First weekend of December 2025
Thanks to the beautiful gift the folks at Universal are giving us this weekend, we’re probably going to have the biggest weekend after Thanksgiving ever. Even though we had a really good first weekend of December last year (Interstellar reissue, Y2K and Werewolves), that was mostly due to the runaway success of Moana 2 and Wicked, but this year we’ve got a film opening this weekend that’s going to gross at a level I don’t think I’ve ever seen on this weekend. As I mentioned last week, this is usually a weekend where you release a film that needs a theatrical release, but has a very short shelf life, so it fits perfectly on a date like this where it’s going to be replaced in the theaters in a couple of weeks by one of the Christmas releases. And an IP like Five Nights at Freddy’s is perfect for that type of release slot, the first film opened to $80 million and grossed $3.6 million on weekend #4. Next weekend is going to be all about the holdovers as well, and depending on how Zootopia and Wicked hold up will dictate whether we meet last year’s similar weekend gross, but at this point it looks like we’ll be a little short. From that point on for the rest of the year, it looks like the surplus/deficit aspect might come down to the difference between Avatar this year vs. Sonic last year, the rest of the slate looks very similar.
As a yearly tradition, I’ll point out that we’re coming into a unique time of year where everything will open to less than you think. Starting this weekend, think of your own schedule as we ramp up to the holidays and how hard it is to schedule anything. So this is a really tough couple of weeks to get consumers to theaters, especially older consumers. I always think of the behavioral aspect of consumers when it comes to moviegoing, the consumer has a ’to do’ list and we need to get high enough on that list to generate a purchase. That’s why IP fanship makes such a difference in Theatrical, the higher your fanship, the more you’ll prioritize going to a theater and it wanders up to the top of your to do list. At this time of year, that list is a bitch with shopping, parties, travel and (for younger consumers) school finals. But for the two weeks after this weekend (this weekend is more of a smash and grab weekend), once (and if) you get to the ‘golden 8’ days between Christmas and New Year’s, every night is Saturday night. And that’s why no one should panic if something opens a little light next weekend or the weekend after, the standard multiple off opening weekend for most of the year is somewhere between 2.5 and 3; but because those golden 8 days are so good, multiples off the next two weekend can wander above 5 and can go much higher based on playability. So for the next couple of weeks when you see an opening weekend gross, figure it would be considerably better if it didn’t open in the pre-christmas clutter, but it will hold up considerably better because of the golden 8.
Clearly the news of the day is revolving around the Netflix/WB deal, and there
are two factors that I would hope won’t be forgotten. The phrase ‘Consumer
Friendly’ seems to be wandering into Netflix’s positioning statements quite a
bit, and they’re being a little dodgy about Theatrical. But hopefully no one
forgets that there’s a big difference between ‘what the Consumer wants’ and
‘what the Consumer will pay’, and understanding the difference is the difference
between a good business decision and a bad one.
As we’ve compiled more and more data since Streaming grew to the level it’s at
now, the idea of sending something straight to streaming is like any other
retailer (and let’s face it, Theatrical is retail) putting everything at
clearance sale prices from day one. By starting in Theaters and exhausting that
sector of high revenue per consumer, then going to PVOD, then VOD and then
Streaming; you’re maximizing revenue for each revenue tier (and occasionally
getting the consumer to pay for your content more than once) and you’re leaning
into the idea of what consumers will pay. And maybe since Netflix is pretty
technologically advanced, they can take advantage of that technology to make
windows more fluid than they are now, and if something is either super
successful in theaters or it’s DOA, they can adjust the length of the window for
each tier until they’ve wrung every last bit of revenue from that tier.
