First weekend of May 2024
Okay, welcome to the Summer Movie Season, or maybe we should call the 2024 version a Summer Movie Season tribute band. Last year on this weekend, Guardians III did its usual 9 figure opening; and because we won’t have anything even close to that massive IP this weekend (it’s always the movies, not the health of the business), the total this weekend will only be about half of the total of the same weekend in 2023. Because the new films on the 2nd weekend in May were pretty soft in 2023 (Book Club: The Next Chapter, Hypnotic) and we have a big IP (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) opening, we have a decent shot of at least matching (and possibly beating) the same weekend from 2023. The week after that might be competitive too, so any of these weeks where we can stay close to last year is good, but we’ll still have the juggernauts from last year like Super Mario and Barbenheimer which will put us behind. But we’ll take the little victories we can get until we get to the end of the year, when things should get better.
I seemed to have touched a nerve a couple of weeks ago when I talked about tracking, but most of the noise was coming from people outside the studio system who get tracking forwarded to them. I heard from a few of you again this week because of The Fall Guy, and a few of you seemed to think (again) that the tracking was way better than the forecasts that were being put out. But hold on here, two points on that.
When tracking was created in 1988, it was intended to let you see how your campaign was landing and you could adjust, and Joe Farrell resisted giving forecasts, saying it was not intended to forecast opening weekends. But in order to get everyone to subscribe, he gave the market what it wanted and we now have all the tracking services interpreting the tracking, throwing a dart, and coming up with a forecast. And as someone who fronted tracking for 5 years, no matter how many times I said ’this is not what it’s built for’ the response was always something like ’then why are we paying you so much money?’. So, I threw the dart week after week (and I’m a pretty good dart thrower), but it is what it is and even though it wasn’t built to forecast openings, that’s where we are. But should we still be thinking that way?
The technology has evolved in this sector enough that most theaters (the ones that matter anyway) have reserved seat advance sales, and for the most part, when films come on tracking they are either already on sale or are about to go on sale. So we now have hard sales data (that when correctly used), should be a much more reliable forecast as we get closer to release. As an industry, we need to evolve into paying attention to that, instead of poll based measures that require you to throw a dart, and reportedly the tracking services are now using that data as well for their forecasts. But you still need measures like tracking to look at how consumers are reacting to your campaign, so you can adjust. This isn’t chicken and egg, this is Chicken and a KFC Value Bucket, one is a result of the other. So it’s okay for a studio to obsess about tracking, because they are trying to figure out what they are doing right and wrong, that’s what it was built for and they need it. But if you’re part of the peanut gallery that obsesses about getting tracking forwarded to them, maybe start obsessing about getting the presales forwarded to you, it’s a better measure.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy of a multi-year contract to coach the Lakers, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
The Fall Guy - Universal really worked their asses off on this film, and it seemed like they were everywhere, especially on the publicity side. The movie looked fun and had a lot of scope, and seemed like a fun ‘popcorn’ movie. But sometimes movies have elements that can get in the way of breaking it out big, and there was one aspect of this film that bugged me from the first trailer. As I kept seeing materials for this film, I kept saying ‘why is all this happening?’, and I never quite understood the story idea. I actually felt the same way on the first trailer for Bullet Train, and I never understood who was chasing Brad Pitt (and why). In the case of The Fall Guy, he’s a stunt man, he’s doing a lot of (really impressive) stunts and he might have something going on with Emily Blunt, ……and then?
Usually when a studio as accomplished as Universal is sells a movie this way, it’s because it takes 3 or 4 sentences (and sometimes paragraphs) to explain the idea (and even after that you might shrug), so I’m guessing that was the issue here (I haven’t seen the movie yet) so the stunts, stunts, stunts, plus some chemistry fireworks between Ryan and Emily was the best course to take. Why is that important? It all comes back to that same pesky issue; tagalongs. Since the IP for this film is iffy at best, this weekend’s gross is a direct result of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s IP (star power), and because of the good results here, it shows they are towards the top of the food chain these days. If there had been some sort of elevator pitch story idea Universal could lean into, the net casts wider and you start getting moviegoing consumers outside of the star fanship here, and the easiest way to get a purchase from them is if one of the star’s fans invites them. I’d be interested to see if the exit polls show an audience that’s mostly single and couples, with very few groups of 3 or more.
The grosses today are pretty good and it’s playing just like a big city action picture plays, and it’s not quite as coastal as I thought it would be. Right now it actually looks a lot like Bullet Train, so figure a weekend around 30. But since it’s an adult male skew, if it has a larger than normal bump tomorrow there could be a slight upside off that. But a gross like this, where the equation of Ryan + Emily + an IP no one under 60 has even heard of getting you this kind of result isn’t half bad; considering where we are with star power these days.
Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace - The hyperactive 8 year old from the* Star Wars* family got a re-release for what’s become the traditional Star Wars Weekend. Why? Because of the punny date of May 4. May the fourth be with you…get it? get it? ughhh. The grosses are really good today and you’ve got to figure they’ll have a good day on the punny fourth tomorrow, and this could get into the high single digits.
Challengers - Seems like this film got into the social conversation this week, and the results are showing today. This looks like it’s going to have an outlier hold if these numbers this afternoon hold up all weekend. At this point it looks down an impressive -40% for gross in the low 8’s.
Tarot - Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and it looks like the digital only campaigns we’ve been seeing from the Indies like A24, Neon and Bleecker Street have got some studio’s attention. This PG13 horror film didn’t spend any TV, and it’s right in line with what we normally see from the Indies. As I’ve said before, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep; so this strategy was probably the best path to profitability. Considering this film currently has a single digit RT score, that path makes sense. Looks like a weekend of about $4 million.
I Saw the TV Glow - Went Exclusive in NY/LA and NY is a little better than LA, but they’re both pretty good. Figure a psa in the high 20’s.
Wildcat - Went Exclusive in 2 runs in NY and Century City here in LA; NY is pretty good but LA is terrible. The NY grosses should get the psa into the high teens.