It’s Friday. I just got back from my second look at Denis Villeneuve’s masterful, if aggressively incomplete, Dune on a big screen. This time, it was at the AMC Century 15 Dolby screen, which I consider one of the very best in Southern California for sound, picture, and size.
But anytime it’s a Friday, it’s time for Box Office Lies… a weekly combination of making things up, spinning yarns from publicists, and projecting ideas on movies that really have little to no validity.
I apologize if this feels like a greatest hits album, but it is.
Let’s start with a classic…
Weekend Totals Based On Friday East Coast Matinees - Yes, this one was popularized by La Finke herself, who hated box office, but loved the Drudge Report link. I will admit. If those Thursday night and Friday matinee numbers are rumbling around your brain, you are unlikely to project a gross that’s dramatically wrong. But can you get within 10% on the regular? Nope. But in Tomatoe Nation (sic), no one needs any news as detailed as all that. Just a big thumbs up or down!
Previews Are A Good Predictor - In doing this section, I was actually a little surprised to find that there is this much consistency… Thursday “previews” consistently land between 10% and 17% of the weekend gross for any given movie. That said, on a weekend like this weekend, where Dune had a $5.1m preview, you have a range of between $30 million and $51 million… not exactly narrow. But I didn’t see outliers from this range.
Now, I’m just going to pull a few sentences from recent Friday box office articles.
“Halloween Kills nabbed $4.9 million from Thursday evening shows en route to a $49.4 million debut”
”Dune excavated $5.1 million Thursday… a domestic opening between $30M-$32M.”
”No Time to Die picked up $6.3 million over its Thursday and Wednesday screenings before debuting to $55.2 million.”
”Venom: Let There Be Carnage… (Thursday) night’s $11.6M previews… domestic opening at the box office with $90.1M.”
So how do these Thursday “preview” numbers correlate to opening weekend? 10%, 17%, 11.4%, and 13%.
Shang-Chi was 12%. Black Widow was 17%. F9 was 10%.
Warner Bros’ biggest releases: Godzilla vs Kong, 20% and Suicide Squad, 17%. For what it’s worth, Joker did 14% in its Thursday “preview.”
Take “preview” grosses with a grain of salt. They can lead to madness.
The Cost Of Production - Another favorite going waaaaay back. Everyone guesses and if the studio tells you, you know it’s a big, fat, alternative fact… unless the writer or director blurted it out in a junket when no one was there to shut them up.
This weekend’s magical thinking is about Dune, whose cost has become settled in at $165 million. Funny!
What’s funnier? Journalists suggesting that the whole cost of production is on Legendary’s shoulders. But Warner Media was in for 25% of production (at least $40 million) before Captain Kilar threw the year of theatrical releases overboard into the HBO Max seas. And how much now?
The rumor on Godzilla vs Kong were that HBO Max, in some formula, guaranteed a return of at least $250 million against gross minus distribution (which is allegedly what Netflix was offering). The film grossed $468 million worldwide, $189m of which was from China. This means a return to the distributor of $140m from everywhere else and about $50m from China. So, $190 million. Take 10% off the top (to Warners) for distribution. So, $171 million.
So did HBO Max cut a check for $60 million (keeping $20 million for themselves as co-producers) on top of the $127 million from the theatrical gross, to have the film on HBO Max day-n-date? Or was it more? And what of the marketing budget? Did that come from the pot or did Warners eat that to make this all work out? Most likely on the Warners tab, as Netflix wasn’t going to charge Legendary for marketing.
Also worth noting… there is more money coming into this pot. How much is HBO Max paying for traditional PayTV1, as Godzilla vs Kong returned to the streamer after a traditional 100+ day pay-streaming/physical media window?