But there’s a second factor with this proposed deal we need to think of, Amazon and MGM. Amazon, similar to what Netflix does now, had the same bullshit theatrical strategies before they bought MGM. But when they bought MGM (along with the substantial library), they bought a seasoned and experienced Marketing and Distribution team. Once they had that team in place (and hired a few more people to beef it up), they pivoted to a robust theatrical strategy (and 2026 looks very promising for them) to take advantage of the newly acquired personnel. I’ve always wondered about Netflix’s theatrical strategy, and they did things that way because they had no idea how to do it, and just didn’t see the point in building it; and let’s face it there’s a very small pool of people that can get it done. So now they get an exceptional (just look at the year they just had) Production, Marketing and Distribution talent pool that understands the unique challenges of the Theatrical sector. If you’re paying an insane amount of money for something, why would you shut it down? Especially since Netflix is at the very edge of how many subscribers that they can still acquire, wouldn’t additional revenue streams for films be a good thing? How much extra revenue would K-Pop Demon Hunters*, Frankenstein or Wake Up Dead Man have generated in the theatrical sector if the WB team had marketed and distributed it? As we’ve seen for the last couple of years, films that have a theatrical run do better once they get to a platform, and run circles around the titles that go straight to the platform. Does Netflix want to cede that high ground to Amazon?
There are a lot of startup ideas that have blossomed over the last 10 years or so, and by starting with the idea of ’what the consumer wants’ to grow it, and then pivoting to ‘what people will pay’ is the difference between success and failure. Just look at the rideshare and food delivery sectors, they built a consumer base using VC money to subsidize revenues at a hard to pass up price point, and the ones that were able to generate revenue based on what the consumer can pay succeeded, and the ones that couldn’t survive the price raise, didn’t. In this case, the extra revenue streams just come with the deal and it’s just there for the taking; the films that deserve the extra revenue of pre streaming tiers can generate it and those that can’t….won’t. So by just using what you’re buying, you’re growing the company.
But going back to the positioning statements from Netflix so far, it’s been ‘well, we’ll consider the Theatrical aspect’; and that might be a product of their normal reflex where (for some reason) they think theatrical is a competitor. Of course it could also be a product of everything moving so fast after ‘wait, what? we won?’, and the spin doctors haven’t weighed in yet. But if they don’t start talking about embracing Theatrical very soon (and it might be too late already), there’s only one other reason for this purchase; it’s to get a bigger share of the market to raise prices. And because of the regulatory issues that raises, if they don’t pivot quickly you might as well start calling this the Big Beautiful Buyout, and everything they say from now on will sound like complete horseshit.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy as a Younghoe Koo field goal [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/stzZ8RtuA98], here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 - There’s a couple of interesting things going on here; first of all the grosses here are really good and the fanship seems to like this film as much as they did the first time, no matter what the critics thought. But because this is really good it highlights what a massive mistake they made by going day and date with the first film. When you go day and date, the people who paid for it in theaters, and then realized they could have it for free felt burned. And that’s probably why this is only about 70% of the first film, a decent part of this fanship probably thinks this is on Peacock again. But this is still amazing to have on this weekend and looks somewhere in the 50’s.
Zootopia 2 - It’s actually holding up a little better today than Moana 2 did on weekend #2, but figure it’s down 60% for a weekend of about $40 million.
Wicked for Good - Definitely not holding up like Wicked did post Thanksgiving, looks down 65% for a weekend of about $20 million.
JUJUTSU KAISEN: Execution - Looking like one of the better Anime IP’s, but as you know, sometimes these run out of gas really quickly. As a hipshot I’ll say about $6 million to $7 million, but we’ll have to see how deep this audience goes tomorrow.
Hamnet - Expanded to 700 theaters and in the markets where they were doing good last week, the expansion theaters are also pretty good. But the theaters they took last week are holding up pretty good today, which is a good sign for long term playability. Looks like $2.5 to $3 million for the weekend.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair - Went 1100 theaters and where it’s good, it’s very good but I’ll be interested to see how this plays out over the weekend. This is a 4 1/2 hour experience, so theaters only have 2 shows a day. Unless this falls off the table tomorrow looks like maybe $2.5 million for the weekend.
Fackham Hall - This Spinal Tap for Toffs went 1100 runs and there’s not much going on. Looks like maybe $300k or so.
- and the idea of the streaming viewership creating the theatrical success is laughable, that film would have opened to a massive number, the fanship was already there. And who knows how much better it would have been on the platform had it gone theatrical first.