Mother's Day weekend 2025
It’s going to be a weekend pretty much as expected, and maybe a little better. I thought we would come close (but a little short) to equaling the total from the same weekend last year, which was fueled by Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ $57 million, but as in many things in our sector the supporting cast can be just as important as the lead. Even though we won’t have a lead film that will come close to Apes gross (the top 4 films last year totaled about $80 million), the top 4 films this year should total about the same, and the day players from #5 on down the call sheet are stronger this year, so we won’t lose much ground (if any) off the surplus we’ve built up over the last weeks. Next week is looking more and more promising and we should end up a little ahead of last year, but then Memorial Day should crush 2024’s weekend (maybe as much as doubling it). But it will actually get better from there, the week after Memorial Day in 2024 had one of those open dates we’ve seen every once in a while since the shutdown, and the highest grossing new film was Haikyuii!!! The Dumpster Battle at $3.6 million, and we have a shot at tripling that weekend this year. If we want to get back to a place where we have a solid core of ’habitual’ moviegoers, it’s not just a question of getting films open, it’s the staying power of the following weeks, driven by satisfying consumer experiences. Because of the strong holdovers week after week, we’re doing what it takes to get that consumer behavior back (although we could really use more Art Film Infrastructure in LA and NY, so please please please come back Arclight Hollywood), so if we can keep this up the future truly is looking brighter.
As you all know, this weekend is Mother’s Day, and if we have a female (especially older female) movie in theaters it will be a great day. But….we failed there and it will be a pretty good day but no one took advantage of the marketplace accelerator.
As we pull ourselves out of the first quarter market dip we experienced, and I keep hearing confusion about where the sector is going, I want to remind you of a simple math issue. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we’re still experiencing some ‘supply chain issues’, and I’ll put this in manufacturing terms, because that little 3 word phrase seems to be fine for eggs (and apparently now Barbie) but not our sector. The norm timeframe from the beginning of the manufacturing process (Greenlight) to hitting the store shelves (the release date) is about 2 years. And just getting to the manufacturing phase (the development process) is at least a year (on the fastest of fast tracks) and can go on much longer. So let’s do some math here; what was going on two years ago? The strikes and the paralysis that went with them; and before that we were just starting to recover from the pandemic market forces.
So if you figure that a normal film takes 2 years in some sort of development/financing and then 2 more years of production/post production/marketing, the films we’re looking at today started somewhere in 2021/2022. You remember those years, right? The streaming wars were forcing the streamers into buying any movie script with a pulse (and often overpaid for it), theaters were restricted to low capacity, WB had their entire slate day and date with Max+, it was a shitshow. And then the cycle got disrupted by the strikes, so the fact that we have movies doing what they are doing now is a testament to the resilience of the artists and execs that make all this happen.
But there’s another reason we might be seeing more quality in the theatrical sector now; oversight and human interaction. Bob Iger said something a while back that hung with me, he thought the dip in Marvel quality was due to the Covid restrictions on set; and because those productions are so massive and elaborate (plus the Marvel folks are really good at understanding those characters), it’s takes a village to get the quality they kept achieving (pre Covid), but one side of the village couldn’t hang with the other during the Covid restrictions. And since Marvel takes a lot of big swings with Directors that haven’t done a film of that size, the village adds the knowledge to make it work. But human interaction is key too. I’ve spoken to many of you who see that being in a room with artists or execs (depending on which side of the game you’re on), is more productive than a Zoom call. From development meetings to casting sessions, those subtleties of human interaction seem to result in better work. So the transition from WFH to BTO might be one of the reasons we’re moving in the right direction.
I know I’ve said some of this before, but it doesn’t seem to stick. We had the mantra of ‘survive till ‘25’ and we made it, but when you consider the actual time frame it takes to get a movie into theaters, we probably shouldn’t expect full normal until 3 or 4 years after the strike was settled; so ‘26 or ‘27 because we’ve got to work through the supply chain issues.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy of a Newark Airport arrival time, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Thunderbolts: The New Avengers - The high exit polls and critical score is showing up today (in addition to no new substantial films in the marketplace), and this looks like a hold at the high end of what we see in week 2 from Disney/Marvel. It looks very similar to the hold of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol III on week 2, that also had no new movies and Mother’s Day in the weekend, so figure this is down a similar 50% for a gross in the high 30’s.
Sinners - Still looking solid today, and since Mother’s Day can play a little downscale, this film should get a nice boost Sunday. Figure a weekend in the mid 20’s.
Clown in a Cornfield - Went 2200 runs and it’s got some decent numbers for a small indie, but it’s pretty coastal and much better in LA than anywhere else. Looks good enough for about $3 million.
Shadow Force - Also went 2200 runs and looks decent in the AA theaters but it’s a different story where there’s not a strong AA population. Looks good enough for mid 2’s.
Fight or Flight - Another 2200 run break, but only good enough for about $2 million.
Friendship - They went exclusive in 2 theaters in NY and 4 in LA. And for those of you who haven’t experienced the comedy of Tim Robinson, it’s a wild experience. This Fifth Season (through A24) comedy is clearly touching a nerve and the numbers are exceptional across the board; this looks like it’s headed to a massive psa of $70k or so.