Third weekend of November 2022
A couple of things going on this week (and next) that I thought I’d discuss with you as the lone teller of truth tm in this town.
First, as my 7th grade writing teacher would say, let’s ‘compare and contrast’ a couple of films going into the marketplace.
We’ve got two films from the streamers that are taking slightly different paths, but could yield profoundly different results. Today, there’s a big budget ($100 million according to IMDB) Holiday themed film, Spirited, from Apple with big stars (Will Farrell, Ryan Reynolds) with impressive theatrical resumes, a time tested IP and a filmmaker who’s had a lot of success in the genre. They’ve spent a decent amount of money launching it, and it’s opening theatrically today in a couple of hundred theaters (mostly Cinemark),and then hits the platform next week.
Next week, we have *Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery *opening with the best possible All-Star Cast, strong IP and a hot director. They have also spent a good amount of money, it’s opening in about 700 theaters next Wednesday (for one week only) but they’re holding it from the platform for 4 weeks, so there’s a decent sized window. But there’s a key positioning difference here, and although Glass Onion has a window that’s a little longer than Spirited, it’s not that much longer. However, if you see the marketing for both films there’s a significant difference. For Spirited, it’s the standard streamer stuff, and all the materials prioritize the platform drop with Apple + TV prominently placed and a minor mention of the theatrical break. With Glass Onion there’s no mention of when it’s dropping on the platform and everything is tagged with ‘One Week Only in Theaters’. Could a slightly longer window combined with a legitimate push toward theatrical in the marketing make a big difference in the bottom line? Is it that slight of an adjustment that could make a theatrical release for a high priced streaming movie viable?
Obviously there are two factors here that could teach the industry how to maximize revenues and separate certain projects from the insane amount of content being thrown at the consumer at home. First, what will the difference be in the theatrical run? Obviously, just like the other streaming movies, we’ll never know what Spirited does theatrically. But you can poke around the Cinemark website and look at how many seats are sold for each show by looking at seating charts, and after doing that I’d guess that a few of you out there have bigger mortgage payments than this will gross theatrically for the run. But that makes sense because Apple didn’t market it that way, Netflix is trying something different. If you do the same (poking around on the Exhibitor websites), you can see a lot of tickets have been sold for Glass Onion, and some shows are almost sold out. Only time will tell if this is good enough that Netflix decides to share theatrical grosses (especially if the grosses are bigger than some of the other films opening next week), but right now this looks like they’re on to something. But there’s a part two to the equation. What will the viewership look like when each of these films hit their respective platforms? As I’ve said here before, I’m not saying the theatrical run for the films made for the streamers is going to be profitable, but if you can generate enough film rental to zero out your marketing campaign, it’s a net win financially. So if you can be successful enough theatrically that it pays for your marketing, and that theatrical run lifts the viewership on the platform (plus possibly lifts the library value of the title in the long run), there’s a lot of ‘better’ here.
There’s one more aspect to this situation that I think is interesting. If you look around for new Holiday themed content to stream over the next couple of weeks, there’s a lot. I mean, a lot. And if you look at the theatrical landscape over this holiday period, there is zero. Not one. So if Netflix changes the norm with Glass Onion, should the industry consider release method as well as release date, based on the competitive landscape? We’ve seen over and over again that when a certain genre has the theatrical market to itself, it thrives. Look at how Ticket to Paradise has held solid week after week. So if we could go in the ‘way back’ machine (and we had confidence a 4 week window combined with a campaign focused solely on Theatrical), could Spirited have worked Theatrically if they would have gone on Nov 4 against *One Piece Film Red *and Banshees of Inishirn, and then dropped on the platform next Friday for the holidays? Clearly it’s a theoretical exercise, but as the details of the next week develop, it’s something to think about. It seems like everything is headed towards a game of ‘chutes and ladders’, but maybe competitive landscape clutter on one end or the other should hold some weight in the game.
