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

[Agent H]

I've been getting constant commercials for it on YouTube the past few days. Last night I stopped and watched the entire 60 second commercial and thought.... "Uh, that looks kind of dumb." It's definitely a movie where the ladies in HR weighed in on the storyboarding process, which never ends well for anyone.

My pop-culture radar is not impressed, and I don't have high hopes for it based off of what I've seen so far.

Which movie are you talking about?

 

[LittleBuford]

As someone who has never seen the musical and is still working on the book the music in this one sounds better than the music in the last one. And that’s saying something.

I think the consensus is that the first half of the stage show is musically stronger, so it'll be interesting to see how the film ends up being received. I agree it looks promising!

 

[Agent H]

I think that represents the quality of the attraction more than the fondness for the IP.

I actually think it looks cute but yeah there’s only so popular a turtle talk style show can be.

 

[Disney Irish]

I only learned about that phrase from The Numbers site, and I use its definition and daily updated chart that tracks such things.

Like Lilo & Stitch, which for the purposes of this conversation conveniently has entirely average legs. Not weak, at or beneath the shaded area, nor strong like some movies do going way above the shaded area in Weeks 2 through 8, etc.

View attachment 862358
View attachment 862359

Of course, now that I've posted that and the explanation they use for it on The Numbers website, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to claim that data is cherry-picked or misrepresented, or fake. Or whatever the new outrage is over Lilo & Stitch performing average at the box office thus far.

Lilo & Stitch (2025) - Financial Information

Financial analysis of Lilo & Stitch (2025) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.

thenumbers.com

A couple things that I think you miss in this explanation when reading it -

1. Its domestic only, its doesn't account for international.
2. Its based on an average of the last 5 years only. And if you remember what's happened the last 5, the whole box office has been turned on its head.

So when talking about "legs" a lot of the old rule book that people tended to use got thrown out and reset. So the averages have been out of whack because there were wide swings over the last 5 years because its a small sample size.

And here is why just using that chart doesn't work in a lot of cases in this post-pandemic world. I think we can all agree that Minecraft has been a monster of a movie this year, coming just shy of $1B it had pretty good "legs" both domestically and internationally with a fairly normal 45/55 domestic/international total split.

Well here is its chart according to Numbers -

Look at it, its "legs" according to Numbers are at the bottom of that shaded area meaning according to the site it had poor "legs" domestically during its run. But that doesn't match up with its actual domestic number of $423M domestically, which showed it actually had good legs. So it doesn't add up.

Now look at it compared to Stitch -

They look like they are tracking almost lock step with each other based on just the chart.

But.... If you drill closer and look at the daily numbers.....

Stitch has actually been tracking higher almost daily since almost the beginning, and now is $1.4M ahead of where Minecraft was at that same point. Meaning that if it continues with its "legs" it'll continue to do better than Minecraft and should bring in more domestically, ie it has good "legs".

And again none of this means anything for international as that isn't captured in that chart. And that calc you do where you take the final domestic/international of one movie already out of theaters and compare it to a movie still in theaters doesn't work as has been explained previously as well.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

As someone who has never seen the musical and is still working on the book the music in this one sounds better than the music in the last one. And that’s saying something.

That is the worst book I have ever forced myself to finish reading. The minds that translated it to the stage and the screen were brilliant to omit the screwy parts.

 

[TP2000]

Which movie are you talking about?

So sorry for the confusion. The movie that BrianLo was talking about in the quote I used there; Elio.

Are you getting a lot of YouTube commercials for it? I am. I think it looks kind of dumb. At least so far.

It's reminding me of Strange World, and not in a good way.

 

[TP2000]

A couple things that I think you miss in this explanation when reading it -

1. Its domestic only, its doesn't account for international.
2. Its based on an average of the last 5 years only. And if you remember what's happened the last 5, the whole box office has been turned on its head.

So when talking about "legs" a lot of the old rule book that people tended to use got thrown out and reset. So the averages have been out of whack because there were wide swings over the last 5 years because its a small sample size.

