A Man Called Otto

Friday, December 30, 2022 New Year's weekend 2022

On the chart A Man Called Otto (4-theater exclusive): $14.1K per screen

Expected 'A psa of about $10k for 3' Actual: $14.1K per screen

In the note Looks like a 3 day of about 3 million and a 4 day in the mid 3’s. A Man Called Otto - Opened 4 runs Exclusive in NY and LA and it’s fine for a limited film these days.

Friday, January 6, 2023 First weekend of January 2023

On the chart A Man Called Otto (600-run expansion): $4.2M, $6.6K PSA

Expected '$5k or $6k' PSA and 'the $3 million (or a little better)' Actual: $4.2M, $6.6K PSA

In the note Happy New Year everyone. There are a couple of interesting things going on at the box-office this week, and there are two films opening this week that you should pay particular attention to (and I’ll address them both individually below). But first, let’s all repeat the post covid theatrical mantra…. two year rule….two year rule….two year rule….. The next 5 weeks or so (after this weekend) are going to be iffy at best and some weeks are going to be brutal. But 2 years ago (and just to remind you, let’s say 2 years is a norm from the time a studio/financier gets pregnant with a movie to it’s release), we were just starting the vaccine distribution and most of the biggest media markets were still restricted or shut down. But as the vaccine rolled out, the amber light of 'maybe/let’s see' turned to the green of ‘yes'; projects started becoming real as we started to see light at the end of the tunnel in the 2nd quarter of 2021, and we’ll see the same light at the end of the tunnel 2 years later in February 2023. One of the reasons the box office has been all over the place is because (for the most part) we still need to build up our ‘habitual’ moviegoers, their metronome-like attendance tends to even out the box office from week to week. It’s probably one of the key reasons for the malaise in the art/specialty sector, not only are we missing a consistent stream of releases (and films that don’t have titles bathed in the poison of arrogance) we’re also missing the theaters that would offer them every week. It would be great for the industry if AMC embraced the genre at Century City, the Grove and Burbank, but that’s just not what they do. But going back to wide films, the start and stop of the release schedule is probably the culprit (and of course the long shutdown played a part), and since everything in the world was start and stop 2 years ago, that tracks. Starting around President’s Day we’ll start seeing a pretty steady stream of films and we’ll start seeing those results feed off each other, so hopefully those habituals will come back. Anyway, with the expected accuracy of the exact date when you should stop saying Happy New Year, which we all know is January 10, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office. Avatar: The Way of Water - This looks like it’s legging out the way we thought it would, it’s holding up pretty good today, but Sunday will be way down because of the Monday holiday last week. If you try to compare the weekend drop for this weekend to Avatar, it doesn't really fit. In 2009 the the National Holiday was on Friday so the Sunday that year wasn't inflated like it was this year (with a Monday holiday). Figure it’s off about 50% from last weekend for a weekend in the mid 30’s. Living Doll 2023 M3GAN - This is one of the two films I referenced above, clearly the Talky Tina idea goes way back to The Twilight Zone and this story has been done to death. However, the trick of Theatrical is being familiar enough that an audience knows what it is, but it still has an angle on the idea that tells the audience ‘you haven’t seen it this way before’. Biopics are a great example of this, the ones that work let you learn things you didn’t know about someone you’re a fan of, and the ones that don’t tell you exactly what you already knew. And this is one of the tricks of our business, a film like this could be tired as hell, but apparently this is a ton of fun. As one of the great philosophers of our time, Smalls from This is Spinal Tap said ’there’s such a fine line between clever and stupid’. So in a business like ours it’s interesting to see a film about an AI driven doll get greenlit in an industry that keeps trying to bring AI into the creative space. Every day I keep hearing of a new snake oil salesman company peddling some sort of AI tool that will analyze your script, and forecast success/failure (with an error rate of +/-90%, and they say that with a straight face). But films like this don’t generally do well in those processes; maybe there’s a bowling scene or there’s 3 too many speaking roles, but if you believe the reviews this film is just a lot of fun and that’s a really hard aspect for machines to identify (and it's also part of the magic that happens on set that's very hard to predict). But that’s where the younger versions of some of you out there who have toiled in development come in on a film like this, and we can’t marginalize (although the C suite folks would love to) the upside of having a human with taste and biological intelligence reading scripts. Right now it’s at least mid/high 20’s with a really good shot at 30, but films like this can pick up a decent amount of inertia over the weekend and it’s not out of the question that this could win the weekend. A Man Called Otto - This is the 2nd movie I referenced above, and there are some very important ideas going on here that Sony seems acutely aware of, and so should you.

Friday, January 20, 2023 Third weekend of January 2023

On the chart A Man Called Otto (wide): $8.8M, -31%

Expected 'Down about 25 or 30%... looks like about $9 million' Actual: $8.8M, -31%

In the note Looks like a weekend of 9 or 10. A Man Called Otto - Clearly a crowd pleaser, this should be around a while.

Friday, January 27, 2023 Fourth weekend of January 2023

On the chart A Man Called Otto (wk 5): $6.7M, -24%

Expected 'Down 20% for a weekend of 7 or so' Actual: $6.7M, -24%

Friday, July 14, 2023 Second weekend of July 2023

In the note Sony has made some great strides here with A Man Called Otto and Where the Crawdads Sing, but we’ve got to be careful how we proceed with this group of consumers, and we should look no farther than the Superhero/Comic Book IP for answers.

Friday, September 22, 2023 Fourth weekend of September 2023

In the note Figure it’s down the same 50% for a weekend of about 7. Dumb Money - Sony is following the template that made A Man Called Otto a success, and this seems to be on a very similar path, just at a little lower level.

Friday, August 9, 2024 Second weekend of August 2024

In the note A year and a half ago, Sony again went straight at middle America with A Man Called Otto and ended up with a really nice run, especially after a one week Academy run in NY and LA (where those usual theaters that lead the pack) just shrugged.

Friday, November 1, 2024 First weekend of November 2024

In the note

Where it turns up