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

[TalkingHead]

AMC Disney Springs needs to reevaluate their programming schedule. This weekend they’re showing Iron Claw once a day at 11:30am. This despite the fact it’s playing to 75-80% full theaters.

The only afternoon time for All of Us Strangers is open captions, which would turn off some people. The three other times are 4:00 and later.

At some point even the audiences who want to see these kinds of movies will balk at the hassle and say they’ll wait for streaming.

So when citing box office numbers as this thread is wont to do, realize there’s an element of scheduling at the multiplex that plays a part in which movies make money.

 

[erasure fan1]

I expect Luca and Turning Red to do slightly better,

If I had to guess, I'd say Luca yes, turning red not so much. I think Luca is by far the best of the 3.

The only thing that is important is if you liked the movie or not. And since you did then the rest doesn't matter

I completely agree. We talk a lot about box office and why it's important. But when all is said and done, like what you like.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Yeah, I thought this was an odd choice for them to lead the series off with, and then I realized that some cynic in marketing probably thought, "Let's put out the one with the black lead for MLK weekend. That's the ticket."

I was thinking the same thing. If true, that's a poor read on their part considering the criticisms leveled against Soul for being yet another animated movie that turns its black lead into something else for most of its run time.

Migration starting to really taper down (will it even crack $100 million? -- new IPs remain hard)

I think it will. It's over $80 million now. Trolls 3 took a long time to get there, but made it in the end.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

AMC Disney Springs needs to reevaluate their programming schedule. This weekend they’re showing Iron Claw once a day at 11:30am. This despite the fact it’s playing to 75-80% full theaters.

The only afternoon time for All of Us Strangers is open captions, which would turn off some people. They three other times are 4:00 and later.

At some point even the audiences who want to see these kinds of movies will balk at the hassle and say they’ll wait for streaming.

So when citing box office numbers as this thread is wont to do, realize there’s an element of scheduling at the multiplex that plays a part in which movies make money.

I've noticed a lot of these adult leaning movies will have three shows a day, morning, mid-late afternoon and late at night.

If you work 9-5, that's not really practical.

 

[brideck]

AMC Disney Springs needs to reevaluate their programming schedule. This weekend they’re showing Iron Claw once a day at 11:30am. This despite the fact it’s playing to 75-80% full theaters.

Yeah, this is the one that surprised me in my market, too. They had to make room for so much new stuff this week that even movies that are holding well and showing good per-screen averages got cut way back. The Iron Claw had a full screen at 5 of the 6 AMCs here last weekend and now has 5 screenings a day total this weekend between all of them. Hopefully movies like that will be able to get some screens back as things like Night Swim crash through the system.

 

[brideck]

Early projections for the 4-day weekend, courtesy of BoxOfficeReport:

Another good weekend for the two Searchlight releases. In reference to the recent conversation, I see at least a couple movies on that list that should get some screenings back next weekend, assuming Night Swim and/or The Book of Clarence get cut down a bit -- although some of that depends on what kind of deal they've made with theaters.

ETA: The lack of granularity in screen counts (which then impacts the reported per-screen average) is also a little frustrating. e.g. The Iron Claw's per-screen looks pretty poor, but it's now running on a bunch of fractional screens. My market's AMC counts as 4 screens, but the low number of screenings means it's really equivalent to 1.5 screens of a brand new release.

 

[TalkingHead]

I've noticed a lot of these adult leaning movies will have three shows a day, morning, mid-late afternoon and late at night.

If you work 9-5, that's not really practical.

The 9:45pm or later showtime for 2+hr dramas is the real head-scratcher. You add on the 25m-28m trailer package and the movie isn’t starting until well after 10:00. I don’t get it at all. There were 3.5 hr Killers of the Flower Moon screenings that started at 9:30. And they wonder why the business is collapsing.

 

[brideck]

The 9:45pm or later showtime for 2+hr dramas is the real head-scratcher. You add on the 25m-28m trailer package and the movie isn’t starting until well after 10:00. I don’t get it at all. There were 3.5 hr Killers of the Flower Moon screenings that started at 9:30. And they wonder why the business is collapsing.

As someone who goes to a lot of those 8-10 PM start times, I for one definitely appreciate their existence, but I totally get that I'm an outlier in my movie watching habits. We might go to a 9:15 of The Iron Claw tonight, in fact.

 

[TalkingHead]

Early projections for the 4-day weekend, courtesy of BoxOfficeReport:

View attachment 762859

Another good weekend for the two Searchlight releases. In reference to the recent conversation, I see at least a couple movies on that list that should get some screens back next weekend, assuming Night Swim and/or The Book of Clarence get cut down a bit -- although some of that depends on what kind of deal they've made with theaters.

Wonder if that Mean Girls number will nose dive after this weekend. Assuming Beekeeper will.

It used to be the case that Marvel movies were known for steep second weekend drops but it’s become more common: Five Nights, Color Purple (and that was front loaded on the opening Xmas day).

