Third weekend of November 2023
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It’s going to be a pre Thanksgiving weekend closer to the pre-Covid norm this weekend and we should obliterate last year’s total. Of course, last year Thanksgiving was a complete train wreck with The Menu and She Said being the only new offerings this weekend, followed up by Strange World and Devotion next weekend. So, yeah, the bar was pretty low. As far as 2019, fuggetabout it. Two words, Frozen 2. But because we have a nice assortment of films this weekend, we’re not going to be that far behind.
There are a couple of issues this weekend that are probably better addressed if I do them below as they relate to the individual films. Many of the films opening this weekend are highlighting where we are as a sector, as well as how we got here.
Anyway, with the expected accuracy and efficacy of a USC Defensive Back, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Prequels can be a tough road, we’ve seen some recent prequels flame out at the box-office lately (such as the Kingsman prequel), so as much as part of our mission these days is to mine every corner of good IP, going early in the story doesn’t always pay off. In this case, it’s a good result, but because there will be inevitable comparisons back to the Hunger Games films, let’s talk about why this is pretty good for what it is. First (and obviously) no Jennifer Lawrence. I’ve spoken about the challenges creators make in this sector when it comes to casting, and when you’re casting young actors like we have here (and had in Hunger Games) you do your best to figure out who’s going to mean something in 18 months. In Hunger Games, they hit lightning in a bottle with J Law, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll capture that lightning again. So even though this cast might mean something one day at the level of J Law, they aren’t there now. Second, the idea behind the story here might not be as clean as it was for Hunger Games, this story is a little more complex; and when you have those complexities it can complicate the marketing process (plus it’s more challenging to make the movie). So all that being said, this is pretty good today, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes so far is very good (and as we’ve seen lately better than the critical reaction), so the fan base is fine with this. It’s running a little behind where The Marvels was last week at this point, but there are 0 kids out of school today compared to 50% last Friday, so this should be much better tonight. Plus there are a lot of kids out of school (and adults taking time off for the holiday week), so Sunday should be considerably better than The Marvels. I’ll say it looks like high 40’s with a shot at a 5 in front of it for the weekend.
Trolls Band Together - Another example here of where we are and where we’ve been. Back in 2016 Trolls burst on the scene at a $47 million, fueled by a hit (Oscar nominated) song and strong IP. 4 years later in 2020, Trolls World Tour was steaming along to open at a similar level; and then the shutdown hit. Universal correctly pivoted to a PVOD release on Good Friday, and the result was another example of catching lightning in a bottle. TV was taking a break from the shutdowns and had virtually no programming on (especially sports), plus the world was shut down and everyone was trapped inside. Add to that, it was Good Friday and even though kids were mostly in virtual schools, it was a school holiday and you still had to give them something to do…..inside and away from other people. So to say that release was a blockbuster would be an understatement. But, as we know now, that was a one off occurrence and it happened because of a time and a place (a few others chased this idea with much lower results). But here’s where that wildly successful pivot might be having an effect here. As we saw with the Disney family films once we opened back up, we might have seen a behavioral shift where the family audience wasn’t used to going to the theater for a film, because they got it at home. We’re slowly clawing back from that, and we’ve seen zero hesitation from the family audience to attend in droves with other IP’s (such as Mario Brothers) but at this point I’m thinking that the ‘at home’ experience of this particular IP might have shifted the desire to see this in a theater. It’s pretty good today, but at this point it doesn’t look $47 million weekend good. As I said above there are 0 kids out of school today, and it’s about 50% better than another Uni family film like Bad Guys ($24 million in 3) which had a decent amount of kids out that day. Based on that, I’d say it looks low/mid 30’s, but that’s counting on a big bounce tomorrow and a good Sunday.
The Marvels - Disney has gotten so beat up on this film (mostly by people who have never even come close to the run of success Marvel has had); I’m not going to pile on, and as usual I’ll go the other direction. It always amazes me when a film that opens to $46 million gets labeled a flop. It’s really hard to get a film open that big, and few films achieve it (only 18 in the last year). However all that downdraft is showing today and it looks like it will be down 65% or so for a weekend in the mid teens.
Thanksgiving - When this film announced its released date, I was intrigued. Clearly because of the title it made perfect sense, but since I have a pretty good knowledge base of Theatrical Release History, I couldn’t think of an example where a film in the horror genre went on this date. Or at least went on this date and flourished. Personally I found the campaign for this film pretty good, but the grosses are a little less than what I thought it would be today. Not a lot, but a fair amount. Of course, I’m not second guessing the release date here (as you know I’m bullish on taking chances) but sometimes you don’t know until you try it. If this is the case, it’s just a small downdraft, it’s not like it killed the film. There’s no audience score yet, but word around town says the film plays, so I’m not ruling out a comeback next weekend when the Thanksgiving title component might kick in. As of now, it looks like a weekend of about 11.
Next Goal Wins - This remake of the 2014 British Documentary has a small problem that’s a good example of where the specialty market is today. Searchlight heavily supported the film and gave it a wide release, and supposedly the film plays great. But in the specialty world, you really need that Rotten Tomatoes score, otherwise you’re likely to struggle. And in typical fashion for Rotten Tomatoes, it got mostly 2 1/2 star reviews but enough critics marked their reviews rotten, so this has a score in the 40’s. As I’ve pointed out several times here, the problem isn’t the lack of fans attending: that critics’ score generally affects the tagalongs, and that’s probably the issue here. Obviously the best grosses are anywhere with a decent population of Samoans (such as Salt Lake City), but on an overall basis it’s just okay. Depending on the playability, it should end up between 2 and 3 million.
Saltburn - This buzzy film went exclusive in 7 runs this week. But MGM/Amazon did something really smart here that other specialty films should follow. Besides taking the ‘classic 6’ in NY and LA (Lincoln Sq, Angelika, Brooklyn, Century City, The Grove and Burbank), they took Austin. Since it’s been well documented that half of Austin is now from NY and LA, it makes total sense. And as of this writing, Austin is right there with Century City and Burbank. The numbers here are great across the board, and this looks headed to a beautiful psa of $40k or so.