Third weekend of October 2023
We’ll have a nice box-office weekend this weekend, but it should fall short of both 2022 (Black Adam, Ticket to Paradise) or 2019 (Halloween) by 10% to 20%, but when you look at a 10 year average for the weekend, it’s going to be right at the average.
Thanks to all of you who responded to last week’s email, pointing out how anyone who is enough of a ’name’ to have a quote has a streaming quote and a non-streaming quote; and the streaming quote is considerably higher (to make up for a lack of backend/residuals). So as I said last week, the studios are already doing this already by accepting that structure, so just do something similar for anyone who doesn’t have the power to warrant a quote. It doesn’t seem like it’s that hard of an issue to solve, just come to a number you can agree on for those who have been left out.
And speaking of the negotiations (or currently lack thereof), it feels to me like the walk away by the CEO’s from the bargaining table was more of a test of the membership than (just like everything else with these strikes) anything to do with money. They’ve certainly felt the pressure of hate as they’ve gone through these strikes; did they clutch their pearls and walk away over a number to try to shift the hate, and break the support for the union leadership? The whole issue seemed so…small. They said a number, you respond with a different number; standard negotiations. But since everyone felt like the end was near, maybe the tactic was to do a ‘rug pull’ and see if (by taking a couple of weeks off) they could undermine the union by saying ‘we were close but your leadership blew it’?
Slow clap for the A list actors who volunteered to give a higher dues rate when they work, and through those increases they would fund some of the financial safety nets for the union. Of course, even though it’s apparently something they can’t do, we all know that it’s something producers and studios would have ended up paying for anyway. There would be increases in riders like Nanny allowances for actors without kids, M & M sorting allowances or increased allowances for Ozempic (non SuperHero films) or steroids Personal Trainers (SuperHero films).
Anyway, based on something I heard at a seminar titled ‘opening your movie without using a classic rock song played real slow’, and I was the only one in the room, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR - IT’S STILL YELLING, but since some of you might be suing me for making your eyeballs bleed last week (and I might have buried a couple of decent jokes by keeping the joke through the end), I’ll leave that gimmick on the side today. As I said last week, although this is widely successful, it’s still being handled by amateurs, and amateurs do amateur things. Apparently Taylor thought it would be a great idea to go dark for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; and then it came back on the screen last night because she wanted it to be closer to a ‘go out on the weekend with your friends’ experience. This is just an example of how untouchable she is. In the ‘glass half empty’ world we live in, where Oprah and The Rock can give $10 million each to the Maui relief effort and get yelled at as horrible people for doing it, no one called Taylor for saying ‘if you have to work over the weekend, you’re SOL and I don’t want your money’. Of course, no one called her on having a Premier last week when every other Premier cancelled due to the Middle East situation, so she is just playing a different game as the rest of the industry, and she’s doing it with the cap lock on.
The grosses today are good, especially considering concert films can drop 90% or more in the 2nd weekend, but it’s still down a healthy amount. Since everything about this film is an outlier, we’re not sure where it goes for the rest of the weekend. I’ll take a stab and say it’s down 65% for a 3 day in the low 30’s.
Killers of the Flower Moon - There’s a lot of things happening today with this film that are really good. First of all, this is a film made by Best Picture Winner Apple; and similar to a couple of other big ticket movies they’ve got coming up, they realized that a robust theatrical release is very good for the film once it gets to the platform, and they leaned into this beautifully with the help of Paramount. They also correctly ditched the platform release on this film that was supposed to happen 2 weeks ago, and they’re going wide today. When a film like this has star power for days, a platform release would only hurt the wide release; since good word of mouth won’t change many minds, but the few people who don’t like it can knock people out of the funnel. Remember we’re in a glass half empty world.
There is one thing about this film that will be interesting to watch, and that’s how the 3 hour and 20 minute running time (and figure 3 hours and 45 minutes once AMC puts 9 trailers on the front of it) will affect the grosses. There’s a big difference between long films that appeal to the same demo like Elvis or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that were both around 2 hrs and 40 mins, and this film. That extra 40 mins is a big difference maker. I’m guessing that 65% or 70% of this audience is over 35, so with a film this long, any showtime after 7:30 or so is a non-starter. But because it’s so long the showtimes can be a little funky too, and if you look on the website for your go to theater, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Even though they’re running several screens, I struggled to find something convenient to go to last night. What will be interesting is how this film does tomorrow and Sunday. Because it’s so long, it’s way more appealing a proposition during a Saturday or Sunday afternoon (especially with the age of the audience) than a Thursday or Friday night; so we might see tonight underperform and the rest of the weekend bounce a little higher than normal. And apparently the exits are very good so far, so there’s not a playability issue. This is one film that shows how the exhibitors have a complete lack of creativity. As with any other film, they have matinee prices that are 25% or so off the standard ticket price. Because of the lack of appeal for shows after 7pm,* those* should be the shows they are discounting and the afternoon shows should be full price, but that’s way too much thinking for them.
Right now it’s a little behind where Elvis was at this point in the day, but because of that running time difference, I’d expect it to give ground for the rest of the day. But tomorrow could be a different story and might swing this gross higher. The film is doing business where you would think it should, and NY and LA are leading the charge. But because of the subject matter, Oil country (and especially, and obviously, Oklahoma) is right up at the top of the sheet as well. If it follows the normal pattern of an Adult skewing (long) movie, figure it’s in the mid 20’s. But if that running time pushes movie goers to the matinees tomorrow and Sunday, it could go higher. But the bottom line is we should all cheer Apple for seeing the theatrical light.
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Disney has re-released this every Halloween and it’s been really nice for them. It’s pretty good today, found money is always good money, and it’s looking like $3 million to $4 million on 1600 screens.
Leo: Bloody Sweet - The US Bollywood market has grown so nicely that we’re now day and date with India every once in a while on high profile Bollywood films. This went 700 screens and it’s good but not great, figure a weekend of about $1.5 to $2 million.
The Persian Version - This well reviewed film from Sony Classics went 8 theaters in 4 markets (NY, LA, Toronto and Vancouver), and has pretty decent grosses in 3 theaters (Lincoln Sq, Union Sq and The Grove), but it’s pretty soft everywhere else. What’s interesting in LA is that the theaters closest to Westwood Blvd (Century City and The Royal Santa Monica) are nothing compared to The Grove. However, the better grossing theaters might have the standard Q and A’s we see for this type of run. Right now this looks like a psa of about $10k.