Second weekend of September 2024

It should be another good weekend at the box-office for this time of year, thanks to Beetlejuice we’ll be way ahead of the same weekend last year (A Haunting in Venice). With a substantial IP dropping next week ( Transformers) plus 2 other wide films, we’ll probably double 2023’s same weekend total next weekend, so we’re making strides each week.

Anyway, based on something I heard (on TV) during an episode of Top Chef: Springfield involving fast food (the surprise ingredient was Greyhound), here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - Looks good this weekend, the strong playability combined with not much new in the marketplace should keep this a little better than the -55% norm for a 2nd weekend of this size. Figure it’s down 50% for a weekend (which in the true 3 day to 3 day comparison, is only down 44%) in the mid 50’s.

Speak No Evil - Hey, I know you, didn’t you guys used to be Blumhouse? Ever since the smash hit Five Nights at Freddy’s, it’s been Night Swim, Imaginary, Afraid and now Speak No Evil. This is an illustration of how tough this business can be, and everyone goes through a rough patch; but in this case they don’t spend a lot of money on these films (except for Exorcist: Believer), so it’s not like they’re losing money, there’s just not making the usual boatload with each film. This isn’t bad for what it is, but it’s nothing special, figure it ends up at $11 million or $12 million for the weekend.

Am I Racist? - As we continue to explore new ways of activating consumers to theaters, we’ve seen examples of an online ecosystem that can be exploited, driving consumers to the theaters. Angel has done a good job of engaging consumers to a type of film that they would go to a theater for. Now, the Daily Wire has ventured into content; up until now mostly films that have ended up streaming, but now they are wading into the theatrical market. Since getting these (mostly) non-moviegoers to the theater is a question of touching a nerve they are concerned (pissed off) about, Sound of Freedom and child trafficking for example, it takes a hot button issue to generate sales. The issue here is DEI, and they seem to have found an issue that gets people to theaters. They went 1500 theaters and the numbers are very good, and (not surprising) the theaters leading the pack are MAGA strongholds. Figure they end up with a weekend of $4 million or so.

The Killer’s Game - This film is a really good example of where we are with Actor IP, and how tricky it is theatrically. Dave Bautista has had a really nice career as an actor, and after a breakout role in Blade Runner 2049, he has shown he can hold his own in films with established stars. But his filmography is almost all driven by big IP such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Dune; and even when he wasn’t in a big IP film, he had other IP to prop him up, like Stuber* (with Kamail Nanjiani) or Knock at the Cabin (with M. Night Shyamalan). So this is the first time he’s been in a theatrical film where he’s been the sole box-office engine, and it doesn’t look like he is ready to be out on his own yet. Not that this is unusual, we just saw another massive Marvel star contribute very little at the box-office with Chris Hemsworth in Furiosa, so this is another example of actor IP and character IP not correlating at the box-office. And for a film like this, if you combine the actor IP issue with a movie idea that takes just a little too much time to explain, it becomes a tough theatrical sell. There’s probably going to be some clues in the exits for this film; generally when an actor’s IP doesn’t generate much box-office it’s a tag along issue, so I’d guess the consumers going alone this weekend is probably a pretty high number, and the group attendance is almost nothing. But that’s the challenge of theatrical these days, you need a fan ship anchor with the consumer to get a purchase, but you also need enough casual fan ship with the tag along to fortify the overall box-office. This doesn’t look like much so far, maybe $3 million or $4 million. But it’s not like there’s a ton of choices for action stars out there these days, so you might as well take a chance on an actor who’s a good actor, and has been in some big movies. We’ve at least evolved to a point where we don’t take a chance on an actor with iffy Theatrical IP, and then try to shove it down the consumer’s throat with a $20 million TV buy, that was happening 5 years ago.

My Old Ass - MGM/Amazon went 7 theaters exclusive in NY, LA and (this should be the norm) Austin. It’s a little better in NY than LA (mostly because there are Q and A’s in NY), but Austin is a little better than LA, so Austin is clearly showing it belongs. This should end up with a really nice PSA of $25k or so.

*not Scott