 

[Ghost93]

The 9:45pm or later showtime for 2+hr dramas is the real head-scratcher. You add on the 25m-28m trailer package and the movie isn’t starting until well after 10:00. I don’t get it at all. There were 3.5 hr Killers of the Flower Moon screenings that started at 9:30. And they wonder why the business is collapsing.

Those showings are for people like me who sometimes don't get off until 9 or 9:30 at night (my schedule fluctuates). On days where I have a late shift I sleep in, and sometimes after work am still in the mood to go to the movies because I slept in earlier in the day.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Soul had a per theater average of $92 yesterday. That's not a typo.

View attachment 762773

I think it was a mistake to chose this movie over other potential Disney re-releases.

This is embarrassing. Did Disney spend money to market this re release?

Is it possible Disney could lose money on this re release?

Well, wait. It’s normal for Disney to lose money on their movies….. Nevermind.

 

[TalkingHead]

As someone who goes to a lot of those 8-10 PM start times, I for one definitely appreciate their existence, but I totally get that I'm an outlier in my movie watching habits. We might go to a 9:15 of The Iron Claw tonight, in fact.

Being close to a theater makes a big difference. The drive after the film is over can make late starts unappealing.

They could remedy it easily by having alternating showtimes by day. I just remember when Killers of the Flower Moon opened it was playing something like 4:30 and 9:00. People who work 9-5 can’t make the 4:30 and possibly wouldn’t want the 9:00 given the run time. The whole system seems designed without any consideration for the fact that many people’s biggest gripe about theaters v. streaming is the convenience factor.

 

[brideck]

Did Disney spend money to market this re release?

The only marketing that I've personally seen has been pushing all 3 of the re-releases together, so I'd withhold any judgement on that front until the start of April, when they've all had their full run.

 

[brideck]

Being close to a theater makes a big difference. The drive after the film is over can make late starts unappealing.

For sure. I'm a spoiled A-Lister with 4 AMCs (among plenty of other options) within 20 mins of me, so I get it. I also probably wouldn't have bothered to get back into movies as much as I am now if I hadn't decided to work remotely and intentionally move to a Top 20 market some years ago.

They could remedy it easily by having alternating showtimes by day.

Strong agree on this, too. It's rough looking at showtimes and thinking, "Well, that's a little too early/late for me, but maybe tomorrow's will work better" and then seeing the exact same showtimes for the rest of the week. If you have enough theaters in your area, there's usually someone showing a particular movie at a time that works, but that's another luxury of a large market.

 

[TP2000]

Estimated box office is out for this holiday weekend through Sunday. For Disney, it's a weekend story of theater counts really.

Poor Things dropped another 170 theaters, now down at 580 theaters and in 14th place at the box office. All Of Us Strangers picked up 78 theaters for 120 total, and spent the weekend in 19th place. Most shocking thing is that Soul got 1,350 theaters and debuted for the weekend down in 21st place. Oof!

And Wish limps along in 24th place still with 400 theaters. Just put it out of its misery and send it to Disney+ already!

 

[TP2000]

I expect Luca and Turning Red to do slightly better, but I never understood the reasoning behind these movies selected for reissue beyond maybe making some Pixar employees feel better about these titles getting nation wide theatrical releases.

I have to imagine a big part of this (apparently failing) re-release strategy was a morale boost for Pixar employees.

I get it, they worked hard on those three movies and never got them released in theaters. The Pixar campus group can obviously blame the charmless idiot Bob Chapek for that, but they still never saw the inside of a multiplex they were designed for. Unfortunately, the audience already saw these movies for free on Disney+, and Disney already lost hundreds of millions of dollars doing it that way too back in 2020-21.

Sadly, if the debut weekend of Soul is any indication, they'll be losing even more money on top of those previous losses. Will that loss be worth it for the morale boost at Pixar? Not likely after they just announced layoffs in Emeryville a day before Soul opened to empty theaters nationwide.

Re-Release of Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Bombs at the Box-Office, 325k on Friday — World of Reel

Yesterday, Pixar started the theatrical re-releasing of its straight to Disney+ pandemic movies. First up is 2020’s “Soul,” which is screening in over 1350 theaters this weekend.

www.worldofreel.com

 

[Jedijax719]

Why would anyone go to see Soul in the theaters when it's been on D+ for 2 years???

 

[BuddyThomas]

Why would anyone go to see Soul in the theaters when it's been on D+ for 2 years???

I haven’t seen it, so I would, and I might.

 

[Tha Realest]

Poor Things dropped another 170 theaters, now down at 580 theaters and in 14th place at the box office.

Don’t they know the hugely popular Golden Globers were last weekend? Shouldn't the number of theaters be increasing, as many on here have speculated? What are they waiting for - the BAFTAs?

 

[Tha Realest]

I haven’t seen it, so I would, and I might.

Well that’s a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever heard one.