Third weekend of October 2024
As expected, we’ll be a little behind last year’s total but not as much as I thought we’d be. Last year (Killer’s of the Flower Moon, re-issue of The Nightmare Before Christmas) the new films brought in a little less revenue than the new films will bring in this year, the difference between last year and this year will be mostly the gross TAYLOR SWIFT generated. So we’ll probably be behind last year by about 20%. We should get close or a little ahead next week, and the first couple of weeks of November will be a mixed bag of surplus and decay from last year. But once we hit the Glicked tm weekend before Thanksgiving, everything should change faster than tracking forecasts once they see pre-sales numbers, and we should be way ahead of last year every week.
We are seeing an effect now that we haven’t seen in a while, clutter at the box-office. This week we’ve got a sequel to a decent IP horror film in Smile 2, but this edition of the IP has a much tougher competitive landscape to deal with. 2 years ago, Smile was smartly rescued from the ‘blink and it’s gone’ release strategy of a platform drop, and the upgrade paid off handsomely for Paramount. But 2 years ago, Smile didn’t have nearly the clutter in the same genre space and even getting close to the same results of 2 years ago would be a great accomplishment this time. 2 years ago, the films Smile had to compete with were Bros, week 2 of Don’t Worry Darling and week 3 of The Woman King; so nothing went at the core for Smile. This time around you have the (unrated) batshit crazy Terrifier 3, plus the box-office energizer bunny of The Substance (also batshit crazy), so anything close to the original gross would be a major accomplishment considering the headwinds of the marketplace now.
As we get back to normal, we’ll see more of the clutter, but before the shutdown, clutter was normal. It will be interesting to see something like Venom next week; 3 years ago for the release of the last Venom, they had nothing going on the weeks before the release; in the 3 weeks before it opened the 4 new films produced $19 million in opening weekend gross. This year the 9 films opening in the 3 weeks before them will total close to $100 million in opening week gross. So any judgement between the two films is not valid, it’s just not the same marketplace.
Even though we have a lot of little movies each week that don’t seem to be doing much, as cluttered as that seems, those should eventually add up to something. We’re at the place in the sector where week after week we have small indie movies that gross less than a $1 million, but there’s 3, 4 and 5 of them each week. It might seem like much, but having selection each week breeds habit, and we really need to see those habitual moviegoers come back. Those $500k grosses could become $700k then $1 million, but it keeps people coming. And since a lot of those films are part of the floundering specialty film sector, we’re gonna need those baby steps to rebuild it.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy, efficacy and quality control as a test screening invitation served up to an old white guy in the South Bay for a rom com in Alhambra, and spells both of the names of the Oscar Winning lead actors wrong in the invitation; here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Smile 2 - Really nice start on Opening Day yesterday, and it looks pretty good today. Sequels like this that feel way too similar to the previous film can be a slog to get open, but Paramount did a really nice job here. The sweet spot for this film is Los Angeles, so we’ll have to see how Los Dodgers have an effect on today’s numbers, but for now this looks like a repeat of the $23 million Smile did, which considering the tougher marketplace, is a win.
Terrifier 3 - After a sensational start last week, this looks pretty good today. For something as severe (it’s unrated) as this film, there was the possibility it would run through the core and it would drop like a rock today. But the weekdays have shown some (severed) legs today, and the drop from last week looks pretty encouraging. Figure it’s off about 50% from last week for a gross around $9 million.
We Live In Time - A24 expanded off the successful exclusive engagement last week, going 1000 runs this week. It’s really good, but what’s interesting is where the better theaters are; they’re upscale but not necessarily all NY and LA. It’s Boston, Chicago, Orlando, San Francisco and Austin; so it’s broad which bodes well for the rest of the run. Looks like a really nice weekend of about $4 million.
Goodrich - Went 1000 runs and there are a couple of decent grosses in LA and NY, but they didn’t spend much money here, so it falls off pretty quickly. Figure it’s about $500k for the weekend.
Rumours - Went 600 runs, and there’s not much going on here. Looks like a weekend of about $300k.
Anora - The Palm D’or winner went 6 runs in NY and LA and it’s gross this weekend will pretty much be limited to the capacities of the theaters it’s in. But I wouldn’t rule out a psa that gets to $100k.