And here is why just using that chart doesn't work in a lot of cases in this post-pandemic world. I think we can all agree that Minecraft has been a monster of a movie this year, coming just shy of $1B it had pretty good "legs" both domestically and internationally with a fairly normal 45/55 domestic/international total split.

Well here is its chart according to Numbers -

View attachment 862371

Look at it, its "legs" according to Numbers are at the bottom of that shaded area meaning according to the site it had poor "legs" domestically during its run. But that doesn't match up with its actual domestic number of $423M domestically, which showed it actually had good legs. So it doesn't add up.

Now look at it compared to Stitch -

View attachment 862373

They look like they are tracking almost lock step with each other based on just the chart.

But.... If you drill closer and look at the daily numbers.....

View attachment 862374

Stitch has actually been tracking higher almost daily since almost the beginning, and now is $1.4M ahead of where Minecraft was at that same point. Meaning that if it continues with its "legs" it'll continue to do better than Minecraft and should bring in more domestically, ie it has good "legs".

And again none of this means anything for international as that isn't captured in that chart. And that calc you do where you take the final domestic/international of one movie already out of theaters and compare it to a movie still in theaters doesn't work as has been explained previously as well.

So, we're thinking $950 Million globally for Lilo & Stitch?

 

[Disney Irish]

So, we're thinking $950 Million globally for Lilo & Stitch?

I don't know the final numbers, or even have an accurate prediction I can make.

But... If we're basing it on JUST the domestic chart from Numbers it looks to be higher than that. It really all depends on international, because if it really tracks like Minecraft (which I believe its actually doing better both domestically and internationally) that means it'll bring in more than $100M more than domestic for international, leading to still a potential over $1B final number.

So just a guess, a similar total to Moana 2 is still in the cards.

 

[coffeefan]

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Who are these people who buy movie tickets weeks in advance?

I’m looking at the seat map of the theater an hour before the show before I commit to anything.

 

[Agent H]

That is the worst book I have ever forced myself to finish reading. The minds that translated it to the stage and the screen were brilliant to omit the screwy parts.

I started it in 2022. Was a little squicked out by “dragonsnaking” and didn’t come back to it till this year.

 

[Agent H]

So sorry for the confusion. The movie that BrianLo was talking about in the quote I used there; Elio.

Are you getting a lot of YouTube commercials for it? I am. I think it looks kind of dumb. At least so far.

It's reminding me of Strange World, and not in a good way.

It’s fine. I haven’t seen a lot of commercials for it. It looks okay. Hope to enjoy it when I go see it in person. I don’t think it will be a huge hit.

 

[celluloid]

I think stitch will get the 400 million range final domestic but I think HTTYD next week is going to steal a lot of family attention from it for it to get to past Moana 2 levels.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The official trailer is here!



I am so excited!

Gonna be YUGE

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think stitch will get the 400 million range final domestic but I think HTTYD next week is going to steal a lot of family attention from it for it to get to past Moana 2 levels.

Agreed…I think it needed to be north of $750 right now to get to the B

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

As someone who has never seen the musical and is still working on the book the music in this one sounds better than the music in the last one. And that’s saying something.

The musical is fantastic…my wife and daughter just saw it again a couple of weeks ago

I think the consensus is that the first half of the stage show is musically stronger, so it'll be interesting to see how the film ends up being received. I agree it looks promising!

…but yes…first half is definitely the highlight…they have a bit of needle to thread with the second movie. Has to be authentic but not a complete bummer

 

[Hawkeye_2018]

Still early, but is MI a disappointment so far?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Still early, but is MI a disappointment so far?

Oh yeah

 

[Disney Irish]

Still early, but is MI a disappointment so far?

It was pretty much dead in the water when it opened due to its $400M budget, but it had looked like it could salvage its way to be respectable after its opening. However at this point its going to be hard for it to get to $500M WW. Father's Day weekend will be the real test in my opinion to see if it'll make any gains at the box office, but not looking good so far.

 

[Nevermore525]

Stitch will cross $300M domestically today