Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Disney Irish]

Sinners is the most impressive hit of the year. Coogler stands alongside Nolan as the most impressive of this vanguard of newer filmmakers.

If only Disney had a project produced by its creator in the can, ready to drop in a little more than a month. Would be great to promote such a project, especially if it ties in to the future of the MCU.

I mean, surely they wouldn’t be giving such a project the Echo treatment.

Ask and you shall receive -

 

[Disstevefan1]

And in an example of theaters getting panicked about its future amid a slow 2025, AMC is introducing 50% Wednesday's at the height of the summer season, ie they don't have any faith in 2025 bringing in bodies -

Discount Wednesday: AMC Theatres to Dramatically Slash Movie Ticket Prices Beginning July 9

The offer will kick in during the busy summer season amid the release of event pics including 'Jurassic World: Rebirth' and James Gunn's highly anticipated 'Superman' reboot.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

And remember its the theaters that set the ticket prices NOT studios.

I see this good for theaters, as been said on these boards, theaters are in business to sell concessions, more bodies, more concessions sold.

 

[Disney Irish]

I see this good for theaters, as been said on these boards, theaters are in business to sell concessions, more bodies, more concessions sold.

I think you're missing the forest through the trees here. A deep discount like this means they are worried they aren't going to get enough consumers through the door to cover costs, ie they are worried about the bottom falling out of theatrical. Pretty soon it'll be discounts during the week and only full price on weekends just to get consumers back.

 

[Phroobar]

I think you're missing the forest through the trees here. A deep discount like this means they are worried they aren't going to get enough consumers through the door to cover costs, ie they are worried about the bottom falling out of theatrical. Pretty soon it'll be discounts during the week and only full price on weekends just to get consumers back.

I see nothing wrong with that. They've always had different prices for different showings. An afternoon showing was cheaper than an evening show.

 

[Disney Irish]

I see nothing wrong with that. They've always had different prices for different showings. An afternoon showing was cheaper than an evening show.

True, matinee shows were cheaper. And then they added discount days, so it used to be just Tuesdays were discount days all day. Now they've added a second day, and I've seen talks about more. This shows they aren't getting the bodies in the theaters they expect, ie they are worried as ticket sales continue to dwindle year-after-year.

 

[Phroobar]

True, matinee shows were cheaper. And then they added discount days, so it used to be just Tuesdays were discount days all day. Now they've added a second day, and I've seen talks about more. This shows they aren't getting the bodies in the theaters they expect, ie they are worried as ticket sales continue to dwindle year-after-year.

There isn't a lot of movies that are must see events lately. Hopefully Lilo & Stitch, HTTYD and Fan 4 will draw them in. Theaters were packed for the weekend ROTS re-release.

 

[Disney Irish]

There isn't a lot of movies that are must see events lately. Hopefully Lilo & Stitch, HTTYD and Fan 4 will draw them in. Theaters were packed for the weekend ROTS re-release.

I agree that 2025 has been bleak so far in terms of releases. But this isn't a new trend in terms of declining ticket sales, its been declining for years (even before the pandemic). Something that we've talked about in this and other threads over the last couple years. Some want to deny it, but the trend is clear. If things don't improve 2025 will look to bring in the same as 2022 or lower which outside of 2020/21 when theaters were just reopening would be the lowest in the post-pandemic era.

 

[brideck]

There isn't a lot of movies that are must see events lately.

Not aimed at you, just using your words because it's convenient. The transformation of movies into "must see events" instead of just a thing you go do is what's going to kill theaters. Either that or tickets will have to be priced at "event" levels accordingly. If people think it costs too much now...

 

[DKampy]

This looks hilarious, by the way. I hope I can catch it while it's out. Made for less than $1m, it's already made a profit after having the biggest opening for an IFC release (bigger than last year's Late Night with the Devil).

The bit with the rotary phone in the trailer is absolutely hilarious….especially since I recently had my 16 year old niece say when running across one…. “ what kind of weird phone is this

 

[Agent H]

Nah.

View attachment 858571

Counter example. Inside out 2.

 

[Phroobar]

Not aimed at you, just using your words because it's convenient. The transformation of movies into "must see events" instead of just a thing you go do is what's going to kill theaters. Either that or tickets will have to be priced at "event" levels accordingly. If people think it costs too much now...

I think they need to bring back the $1 theater that plays movies from years ago. Those things were fun to see a cheesy 80s movie.

Harkins plays classic old movies on tuesday nights for $5. Tonight they are playing Pretty in Pink.

 

[BrianLo]

Or, for those at home who like to use the blanket 2.5 X Production Budget to get to their numbers, here's how that looks so far this year...

Top line number using that equation is that in mid May, Burbank has lost $617 Million at the box office so far this year.

Captain America 4: 2.5 times the production budget of $180 Million = $35 Million Loss
Snow White: 2.5 times the production budget of $270 Million = $473 Million Loss
The Amateur: 2.5 times the production budget of $60 Million = $59 Million Loss
Thunderbolts: 2.5 times the production budget of $60 Million = $50 Million Loss???

