Easter weekend 2024
Hooray! Thanks to our saviors of late at WB (and Legendary), we’re finally going to have a total gross that’s way ahead of last year’s weekend. Last year we had the opening of Dungeons & Dragons and week 2 of John Wick Chapter 4, but not much else. But as in the past, we’ve got a nice buffet of titles to make a trip to the megaplex worth it, and the total gross will reflect that. We’ll probably be a good 30% ahead of last year’s weekend total, but last year did not have Good Friday on it. Good Friday weekend is usually one of the better weekends at the box-office because it’s one of those weird days where almost all kids are out of school today, but parents aren’t necessarily off work, so there’s a ‘warehouse the kids’ issue and theatrical is a nice place to stash them.
This weekend plays a lot like Black Friday weekend over Thanksgiving, today is the best day, everything goes down about 5% or 10% tomorrow, and then Sunday is fairly normal. However, ever since Dune shocked the box-office back to life, Saturday’s have been really over performing, so it would be nice to see that happen again this weekend. Because so many kids are out of school today (and a decent amount of adults are off work) the preview grosses tend to play a little hot last night, because it’s closer to a Friday night than a Thursday night. But even though we’re gonna get crushed next weekend (it was Good Friday and….um…Super Mario Brothers….), we’ll take these wins and smile.
One of the things I hear over and over again from a lot of you is ‘where are the next theatrical movie stars coming from?’ Clearly the movie star thing has been complicated since the pandemic, when a lot of bankable theatrical stars took the bag and did a lot of work that didn’t end up in theaters (and because of the size of that bag, you can’t really blame them). But the bankable theatrical stars are also getting older, and because there was limited theatrical for a while, we weren’t really cultivating the next gen. But in order to have the next gen of movie stars, we have to have actors who ‘get it’.
Although we’ll always (hopefully) have actors like Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio and Julia Roberts that have that ‘it’ factor that make them unicorns, but because of that ‘it’ factor, they are actually more valuable if they ration themselves out and are more valuable when they are a little unavailable. But there are other unicorns that are self made. Wildly talented actors that are not only good at what they do, but they want to work 24/7 to help the movie once it’s in the marketing cycle. In fact, they would work 25 hours a day if they could, they get it, and they want it. Dwayne Johnson, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds come to mind. What’s weird is I was trying to think of a female actor who fits in to this category (from the old guard), but I can’t. Who am I missing? But the point is, there are talented actors and there are talented actors that are all business. But as hard as they worked, once the movie opened, they moved on, and maybe that’s changing.
What’s comforting to see (for the future of theatrical) is some younger actors today who get it, and want to work for a film non-stop, and by non-stop, this next gen doesn’t seem to be content with calling it a day once the film is released. Two actors that come to mind right away are Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell; because we’ve seen the results of the relentless work ethic on Anyone But You; and most of it happened after the movie was released. And doing so much work post release has showed us that a ’never give up’ attitude might pay off; not only on Anyone But You, but today with Immaculate.
For those of you who missed it, one of the key drivers (beside Sony making a satisfying movie) on Anyone But You was Sydney posting a clip of her and some friends leaving a theater on the first night singing the end credit song (Unwritten) and glowing about the movie. It became a thing, and that end credit sequence became the ‘money shot’ of the movie and took on its own life. But it fed an idea that ’this is a really good movie’ and as much as it’s fun to sing and post, the quality of movie seemed to get ‘repositioned’ after opening. So the marketing before the movie opened did one thing, but the viral social events built on that and took it to a different place. If you talk to Sony they will glow about how deep into the run of this movie Sydney and Glen would do theater drop in after theater ‘drop in’, (and of course post it) to support the movie. They get it, and they are all business.
Last weekend, Immaculate opened to decent reviews, but the exits were really bad; and the two other films that weekend, Ghostbusters and Late Night with the Devil had really good exits. But this week, along comes Super Sydney and the inter webs are now filled with females looking devastated on the way out of a showing, and they are messed up for life. Of course all this started on her feed. Now we’re seeing Super Sydney’s actions pay off and Immaculate has a lower drop from last Friday than either Ghostbusters or Late Night with the Devil. In addition, I went to a screening of another movie Wednesday night at USC, and apparently they had a screening of Immaculate Monday night for about 100 people. And who took the time to come down and do a Q & A, Super Sydney; and the SC people were glowing about her professionalism. All business.
But the big takeaway here, because of where we are with social media, this is a great trail of breadcrumbs to use in the future. But it’s also nice to know we are beginning to find who the next gen is.
Anyway, with the same accuracy of an Arizona 3 point shot in the first half of a sweet 16 game*, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - As much as Godzilla gets A position in the title, this is Kong’s movie, and looking at the grosses today that’s a good thing and maybe Kong is the broader IP. I know, I know, but *Godzilla Minus One *blah blah blah…, but maybe because Kong is more ‘merican (apparently even in China, but maybe because it’s less Japanese) it’s a better IP. Sensational grosses across the board here, big cities, the fly overs, everywhere; although the West and the Southwest are way over indexing. There is one theater missing from the top theaters that we’d normally see here, the AMC Lincoln Square, and it’s coming it at #111 as of now. Why so low? Well, the big theater there (an old school IMAX) has a 70mm print of Dune Part Two playing there, and the gross in that theater for Dune would be in the top 5 for GxK, so there’s no issue there. However, that does show what the public wants and we have to start thinking about more Large Format experiences in each theater. As of now, this looks like it’s gonna end up in the high 60’s with a really good shot at 70, but if we see that Saturday over performance like we’ve seen the last couple of weeks, this might fly right by 70. But WB crushed this campaign.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - The drop from last week looks a lot like the 2nd Friday of Dungeons & Dragons (against the opening of Super Mario Brothers). Figure it ends up the same down 60% for a weekend in the high teens.
Dune Part Two - Looking rock solid today and (as usual) the 70mm and large format theaters aren’t going anywhere soon. Figure it’s down 20% or so for a weekend in the low/mid teens.
Kung Fu Panda 4 - With all the kids available today, this is way up from last Friday. Figure it’s only a little behind last weekend for a gross of about 11.
Late Night with the Devil - I keep hearing friends ask me about this film, so there’s clearly some playability here, but considering how good today should be, it’s nothing special. Figure it’s down 60% and finishes around 1.2 for the weekend.
Immaculate- Considering how bad the exits were last weekend, this should be down 80% this weekend. But it looks like it will be down less than the other films from last weekend with a gross in the mid 2’s.
;* and just so you don’t have to look that up, it’s 11%.