Father's Day weekend 2021
There’s not much going on out there today, just one new wide film took advantage of the lift you get from Father’s Day, which was usually the weekend (or one of the many) where Disney prints $100 million. But things are still getting back to normal, and by next year when Lightyear prints $100 million, the starts and stops we went through this year should be a distant memory. But we are seeing some evolution of the marketplace, and there’s something that we used to do that might have had its day, the Wednesday opening. Now I’m not talking about the films that open on the day before Thanksgiving or when Christmas falls on Wednesday, those still work. But we used to open films on Wednesday to ‘ramp up for the weekend’, or get word of mouth out early, but unless you’ve got a film that’s an A+ CinemaScore and plays through the roof, these days it just spreads the 3 day gross over 5 days. With all the competition for entertainment in the current marketplace, you need to think of a Theatrical opening weekend as a place where the fans of the IP (or the star you paid a lot of money to) get their non fan friends to go with them. The fans of the IP or star always want to go right away (because your marketing campaign has whipped them into a frenzy) and on a weekend night, it’s more than likely their friends will say yes. But if you move those early attenders to Wednesday, their friends will probably pass because Tuesday or Wednesday has a much higher threshold for purchase than a Thursday, Friday or Saturday; people have to work the next day. So once you start splitting people up by not making it convenient for everyone, you lose sales; and there’s a lot of data (that I won’t bore you with) that supports this. So let’s forget about the Wednesday opening, it doesn’t work anymore; launch your film (instead of releasing it) when everyone can go. Anyway, with the accuracy and dependability of a Pacific Theaters loan payment, here’s some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard - This film should win the weekend easily and they should get a really nice lift on Sunday because they smartly placed this on Father’s Day (and then got lucky when Luca bounced to Disney Max), so this is a success. The 5 day for this film should end up in the mid teens, and maybe even a decent amount higher if they get a good Father’s Day lift. However, they did two nights of previews last weekend, plus the typical Tuesday night, and then opened on Wednesday to ramp up to the weekend; but looking at how the film is playing I’m not so sure that was the best way to go. Of course you only know what you know when you make these decisions, and maybe the test screenings on this scored through the roof; but the critics weren’t too kind to this (although they didn’t love the first one either and that did just fine) and the exits are pretty tepid. Obviously next week is F9, but with the way movie consumers are behaving these days, I’m not sure you can look at these early openings as extra days before the next film. You need to make things easy so both the fans and their tag along friends can go, and if you split them up, you might end up losing ticket sales you might have captured otherwise. If F9 is what everyone thinks it’s going to be, this is all fine; but if it’s only 65% or so of that, maybe this could have been better.
A Quiet Place Part II - Another strong holdover weekend, with a Father’s Day lift this could end up with a drop in the 25% range and a weekend around 9 mil.
Peter Rabbit 2 - Looking decent, or maybe a little bit better than that today. Figure it’s down 35% for a weekend in the mid 6’s.
In the Heights - It’s down a little more than a normal 2nd weekend would look, so any big holdover dreams look like they’re not gonna happen. Figure it’s off 50% for a weekend in the 5’s.
The Sparks Brothers - Went 500 runs and it’s not looking great, of course it’s gonna be a struggle for all upscale films in LA until those Arclight theaters get back open. Figure a PSA of about $600 for the weekend.