The more nuanced breakdown of domestic vs. overseas numbers we use here in the TP2000 Global Command Center show a loss so far this year of $407 Million. But the blanket 2.5 X Production equation shows a much bigger loss so far, with Snow White really causing more damage, and nets a total loss of over $200 Million more at a $617 Million loss.

Are you sure you guys want to use the 2.5X equation this year? It might help the cause to use the Global Command Center equation instead.

View attachment 858522

The Numbers - Where Data and the Movie Business Meet

The Numbers provides detailed movie financial analysis, including box office, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, and release schedules.

thenumbers.com

You accidentally forgot to divide by two at the end and doubled everything. It would be a 308.5M loss with what you’ve proposed for Thunderbolts.

As I said just run your equation, but don’t use a theatrical marketing budget of 50%, but 25% (for the theatrical window and ignore the other half spent post theatrically) and you’ll get the same result.

 

[BrianLo]

Timely. Here's the numbers using the actual formula recommended to you by Brian Lo a few times. [He can correct me, if I've gotten it wrong.] For fun (and because we're all about comparisons here, right? <taps thread sign>) I threw in the top 30 grossers at the BO so far in 2025, so y'all can see what most movies do re: profits and eyeballs.

To get the kind of numbers that Disney needs re: eyeballs takes a big budget and with that comes a whole lot more risk re: profits. Only 3 out of 12 movies with a budget of $40m+ have hit so far this year with Disney being 0 for 4.

View attachment 858524

One big hit and Disney's back in the black for the year, even with Snow White sitting there. Disney has a lot of scratch cards left this year, as they do every year.

Yup! That’s right, that even includes TP’s strong preference for 60/40’s splits, which I think is perfectly fine by me. Sometimes they are unusually split and it makes a difference.

 

[brideck]

I think they need to bring back the $1 theater that plays movies from years ago. Those things were fun to see a cheesy 80s movie.

Harkins plays classic old movies on tuesday nights for $5. Tonight they are playing Pretty in Pink.

We've got a local multi-purpose theater (live music, lectures, old movies, etc.) that'll play old stuff, but I think the cheapest it gets is $9 (adults)/$7 (kids) for Saturday matinees. This month's series is Star Wars eps 4-7.

Our local 2nd run theater when I was a kid was $2/ticket. That'd be equivalent to your $5 price point today. AMC's "fan fave" rate when they get old stuff is somewhere in that $5-$7 range, I think, at least around me.

 

[DisneyWarrior27]

Nah.

View attachment 858571

One example does not make my statement untrue.

 

[brideck]

One example does not make my statement untrue.

That example might (just might) have had some other cultural headwinds going against it, too. Unless we think it's perfectly normal for reasonably entertaining movies to pull in a 1.6 rating on IMDb these days.

Tha Realest did say that there wasn't a strong correlation between trailer views and box office, which <shrug> I have no idea. Has anyone done studies or collected data? I'd have to believe that a greater number of positive impressions would lead to a higher box office. The trick is figuring out how many positive impressions there are versus haters and/or meme impressions (like with Morbius).

 

[BrianLo]

I’ve found very incidentally when they smash the trailer views, there is some strong correlation to demand or excitement. But that level isn’t 120M for live action film, it’s more like 200-300M+ for Disney live action.

150-175M is a good barometer for their animated films. Snow wasn’t really “impressive” as it were.

Incidentally when Disney has bragged about it on their corporate website are all the times they’ve had billion dollar films. It’s merely a metric, with some mild positive predictive value.

 

[Disney Irish]

One example does not make my statement untrue.

Just take it with a grain of salt, as the saying goes correlation is not causation. Meaning that just because something has a high number of views doesn’t automatically mean it’ll get higher ticket sales. And reverse is true as well, a high number of view could lead to more ticket sales. Bottom line we’ll have to wait and see how it shakes out.

 

[easyrowrdw]

And just real quick, Brian Lo had done this previously hundreds of pages ago, but here's checking the formula being used against Deadline's tail of the tape for the four biggest bombs of 2023.

View attachment 858534

Deadline had these as:
Marvels -$237m
IJ 5 -$143m
Wish -$131m
HM -$117m

Pretty dang close, no? And all we had to do was use a better formula. No waiting months to get official word, etc.

Are deadline’s numbers based on just box office or box office plus all the other stuff that comes later (digital sales and whatnot)?

You accidentally forgot to divide by two at the end and doubled everything. It would be a 308.5M loss with what you’ve proposed for Thunderbolts.

As I said just run your equation, but don’t use a theatrical marketing budget of 50%, but 25% (for the theatrical window and ignore the other half spent post theatrically) and you’ll get the same result.

I’ve long heard that marketing costs can be reasonably estimated at half of the budget for major movies. We’re saying it’s now 25%?

 

[Ayla]

I’ve found very incidentally when they smash the trailer views, there is some strong correlation to demand or excitement. But that level isn’t 120M for live action film, it’s more like 200-300M+ for Disney live action.

150-175M is a good barometer for their animated films. Snow wasn’t really “impressive” as it were.

Incidentally when Disney has bragged about it on their corporate website are all the times they’ve had billion dollar films. It’s merely a metric, with some mild positive predictive value.

Watching a trailer on youtube is passive and free. Going to a theater requires energy, time and money.

Views on trailers rarely correlates to box office.