Dune was also, it seems, made on a deal where WB was in for 25% of production. The negotiation was more complicated than GvK because this director was intensely opposed to the film co-launching on TV. At the same time, the risk was much greater… and the potential upside was much greater. Both Legendary and WB must have signed off on making the first film of the set (2 or 3?) so much about setting up the story and so light on the bigger battle. They didn’t insist on it working as a standalone, leaving the potential for sequel(s). Also, there was no a big sell-off conversation in this one. So where do you set the bottom on this one?
Here, on opening day in America, the film also looks like it’s heading somewhere similar to Blade Runner 2049… $259 million worldwide, though it looks like Dune will triple BR2049’s China gross, which would still only be about $35 million. So that’s $25m to WB Distribution, $125 million to theaters, leaving $82m for Legendary against their (ahem) $125m production spend ($27m for WB against their $40m spend). Where did they set the floor based on the HBO Max co-launch? $175m? $200m? $250m?
In other words, is HBO Max cutting a check for $70m, $112.5m or $126m?
Based on this guesstimation about their deal, if Warners is eating marketing in all this (and box office doesn’t leap), their loss would be, at minimum, $183 million ($13m vs production, $100m in marketing, $70m check to Legendary) on this title.
And I don’t think the movie cost $165 million. And marketing could be higher. And this minimum is on the low end of their likely floor.
Dare I mention that HBO Max has added just 5.5 million domestic subs in 2021 so far (not counting the lost subs from the Amazon sever)?
The math is always more complicated than presented.
Young People/Old People - Still a hot number coming off of COVID. The rationale goes that young people don’t want to go to the movies anymore. And old people don’t want to go to the movies anymore. And middle-aged people have never really wanted to go to the movies.
Even though we haven’t had a $100 million domestic opener since COVID started, we have just experienced 3 weekends in a row of the total domestic weekend gross coming in at over $100 million… which had not happened since the start of COVID. Someone was going to see Venom and James Bond and Michael Myers (oh my!).
Well, the argument moves. A recurring theme from some is that younger moviegoers are driving the box office recovery. But the problem with the Bond opening was that young people weren’t interested. And the problem with Dune is that only old people like epic sagas based on old books. But not as many old people as liked Bond. And apparently young people are too young to remember The Hobbit, the last of which wrapped up 7 years ago to almost a billion dollars. But when Peter Jackson and Walsh and Boyens reteamed to do a YA book as a movie, Mortal Engines, kids didn’t want that at all. Hmmm.
Thing is, there wasn’t a movie in the Top 20 openers of 2019 that was “adult focused” either. In The Second 25 (movies that all opened over $20 million), I count 11 “adult focused” movies. So yeah, opening a movie that has little appeal to younger people means the standard for launching is lower.
But that doesn’t explain The Last Duel opening to less than Stillwater. Sorry.
Running Time: I always love this one. Because it’s from 1988.
Movie theaters, for about 15 years now, are designed to be able to expand the screen count for the new or hot movie and reduce it for everything else. As a result, sell-outs are rare and not being about to find a screening time that fits your need is also quite rare.
It is true that if a movie is 3 hours long instead of 2 hours long, it reduces the number of showings in a day. But if you have 6 screens of an average 250 seats running just 4 shows a day instead of 5 or 6, you still have 18,000 seats to sell that weekend. The per theater average for Bond’s opening was under $13,000 or 10% (or so) of your theater’s available seating over opening weekend. Just in prime time (6p-9p Friday and Saturday), you have at least 3000 seats to sell, translating conservatively to $27,000 worth of space… but the 3-day per-theater is $13,000.
So please explain to me why you think an extra hour’s running time is keeping theaters from selling tickets? Aside from people who hate long movies.
Records: Beware lack of context. The idea that Dune’s opening is any less of a problem because Denis Villeneuve’s prior best launch was $32.8 million is absurd. And the idea that Dune will be a win for HBO Max because none of their titles have opened over $31.6 million is beyond.
The only records these might reflect are for gullibility.
Until Monday…
THB# 14: LieDay Box Office (w/ audio option)