THB #313: Box Office Brady

Interesting weekend…

It was the 5th weekend of 2023. Like last year, we had 2 wide releases and 1 film just over the 1000 screen mark. Last year, the 3 titles grossed $33.7 million, this year, $33 million.

The weekend was won by Knock on the Cabin, which did a mediocre $14.2 million, not even splitting the difference between January genre openings Plane ($10.30m) and Missing ($9.2m) and M3gan’s $30.4 million.

The title with just over 1000 screens is BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas, which delivered a 2023-strong $6.3 million this weekend.

The #2 film was 80 For Brady, which grossed an estimated $12.5 million, even though it seems to have sold more tickets that Knock.

And this is where is gets interesting to me. Because a significant part of the story of 80 For Brady is Paramount’s successful effort to get many - a significant majority for sure - exhibitors to run the movie at some significant discounting through most of the weekend… and onward.

Paramount, like many other studios, believes there is some benefit in variable pricing. And while this experiment is very specifically targeted at older women, it is a crack in Pandora’s Box, not a wide opening… but a beginning.

The question remains, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or somewhere in between?

The idea has support in places you might expect it and in places you might not. One smart guy suggested that this incentive is like kindling to relight the fire underneath the segment of the audience - older people - who have been the most challenging to activate since COVID.

I am not as confident that this is true. I tend to think the film, which was well marketed by Paramount, is the activator and that potential audiences that are motivated by price are already focused on the larger bargain of, for instance, $5 Tuesdays.

The tricky part is… it is almost impossible to really know whether a ticket would have been sold without the discounting or not. Chicken… Egg.

For me, looking closely at this playing field for more than 25 years, week in and week out, my top issue is consistency. There are real pricing issues with every product, including movie tickets. But I believe, especially in the current marketplace in which most buyers of content are already confused about how to maximize their dollars to get the content they want, that too many options lead to consumer inaction.

This is a bit off the subject, but Marvel is McDonald’s, as much as it is anything. It is tasty (for those who like those flavors and proteins) and it is, above all, consistent. That Big Mac tastes the same in every restaurant across the country… eat in, drive-thru, get it delivered. When the fries are fresh, they are great… and when they are not so fresh, they are still pretty great salty, potato-y treats.

I like Marvel, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not just talking about Marvel. I am talking about all the IP obsession. “The same but different” has been the shortcut line about the film industry forever, it seems.

And McDonald’s, its fortunes rise and fall, year after year, decade after decade. The McRib keeps coming back… but it has never made the full-time menu for a reason. Breakfast All Day got shelved by COVID, but McDonald’s tested it and decided to go with it to great success. The McDLT… gone. Pizza… no. Chicken… now a staple.

Bottom line, you know what to expect. They add. They adjust. But consistency.

Movie theaters have added digital projection, better sound, stadium seating then lounger seating, IMAX, Dolby, chain-branded-premium seating, etc, etc, etc over the last 30 years. Teens were always obnoxious, but now they have phones that light up and irritate in new an special ways.

But at the same time, there has been a consistency. There is a very clear product on offer.