Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Screen203
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Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Last Week

The Little Mermaid made a splash with a strong 95 m OW over the 3-day, and a 4-day of almost 120 m. While numbers haven't been as strong in every country, the showing here should be enough for profitability if it shows strong legs. In second over the 3-day, last weekend's winner Fast X dropped 66 percent over the 3-day to gross 23 m, keeping in line with the front-loadedness of this franchise. Over the 4-day, it grossed 28 m. In third, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 dropped 36 percent and grossed 20 m over the 3-day and 23 m over the 4-day, continuing to save face after a lower than expected OW. In fourth is The Super Mario Bros. Movie (In what will likely be the last weekend it has in the Top 5), dropping 33 percent and grossing 6 m over the 3-day and 8 m over the 4-day as its expectation-smashing run comes closer to a close. In fifth comes the first of the attempted counter-programming as The Machine grosses 5 m over the 3-day, and almost 6 m over the 4-day. While these numbers for The Machine are undoubtedly poor, Sony may still turn a slight profit as I believe they only distributed this. In sixth over the 3-day is another film starring a stand-up comedian, About My Father, with an opening of just 4 m, and 5 m over the 4-day despite co-starring Robert De Niro in a role very similar to some of his past comedy successes. Outside of the Top 5, in sixth is the next opener, Kandahar starring Gerald Butler. It opened to just 2 m over the 3-day, and not much more over the 4-day. These numbers are only about a fifth of his previous release Plane, which did decent business earlier this year. In seventh is probably the closest new release to success besides The Little Mermaid, but You Hurt My Feelings still didn't break out. It grossed about 1 m over the 3-day, and closer to 2 m over the 4-day, which isn't horrible in this day and age for a semi-wide release, especially one with such a small marketing campaign. A positive sign for it is that it actually increased a bit on Saturday, which is rare for these semi-wide releases that can often be quite front-loaded.

On the PTA scene over the 3-day, The Little Mermaid is number one here too with a PTA of 22 k (Over the 4-day, it had a PTA of 27 k). In second and third were Fast X and Guardians Vol. 3 with PTAs of almost 6 k and 5 k respectively (7 k each over the 4-day). In fourth is Sanctuary with 4 k (5 k over the 4-day). In fifth was The Machine, grossing 2 k over the 3-and-4 day.


This Week

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse



The sequel to the film that surprised many with its reviews and staying power is finally here, and it looks set for a huge increase. Hype has practically been building for this since the release date of the original, and its innovative style has influenced other animated films including the recent Puss In Boots: The Last Wish as well as Disney's upcoming Wish and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Additionally, I believe that its release on Netflix after theaters introduced it to a new audience that is excited to see what they missed out on in theaters the first time. Reviews have been just as glowing as the first, and Sony has been clearly very confident in it since they moved it to the summer instead of the holiday release of the first. The only question at this point is how high it can climb.

I expect an OW of 110 m, and a total of 350 m, though I think this is likely to be an underestimate.

It will get you 15-20 Top 5 points, 10-15 PTA points, and a score of 8 on IMDb.

I would highly recommend taking this in both Box Office and Ultimate.

The Boogeyman



This seemed to have much more promise a few months ago when I selected it in the draft than now. The more mixed than expected reviews definitely don't help, as with the somewhat muted marketing campaign. But I think the biggest issue is that it looks a bit nondescript. While the trailer has a few effective scares, it looks very similar to a lot of other supernatural horror films (while it is a well-made trailer, the initial teaser trailer is very reminiscent of the Scott Derrickson underperformer Deliver Us From Evil from about a decade ago, though Insidious - and Poltergeist before it - seem to be the main influence), and with the latest installment in the aforementioned Insidious franchise coming out in a month, I see many skipping this and seeing that instead. I thought that Stephen King's name would offset some of the generic feeling of the advertising, but it doesn't seem like his name is drawing much more buzz to this despite the reception of the short story this is based on.

I expect an OW of 12 m, and a total of 30 m.

It will get you 2-3 Top 5 points, 1 PTA point, and a score in the range of 6 on IMDb.

While there are worse choices, I still wouldn't recommend taking it in Box Office or Ultimate.

