grosses, there’s something that's been going on for a little while known as ‘fan shows’ or 'early access'. They’re basically a ‘one off’ show that used to be called a ’Sneak Preview’, but just like the Thursday night previews that started as a 12:01 am show on Friday, then went to 10pm, then 9pm…and now we open everything on Thursday (pretty much all day), there’s some creep here. These early access shows started with films that maybe needed some extra word of mouth, because there are cases where you need the film itself to do some of the heavy lifting (that the marketing campaign struggled with), but now it’s pretty much every movie. Reading the fine print for the $6.6 million last night for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, it’s actually about $5.1 million for last night and $1.5 million was from the fan shows on Wednesday. So is this a good thing? Well, it is and it isn’t. On the plus side it’s more gross and more gross is always a good thing, but I think we should take a hard look at when they are happening and see if we can do better, or if we should do it at all. As many of you know, I like to look at long term effects of what we do here and I like to look at things from a couple of angles. What I don’t like about these screenings is the same three things I always get hung up on; tagalongs tagalongs tagalongs. Fan shows are great because you’re collecting revenue from the ‘first ones in’, and since they are the hard core fans, they always want to be the 'first ones in'. But one of the tricky aspects of our business is how can you get the 'first ones in' to bring some friends with a lower or non-existent fanship? And if you do these fan shows on a Tuesday or a Wednesday how many of those tagalongs say no to a weekday but would say yes on a weekend? Tagalongs are a key component to making the tent bigger (and those tagalong consumers probably won’t go on their own), but if you get a 'first one in' consumer to bring them, it's found money. But if the day you’re doing the fan show makes it a pass, you’re not going to get them another time. If this is going to be a thing (and I only think this should be used for films that are struggling), do what we used to do in the old Sneak Preview days, do it on a weekend (which does happen, but not all the time). A great example of doing it right is what’s happening in a couple of weekends. Garfield is doing fan shows on the Sunday afternoon the weekend before they open, and they are leaning into the IP of the movie by branding it ‘Lazy Sunday’. It’s the right time to do a fan show, it’s convenient for the tagalongs (and on family movies, tagalongs are extra important) and the branding is just smart marketing. If we’re going to do this, do it right, and this is an example of doing it right by letting your marketing department Zhuzh it up and give it a reason to exist. That positioning idea gives the early attenders a way to get tagalongs to go with them. Who wants it on a weekday? The Exhibitors. Yep, them. The same group that pushed the Thursday night shows to make a slow night better, although I think it just dilutes the weekend and it's ultimately a bad idea (more on that later). This is the same group that has yet to run a (really obvious) marketing campaign that tells the public ‘exactly what can you do outside the home for the price of two movie tickets?’ Think about that; the price of two movie tickets is between $30 and $60 depending on format and location, but even at $60, what can you do outside of the home for that price? Movies are a bargain proposition for entertainment outside the home, why aren’t they screaming that from the rooftops? But exhibitors are notoriously short sighted, and I know because I used to be one (although I recovered and I can think now). So instead of taking a myopic approach to this purely based on the exhibitors wanting to make a slow night better, do it right, do these on a weekend (if you have to). Of course, the exhibitors will say ’that’s our busiest time!, we don’t need it then.’ But hold on here, since almost all the theaters (that matter) are 16 screens or more, you’re telling me that there is not a screen or two in any Megaplex that only has a handful of people in it on a prime weekend show? The idea here is you’re taking a 150 seat house that would only have 15 consumers in it on a weekend show and you’re filling it, how is that not the same thing as what you’re trying to accomplish on a Wednesday night? And it’s better for the movie, the consumer and the exhibitor (because more tagalongs is more revenue for them); especially if it generates more (tagalong) eyeballs for a movie that wouldn’t have gone if it was on a weekday, and there's a crucial butterfly effect to those tagalongs. The exhibitors do know that the weekend days are slower because people want to go on the weekends, right? Why put a gun to the consumer's head? If we want to grow this sector to what it can be, we have to be smarter, but let's talk about an uncomfortable subject here. We keep talking about how the moviegoing audience is shrinking, and it seems like it's gotten worse over the last 15 years or so. You know what started happening 15 years ago? The Thursday preview. Did we take what was a very communal experience, a pumped up Friday night opening night audience and diluted it to two nights where there was no more electricity? But by moving all those excited 'see it first' moviegoers to Thursday, and it's a lot harder to get tagalong on a Thursday than a Friday, so did we stop indoctrinating new moviegoers as part of the social aspect of group moviegoing attendance? Maybe it's something we need to consider. Anyway, based on something I heard from Stormy Daniels at a golf tournament, here are some thoughts about the weekend box-office. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - It’s good to have a tentpole back in the marketplace and although the 20th division of Disney has struggled of late, this is looking to be in the same realm of what this IP did when it was at Fox.

Friday, June 14, 2024 Father's Day weekend 2024

On the chart Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (wk 6): $5.5M, +2%

Friday, July 26, 2024 Fourth weekend of July 2024

In the note As exceptional as the result will be this weekend on Deadpool, Disney has struggled with the rest of the 20th lineup; and even though the results of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was a giant step forward, they’ve still got to get some consistency on films with original IP. So why do certain IP’s or genres do better at some studios? It might be a simple as the number of reps that studio has had with that genre (or similar IP), so they know all the nuances that activate every corner of the interested consumers (and, of course, their tag alongs).

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Where it turns up