One more thing I’d like to talk to you about. As someone who has been in this business my whole life (starting as a theater usher at 16 years old), I’ve found there are two types of people in this business. There are the folks who understand the art, and appreciate the creation of that art, and they love it so much they would almost do what they do for free just to be part of it (and that’s a basic requirement to be on this distribution list). But then there’s another group in this business; they like the idea of being in the business and they like telling people they are in the business, but they don’t love or understand the art. And frankly they seem to have contempt for many of the talented people who produce the art, because they think it’s easy. This week there was a screening of Babylon, and I found the reactions to the film aligned with those two groups. Now this is a film that starts with a guy pushing a live Elephant uphill to get it to a party, and the Elephant keeps shitting on him*. If there’s a perfect metaphor of what it’s like to work in our business, that’s probably it. I don’t care if you’ve made a movie, marketed a movie, distributed a movie, rolled endless calls to get a movie made…. It usually feels like pushing an Elephant uphill and it keeps shitting on you. However, once you get that Elephant in the party, it feels like you accomplished something; and it’s difficult to describe how hard this business is to your civilian friends (and in the meantime you hear the voice of Hyman Roth in your head), but those little wins make the work worth it. So as I talked to people who saw Babylon this week (I haven’t seen it), it was interesting to hear how the people who love this business and would kill to stay in it had a different reaction to the film than people who don’t really love the business. The people who don’t love the business seemed to wander towards ‘gross’, ‘disgusting’ ’hated it’, and the ones who love the business seemed to get it (while hearing the voice of Hyman Roth in their head). Why do I bring this up? This is such an anticipated film, there were a bunch of industry press pieces about it and a couple of them not only told us the side of the love/don’t love the business fence they live on, but one of them (Variety) seemed more like a personal review and probably violated the review embargo. As someone who likes to enlighten you on a weekly basis, I thought it would be good to put a few more ideas out there to counteract what got published. As you see the reviews drop next month, you’ll probably be able to figure out which side of the love/hate fence each critic sits on.
Anyway, based on something I heard in a Spanish Class with the LA Rams Offensive Line and the only thing they learned was Ole!, here are some thoughts on the weekend box office.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Obviously it’s going to win this weekend (and the next, and the next, and the next) easily, but looking at the 2nd Friday for the November Marvels and *Black Panther *1, this looks a little less resilient. Figure it’s down about 65% for a weekend in the mid 60’s.
The Menu - It’s great to see one of the specialty distributors (owned by a larger entity) doing well, you’re never quite sure if the parent appreciates what they do. On the heels of Banshees of Inishirin, Searchlight is doing some really nice business with this upscale thriller. Right now it’s got a fairly similar screen average to September’s Barbarian, but this film is on almost 50% more screens. Since this film plays a little older than a horror/thriller title plays, I’m not sure how deep into the night it’s going to play. Right now it looks like about 11 for the weekend, but that could go up or down depending on tonight. This might shock you but…the best theaters seem to be…the Dine-In theaters.
The Chosen Season 3, Episode 1 and 2 - This faith based series started as a PPV streamer, and slowly has turned into something that’s worth going to the theater to see, and it’s doing strong business on 2000 screens. If there’s a better example of how our business is a game of chutes and ladders, I don’t know of one. The grosses here are strongest in the midwest, and the markets you would think should be strong, are. As we’ve seen with some of these faith based films, they can be really front loaded, so this could be a one day wonder. If that happens, figure it ends up at about $10 million, but if it holds up it will go higher.
She Said - Another ‘bubble package’ film. And another film where you have to ask the question, exactly who is this for? Just personally, as someone who had to suffer through an extended period of workplace harrasment (both mental and sexual), and worked as a key vendor for Harvey for 6 years (those two things are not related), you would think I’d have some interest in this. But it just doesn’t register with me, it’s kind of a big shrug. But getting back to the bubble package aspect of a film like this, it’s certainly a story that needs to be told, but if it’s going to make it theatrically it needs some help. You need the best release date, the best reviews and the best word of mouth. Because with a film like this, that has to be everything. Looks like the moviegoing consumer is shrugging as well, this looks like about $2 million for the weekend, and maybe not even that.
Bones and All - Went NY and LA in 5 runs, and looks in line with what we’ve seen from these limited runs the past couple of weeks, like TAR and Banshees. However, it’s interesting to look back at the last collaboration between Luca Guadagingo and Timothee Chalemet, *Call Me By Your Name, *because looking at what that film did in a similar run shows you how different the limited release infrastructure is now compared to back then. Of the 4 theaters that opened Call Me By Your Name, 3 of them are (as we say in the business) unavailable now and one of them is not what it used to be. Call Me By Your Name opened at the Paris NY, the Cinerama Dome and Landmark in LA, and all of them have many many more seats than you can have today. The 4th theater, the Regal Union Sq just doesn’t gross the way it used to before Covid. But this looks really good and figure it ends up with a psa of about $30k.
The Fablemans - Still in 4 runs, and the overall gross is about the same as this time last week, but Century City is double last week for some reason, and both the Grove and the Union Sq are way down.
The Inspection - Went 5 runs in NY and LA and this is also very good everywhere but (again) lower Manhattan. Looks like a really nice $20k psa.
- some of you might know the old joke that Damien Chazelle is riffing off of. When they ask the guy who cleans up after the Elephants in the circus ‘why don’t you get a better job’ he responds ‘what and give up showbiz?’