Fourth weekend of April 2023

Whenever there’s a tentpole opening this time of year, the weekend before tends to be a little light new release wise, because there’s so much noise going on, the 2nd week can turn into a ‘one and done’ situation. For example, last year because Doctor Strange was opening the first weekend in May, we only saw one wide release; and it was another step in the Liam Neeson parade of sadness, Memory, grossing $3.1 million. And because it’s all about the depth of the roster, the combination of the stronger holdovers this weekend and better new releases we’ll pad our lead on 2022 once again this weekend. With Guardians 3 opening next weekend, the light weekend this weekend is pretty normal. As far as 2019, Avengers Endgame opened the last week in April at $357 million, so, yeah, we’ll be a little behind that. But as an example of how the ‘weekend before a tentpole’ effect is real, the weekend before *Endgame *opened was Good Friday/Easter weekend (and as you know it’s a great box office weekend), yet we only had one genre opening, The Curse of La Liarona.

As many of you know this was CinemaCon week, which can be a nice tool to launch marketing ideas if the mainstream press picks it up. However, more than likely they don’t and it can be a massive waste of money. I think the biggest waste of money this time went to Universal, who spent (gods knows how much) money to equip the room (where Adele is currently performing) to show a 4 minute clip of Oppenheimer in 70mm. And when Christopher Nolan introduced the clip, he decided the 70mm presentation wasn’t worth mentioning. Ughh. Why is that important? If Oppenhiemer was a film that clearly was going to dominate its weekend, like your garden variety Marvel film, there’s no issue. But it’s on a really competitive weekend, and I’m not sure it will even win its weekend. Since Nolan really wants those 70mm and 35mm prints out there, and that equipment is always in the biggest theater in the multiplex, wouldn’t he want to show the exhibitors how much better it looks and sounds on film in order to secure those big theaters? (and he did, they just didn’t know it) As we all know, the exhibitors are pretty whore-ish and wherever the money is, they’ll follow, so this was a massive missed opportunity to secure those bigger theaters.

It’s no secret (because of the platform wars going on) that there is A LOT of content out there these days, every time you see some friends and talk about what you’re watching, content comes up that you’ve never even heard of and everyone is watching something different. Which reminds me of a joke.

So a guy walks into a Museum with a fast rising Movie Star, a fast rising Linear TV Star and a fast rising Streaming Series Star. Actually it’s not an old joke, the guy is me and this actually happened. I spent an afternoon wandering around a Museum with 3 Actors, all fast rising with substantial notoriety but from different branches of content distribution. People would walk up to the Movie Star and ask for a selfie, people would walk up to the Linear TV Star and ask for a selfie and people would walk up to the Streaming Star and ask for a selfie; but what was interesting is that they payed zero, I mean zero attention to the other two Actors. This seemed like a really good example of what the fan ship Venn diagram looks like, you’re into what you’re into, but outside of what you’re into other actors are ‘oh yeah, that guy’. So for those of you that are in the flesh peddling Agent/Manager side of the biz, maybe the idea of your clients spending some time in the other branch of distribution isn’t terrible.

However, there’s a trap here. There’s a massive difference between the effort it takes to get a consumer to the movies versus what it takes to get them to switch on the channel/app at home. You might consider rationing talent you want to matter theatrically when they do TV, not passing it, but rationing it. We’re seeing a decent amount of top shelf stars who worked a little too much in TV during the shutdown, and then struggled to generate the same theatrical value they did before the shutdown. You actually hear it around town all the time now, ‘movie stars don’t matter anymore’, okay but is it because most of them became TV stars over the last 3 years? And a lot of those stars who had a work cadence of a movie a year and maybe two, did 3 or 4 streaming projects a year recently. Of course, because of the arms race going on to dominate the platform business, the paychecks were definitely there so it’s not like everyone was working because they were bored, they were getting the bag over and over again (I would have done the same thing). But there’s a long term effect to taking that money, and now that theatrical’s revenue stream is back in fashion, nothing is going to happen overnight. And the reason you’ll need patience is those movies that work theatrically eventually wander to linear TV and streamers, so the consumer who doesn’t go to the movies but watches a lot on the streamers, won’t ignore the movie star when they approach their streamer Actor friend for a selfie.

Anyway, with the expected accuracy of all the NFL fans that are planning on a Super Bowl win based on last night’s Draft, but don’t realize it’s the same thing as counting on a big box office weekend based on your first wave of tracking (I’m looking at you, Eagles fans), here are some thoughts on the weekend box office.

The Super Mario Brothers Movie - Still solid at a drop of -40% and a weekend in the mid 30’s.

Evil Dead Rise - It’s actually a little better than a 2nd weekend horror drop right now, but it’s still a horror movie and should drop about 55% for a weekend of about 11 million.

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret - It’s going to be interesting to see where this goes over the weekend, the book this was based on is a ‘bible’ for females, and that’s normal for a period piece like this. However, it does have some fan ship for younger females as well, so I’ll be interested to see if it does any business after 7 tonight, and if there’s either an adult bounce tomorrow or a young female bounce tomorrow. Right now it looks like 6 or 7 for the weekend.

Star Wars VI - The Revenge Return of the Jedi - Also known as ‘the one with the Muppets’, it went 450 IMAX and PLF theaters and the grosses are really good. I’m not sure if they’ll be good again tomorrow, but it’s right behind Mario Brothers right now. Figure 5 or 6 for the weekend.

Ponniyin Selvin Part 2, aka PS-2 - Another big ticket Bollywood film doing decent business here. Looks like a weekend of about $4 million on 600 screens.

Sisu - Went 1000 theaters and the grosses in the upscale and big city theaters (where the cinephiles are) are really good, but it also doesn’t fall off that fast as you go out towards the burbs. Unless it’s a one day wonder and its super front loaded, this looks like about $3 million for the weekend.

Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World - As long as this title is, it actually kinda makes it so you don’t have to see the movie. Like George in his later years, it’s pretty soft and this looks like about $2 million for the weekend.

Polite Society - Went 1000 runs and not much is going on, looks like 700k or so for the weekend.