Fourth weekend of March 2023
As we expected, this weekend will be another step forward towards Theatrical getting back to pre shutdown levels. This weekend will blow away the same weekend last year by as much as 60% or so, and even though the same weekend in 2019 had a $70 million opening with Us, this weekend’s overall total should be very similar. We started the weekend 28% ahead of 2022’s year to date; so this weekend will add to that, and it’s another step forward.
Anyway, for those who prefer words over numbers, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
John Wick: Chapter 4 - This is sensational today, but in a weirdly predictable way. There’s an old saying that ‘once is an outlier, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend’. Before the pandemic, the ’trend’ was that sequels would gross about 80% of the previous film (with the exception of the Marvel films, but they kept adding characters and their unique fan bases, so the upward trend made sense). In February, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quanumania was the outlier and grossed 40% more than the previous film. In March, Creed III was the coincidence and opened to 58% more than Creed II. A couple of weeks ago, Scream VI showed us this was now a trend and opened to 47% more than Scream. The trend continues now with John Wick 4 and similar to the other sequels, it’s up a little less than 50% from John Wick 3. Why is this happening? It’s probably just a sign of consumer behavior relating to the pandemic finally being over. When you combine the consumer attitude of ‘wanting to go out’ with good films supported by exceptional marketing campaigns, it all adds up to the marketing having a deeper reach into the market. Of course some of you might say ‘what what about Shazam last week?’. Okay settle down Zach, I’ll get to you next. Anyway, this looks sensational and it’s looking like a weekend up the same 40% we’ve been seeing lately for sequels, which would mean a weekend in the mid 70’s.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods - It was interesting to see all the wild guesses about why this didn’t work last week, but based on the data I see during my day job, this film had a funk from the first data I saw; and that was well over a year ago. So, it didn’t have anything to do with the DC shakeup, the Marketing, the Date or any of the other fantasies put forward this week. If there’s anything I wondered about, it’s that Zachary Levi’s child-like persona was a perfect match for the 12 year old boy in the first film, but maybe didn’t match up that well with the concept of aging the younger version of his character to a teenager, it felt a little creepy. Anyway, it’s down a lot today, so clearly there’s something that didn’t connect here; and this still should go into that category of ‘making movies is really hard’, instead of pointing fingers.
A Good Person - Went 500 screens today and it’s only fair in the big cities, but pretty soft once you get to the smaller situations. Figure it gets close to $1 million for the weekend.
The Lost King - Went about 700 theaters and doesn’t look very good at all. Could get to about $500k, but might not get there.