First weekend of August 2023
The box-office will be slightly calmer this weekend, and we won’t break any records this time (2016 got to $229 million, fueled by *Suicide Squad’*s $134 million), but it’s still going to be way higher than the norm. Once again this weekend we’ll pretty much double 2022’s same weekend total (Bullet Train, Easter Sunday) and we’ll comfortably beat 2019 (Hobbs & Shaw) by about 20%. So even though there’s probably some softness at the box-office coming up because of the strikes, we’re padding the lead now. This is the last weekend we get all the kids out of school, about 20% go back next week. As a person of a certain age who grew up in a ‘right after Labor Day to Middle of June’ school calendar year, going back to school on August 7 is just weird.
Many of you who have read this note for years and years know that I’m wrong….a lot. So I’ve been lighting candles and talking to a bamboo plant since Wednesday hoping that I was wrong about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Wednesday opening was going to give it an updraft heading into the weekend; the word of mouth would make it outperform the norm for a Friday Saturday and Sunday after a Wednesday opening. But it’s not doing that, as of this writing the growth from yesterday is at or a little below the norm.
So what does that mean, was this a mistake? For the most part, they probably stretched their 3 day total into a 5 day total (so it might be a same/same situation), but the bigger takeaway here is that the IP fan-ship was just very specific on this film. The movie has both excellent critic and audience scores, but sometimes these IP’s (or a particular genre like Musicals) are just so binary, so no matter how good something is; if you’re not into it, it’s a pass. And if you’re not into it, the only shot at getting you in is if someone invites you to go. But that brings up what I was talking about on Wednesday, could opening a good movie like this on Friday create more tag alongs and grow this IP (because Friday is a better moviegoing day than Wednesday)? Obviously we can’t go back in time and A/B test this, but in this current marketplace, with the social forces that can make or break a film’s opening, you need to ‘launch’ a movie instead of just ‘releasing’ it. And looking at what else is going on this weekend, if this film had opened today (and considering how strong it was on Wednesday), it might have been the #2 film in the marketplace. Considering the possibilities of headlines that would read “Turtles nuke Oppenheimer”, that would be closer to launching a movie instead of releasing it.
As I’ve said here often, you’ve got to take chances in this business. When you’re building a movie, Greta Gerwig directing Barbie and Tim Burton directing Dumbo probably looked like a very similar risk. But one was a home run and was brilliant, and one was a weird fit that didn’t work commercially and looked risky in hindsight. So opening this on Wednesday looks risky now, but it didn’t necessarily look that way when the decision was made. It’s part of why this business is (say it with me) hard. It’s never Groundhog Day here.
Anyway, with the accuracy of the thought process of the Writers and Actors, who think any sort of payment from the streamers based on viewership for content that no one is watching is going to be the same as being paid simply because something ran on linear/Pay TV (but no one was watching), here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Barbie - The goddess of cinema is finally showing a slight bit of mortality. It’s down a fairly normal amount today, so figure it’s down 40% or so for the weekend, which would put it somewhere in the mid 50’s.
Oppenhiemer - This has been in lock step with Barbie, running about half of Barbie each day since they both opened, but today it’s down a little less than Barbie. Of course that could be attributed to the successful PLF ruse they’ve pulled off here. Figure it’s down 35% or so for a weekend in the very low 30’s.
The Meg 2 - Since Rotten Tomatoes has been such a force in our sector, if this film had pulled a RT score in the 80’s it’s fanbase would have wondered ‘what’s wrong?’. However, this plucky big shark came through with a score in the 20’s, so everything is right with the world. It’s running just a little bit behind the first Meg right now, but Meg caught on fire at night and pre-sales happen a little differently now than they did in 2018; plus that marketplace back in 2018 was considerably less challenging than going up against BarbenHiemer. It’s also looking just a little bit better than Haunted Mansion did at this point right now, but Haunted Mansion was just okay at night. So this will all come down to what it does tonight, if it’s a little flat like Haunted Mansion was, it’s probably the same mid 20’s. But if it picks up like the first film did at night, and plays tomorrow as strong as the first one did, it’s got a shot at 30.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - Right now it’s neck and neck with The Meg 2, but if they stay the same all weekend this won’t have Meg’s $3 million from last night. And with The Meg’s history of good evening sales it could pull away. But let’s assume they stay the same, the 3 day looks like it’s in the very low 20’s. That would put the 5 day in the mid 30’s. However, if this does more evening business that it’s been doing the last couple of days, that could change.
Talk to Me - Showing some legs today, it’s not down as much as horror films are usually down in week 2. If you don’t count the Thursday preview gross the true drop looks like it’s around 35%, which is way better than the norm for horror. However, you gotta count that preview gross if you’re gonna use last week, so it looks down about 45% for a weekend around 6.