Past Lives



If there is one arthouse release not directed by Wes Anderson that will do well this summer, this is the one. Buzz has been extremely high since its Sundance premiere, with glowing reviews and many people saying it is likely to be one of the best films they have seen all year, and right now a Best Picture nomination seems almost locked. While A24 doesn't always reach as wide of an audience as their vocal fanbase may lead you to think, they do add name recognition to a title in limited release almost no other studio can. While I'm not sure it will keep up the amount of hype it has now when it expands, right now I expect it to be a big of a deal as it can without a lot of arthouse-only theaters in NY/LA.

I expect a limited OW of around 200 k, for a PTA of 50 k. I don't know it's expansion plan, but a wide OW of about 2 m at least seems like a safe bet. In total, I expect about 10 m from it, but that could change if it really catches on.

It will get you 0 Top 5 points, 15-20 PTA points, and a score of9 on IMDb.

I would definitely recommend taking it in Ultimate, and it's not the worst choice in Box Office either.

Top 5

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - 110 m
The Little Mermaid - 40 m
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 - 13 m
The Boogeyman - 12 m
Fast X - 10 m

PTA

Past Lives - 50 k
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - 26 k
The Little Mermaid - 9 k
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 - 4 k
The Boogeyman - 4 k

Next Week

Join six for a look at Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts and not much else.
Last edited by Screen203 on June 1st, 2023, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Isn't six writing next week's column?
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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transformers2 wrote:
June 1st, 2023, 4:00 pm
Isn't six writing next week's column?
I think I got the dates mixed up - he is.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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While I do agree that The Boogeyman is going to underwhelm relative to what the expectations for it were once it pivoted from streaming to theatrical, it should be able to clear $30 mil without any problem. There's not another pure horror movie coming out for a month and the WOM should be respectable enough for it to put up at least a 2.5x multiplier off its expected low-to-mid-teens OW.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Preview totals:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $17.4 mil (2nd best ever for an animated film behind Incredibles 2)
The Boogeyman $1.1 mil
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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It's going to be interesting to see how Across the Spider-Verse holds. A number of people at my showing hated how it ended on a cliffhanger and at least one person groaned over all of the false endings.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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It got a 5/5 on PostTrak from last night's showings and has astoundingly high ratings on both Letterboxd and IMDb right now. If it drops hard, which is well within the realm of possibility since it is a superhero movie after all, WOM won't be the cause.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Those Letterboxd and IMDb ratings will taper off slightly. Superhero movies usually get rated extremely high by fan groups early on before stabilizing a year or two down the line once non-hardcore fans get around to them.
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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I don't know how the cliffhanger ending will affect Across The Spider-Verse. I think there was already a lot of pent-up demand on opening weekend considering how long it has taken to come out, and there was somewhat of an initial air of disappointment when "To Be Continued..." flashed across the screen after nearly 150 minutes, but people seemed to get over it quickly and there was a decent amount of applause afterwards.

As for today, I imagine it will have a solid hold - the theater was very close to sold out, which is something I rarely have seen in over a decade of going to this theater (It was more full than the opening Fridays of The Little Mermaid and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, both of which were also pretty full).
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Weekend Estimates:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $120.5 mil
The Little Mermaid $40.6 mil
The Boogeyman $12.3 mil
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $10.2 mil
Fast X $9.2 mil
The Super Mario Bros. Movie $3.3 mil
About My Father $2.1 mil
The Machine $1.8 mil
You Hurt My Feelings $770k
Kandahar $765k

-Past Lives $232k

PTA:
Past Lives $58k
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $28k
The Little Mermaid $9k
The Boogeyman $4k
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $3k
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Re: Screening The Releases -June 2nd

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Weekend Actuals:
1.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $120.7 mil
2.The Little Mermaid $41.4 mil
3.The Boogeyman $12.4 mil
4.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $10.7 mil
5.Fast X $9.6 mil
6.The Super Mario Bros. Movie $3.4 mil
7.About My Father $2.1 mil
8.The Machine $1.7 mil
9.You Hurt My Feelings $770k
10.Kandahar $750k

-Past Lives $232,266

PTA:
1.Past Lives $58,067
2.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $27,977
3.The Little Mermaid $9,580
4.The Boogeyman $3,855
5.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $2,983
BRING BRENDAN FRASER BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN DAMN IT
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