Labor Day weekend 2024
It’s going to be a pretty typical quiet weekend at the box-office, Labor Day has always been hit and miss historically, but we’ve had a couple of years where decent sized IP’s have landed on this weekend and thrived. And that’s an interesting question, since we’ve seen films of size do very well here, why isn’t Labor Day a ‘destination’ date similar to other holiday weekends like Memorial Day, Presidents Day and MLK weekend? As usual the reason is ‘well, we always do it this way’, and just like a lot of other aspects to this business (and I face this thinking on a daily basis), that line of thinking often leads to mediocre results.
The reason we avoided Labor Day was because it was traditionally the end of Summer, and the majority of Schools were starting right after Labor Day. So with all that social clutter related to the start of a new school year during the first two weeks of September (after Labor Day), no one wanted to release a film on Labor Day when the business fell off a cliff for a couple of weeks right after. The first two weeks of September used to be the 51st and 52nd grossing weekends of the year, and only films that had nowhere else to go landed there. But then WB changed all that with It back in 2017, opening to $123 million on what was traditionally the worst grossing weekend of the year. Of course, events like that told us ’there are no bad weekends anymore’, but there might be another factor here that makes us rethink Labor Day.
School calendars have changed significantly over the last 20 years, and the calendar where you started a semester the day after Labor Day, took a two week break for the Christmas Holidays and took finals at the end of January just doesn’t exist anymore. But we seem to think that’s still the case. K-12 starts school in mid-August for the most part, and by now everyone is back in school, same with Colleges. So it’s interesting why this weekend isn’t at the top of the release date shopping list, especially since it’s produced a really good gross recently; Equalizer 3 grossed $35 million in 3 days last year and Shang-Chi grossed $75 million in 2021. We really need to rethink this weekend, it certainly should be considered the same way we treat the other holiday weekends.
Because we only have a couple of minor films this weekend, we’ll be way behind last year (Equalizer 3, Bottoms); and even though we’re going to be 20% or more behind last year, the overall total is pretty low so it’s not like being behind 20% in July. But we’ll be back in the plus column next week, and we’ve got a fall ahead of us that has weeks with 3, 4 and 5 wide titles each week, so it’s getting back to normal.
Anyway, with the same accuracy of cards from a preview screening where everyone got paid $30 to be there (and goes twice a week for the extra cash), here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Deadpool & Wolverine - Everything is taking a step back today with school’s all back in, except this film. Looking rock solid today, should be down only 25% or so for a 3 day in the low teens, and a 4 day in the mid teens.
Alien: Romulus - Down a normal 50% for a 3 day around 8 and a 4 day of around 10.
Reagan - As you would guess, this is great in the red states (and Huntington Beach), but the critics really beat this up, currently at 19%. The exits are a lot better, and as usual we’ll have to see which measure has any effect on the rest of the weekend. It looks like a 3 day of around 7 and a 4 day of 9 or so.
Twisters - Interesting story here. The 4D theaters (with the moving seats and the atmospheric effects) are always very good on a film like this, but when it left those theaters (for Deadpool) there was apparently demand. They brought it back for one week only this weekend (with a show of the original Twister as well), and it’s selling out every show, the grosses are sensational. So this might be another way to fill these slow gaps in the release schedule if there are other films that would suit this format nicely. If it wasn’t 3 hours long, Horizon might have been better here, but even 90 minutes on a horse could be a lot; although all that motion could have helped keep audiences from going to sleep. Or maybe we could use this to do some good in the world and It Ends with Us in 4D could be part of a court ordered program for Convicted Domestic Abusers. The ideas are limitless. This is going to be way up this weekend and might end up at 6 or 7 in 3 days and 8 or 9 in 4 days.
Afraid - Not much going on here for this Sony AI (it’s about AI, not generated by AI) Horror film, looks like 3 in 3 days, mid 3’s in 4.
1992 - One of the only two films that didn’t get crushed by the critics, obviously this is much better in LA than the rest of the country. Went on 900 screens and looks like it’s headed to about $1 million in 3, 1.2 in 4.
City of Dreams - Went 800 runs and looks like $900k in 3, a little over $1 million in 4.