THB #686: Box Office Delusional

I really, really, really had no interest about writing about another shitty weekend at the box office this week.

Simple math… it’s the 3rd weekend in a row under $100 million overall at the domestic box office and worse, these 3 weekends have all been under $80 million… the most recent 2 both under $55 million.

We have had only ONE $100 million weekend in our first ten of the year… last year, we had 3 in the first 10 weekends… because March was loaded, in great part because of the strikes and movies that were moved out of 2023 into March 2024.

That said, we are slightly ahead of last year as of March 9 ($66 million), but behind 2023 (by $119 million).

But we are about to see those numbers looking much worse, as the balance of last year’s March line-up included Kung Fu Panda 4, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. This year, the hopes are riding on - weekend by weekend - Novocaine, Snow White and the A Working Man/Woman in The Yard.

Even if Novocaine overperforms and Snow White is stronger than anticipated, CinemaCon, the first weekend of April, is going to be loaded with anxiety… even with a loaded summer on the way.

And studios are blaming everything on earth other than their programming choices.

Which brings me to why I am writing today.

It’s not just Anthony D'Alessandro (who is more attractive than his current smile-free Deadline photo)… I keep seeing all these crazy rationalizations for what has long been the presumed unavoidable box office failure of Mickey 17.

Deadline - “Sad Weekend For Lofty-Priced, Original Sci-Fi Fare With ‘Mickey 17’ Opening To $19M+, But There Are A Few Things To Keep In Mind”
Variety - “'Mickey 17' Struggles Against Big Budget”
The Hollywood Reporter - “Box Office: Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Mickey 17’ Opens to Sluggish $19M in U.S. Launch - sub-hed - The Warner Bros. film, starring Robert Pattinson, still won the weekend despite coming in on the lower end of expectations.”

Let me give Pam McClintock a little love for writing a reasonably sober piece about the weekend without making excuses for the weak performance of a movie that the studio has been hanging onto, looking for the right dumping ground, for over a year.

She quotes my 30-year-industry pal Paul Dergarabedian (going back to when the weekend numbers were faxed around town) in the piece…

“The best way to assess the overall performance of the theatrical marketplace is to take a broad view rather than allowing a few lackluster weeks to spark sweeping negative pronouncements of the long-term health of the entire industry,” says Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “All that being said, buckle up because ‘25 is set to be roller-coaster of a ride and with some major peaks on the horizon, things will bounce back as they always do.”

I have to disagree with Paul a little… in that it’s not a few lackluster weeks. The Majors have released just 8 films this year-to-date. Universal released 3 of them, Sony and Warner Bros, 2, and Disney, 1. Nothing from Paramount, which has their first next weekend with Novocaine.

It’s a frustrating list.

For instance, the number of Paddington in Peru looks underwhelming… but the film is going to pass Paddington 2 ($41m) in the next week to 10 days. But it doesn’t seem likely to come close to the original release of Paddington ($76m domestic). Sony’s other release, One Of Them Days, seems like it did pretty good as it crawls along now to $50 million.

But both of these films feel - and it isn’t quantifiable without being in Sony’s meetings and budget sheets - like Sony took soft swings, given the potential of both really well-liked films to do at least 50% more than they will end up doing… the beneficiary (through no fault of their own) being Netflix, which has Pay One for Sony. I’m not saying the marketing wasn’t good… just that it wasn’t as aggressive as would seem to fit these films.

There is this constant micro/macro thing about the industry these days. In the big picture, does it matter that these two films combined could have added another, in my guess, at least another $50 million at the box office? If one assumes my guess is reasonable, was it worth risking another $20 million ($10m each) on these films in order to get a rental return of an added $25 million?

Get out that conceptual slide rule. How much would an added $25 million gross at the domestic box office for these 2 films mean in actual dollars paid by Netflix on the Pay One deal? How many dollars would be affected in physical media or VOD?

While we are all wrestling over how we personally feel about this movie or that - what is the CinemaScore? … what is the Rotten Tomatoes number? - the math that is going on with the people who actually control the films that are being made and released, is much more simple. It’s about risk aversion and ego. Risk Aversion means that they would rather Not Lose than Win, unless there can be a rationalization that the Win could be huge… which is why we live in a market dominated by repetition. (Of course, the myth of rampant originality in the past remains… but another discussion for another day.) Ego means that once The Majors “win” the freedom to shorten the windows, Ego will into allow them to easy retreat from the position, even incrementally.

We should all be thankful, in a way, for Kilar’s Folly, taking Warner Bros day-n-date. It was such a clear failure that it pushed everyone off of the idea for the next couple decades at least. People still underestimate what a failure it was… in part because the theatrical side of it, in the midst of COVID, helped keep theaters afloat. But the life preserver that saves your life when you are floating in the ocean can weigh you down dangerously when you are back on firm ground. And that is what became apparent to the entire industry. Only Jason Kilar got sacrificed. (Well, he took a bunch of people down with him… but let’s not linger on that.)

A lot of people in the exhibition community are pissed at Adam Aron at AMC, as the biggest exhibitor, for dragging his feet on demanding that distributors expand the extremely short theatrical-only window that made some sense during COVID and is clearly too short at this point. But he seems ready to pivot. The question is whether he is ready to say, “No… I will not play your movies with a 19-days-to-PVOD window.” If AMC and Regal simply put their foot down, the window would expand back out… and almost all exhibition would follow.

And you know what? If there wasn’t an improvement in the market, the plan could be renegotiated again. Everyone needs to be serious and flexible. Things do change.

I have mentioned Companion before… Warner Bros cut the movie’s throat as it gained word of mouth by dropping theaters from 3285 to 1062 in the 3rd weekend. And the movie only dropped 39%!! Against Captain America! So Warners put it on PVOD and took another shot at the film’s carotid artery and cut the screen count from 1062 to 663 in Weekend 4. That pretty much ended it. Were they trying to kill the movie?

I have to say, Universal, whose release structure format WB was playing with, has not shown itself to be that callous and self-destructive.

But they froze a movie, Love Hurts, in a less aggressive way… but with a similar result. A weak opening of $5.8 million on 3055 screens. But hey… the film held the 2nd weekend, dropping only 28%. Now, to be fair, the film was marketed to the Valentine’s Day holiday. Still, on the third weekend, a 636 screen cut (21%) and the announcement that the film was going to PVOD just after that 3rd weekend… leading to a 74% drop in weekend business. And a cut from 2419 screens to 1212 the next weekend… then 264… and it was over.

With due respect, the “well, PVOD and VOD don’t change the theatrical trajectory” are just lying to themselves.

Wicked went a whole 6 weeks before Universal strangled it in its very beautiful and successful crib. No one argues with a $424 million domestic gross after 6 weekends. I get that. But when the studio decided to take advantage of the New Year’s holiday and release the film on PVOD on Day 40, the result was the biggest PVOD payday in history. $70 million. Exciting… I guess. $70 million PVOD is about the same as $90 - $100 million in the return to the studio from theatrical.

But again… bring out the conceptual slide rule. How much money was left in that Wicked theatrical run and how much would waiting to, say, January 28, to go PVOD have eaten into that record-setting PVOD gross? Could/Should they have had it both ways?