Screening The Releases - November 23rd/25th

[Screen203]

Last Week

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever held as number one, dropping an okay 63 percent to gross about 66 m. In second, The Menu debuted to a solid (by Searchlight's standards) 9 m, helped by an aggressive marketing campaign and solid reviews. It could turn a profit if it has good legs, which I think it might. In third, the first two episodes of the third season of the religious TV show The Chosen surprised with a 9 m OW, almost matching The Menu. In fourth, Black Adam grossed almost 5 m, dropping 44 percent. In fifth, Ticket To Paradise dropped 46 percent, grossing about 3 m. The weekend's other wide release She Said bombed with a horrible 2 m OW, after it was pretty much dumped by Universal. On the limited release side, Bones And All was the top new opener with an okay 24 k average, which is way below Luca Guadagnino's past two films, but not horrible. The Fablemans dropped 44 percent, still remaining in only 4 theaters, grossing a 22 k average. The Inspection underperformed with a mediocre 13 k average. The important thing to note, though, is that the weekends before Thanksgiving have had mixed results for limited releases in the past few years, with films like Waves and Dark Waters underperforming. A bright spot was EO, grossing 12 k in only 2 theaters despite being a very niche film.

This Week

Strange World



This Thanksgiving weekend is uneventful to the point even a Disney animated move can't save it. Strange World basically has zero buzz and a very muted marketing campaign. Reviews, while not terrible, aren't as good as last year's Encanto, and overall this seems to have much less appeal. Any hope of a surprise success faded when it debuted to a mediocre 800 k last night.

It should gross about 30 m for the 5-day, and 20 m for the 3-day. I imagine it gets to 65 m in total.

I see it getting 6-7 Top 5 points, 3-5 PTA points, and a score in the 5-6 on IMDb.

Don't take it in Box Office or Ultimate.

Devotion



Sony really dropped the ball with marketing this one. It easily could have benefited from the huge success of Top Gun: Maverick to become a hit over Thanksgiving weekend, if there was a larger marketing campaign. Reviews, while not great, aren't bad either, and war films tend to be popular. I don't get why this is being borderline dumped. But because it is, don't expect anything from it (it opened to a not-great 610 k PTA, about on par with Allied from 2016).

I see it grossing 8 m for the 5-day, and 5 m for the 3-day. It should get to about 25 m in total.

I see it getting 2-3 Top 5 points, 0 PTA points, and a score in the 6-7 range on IMDB.

I wouldn't take it in Box Office or Ultimate.

Other Notable Releases

A few other notable releases this week include a one-week sneak preview of the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion (which isn't likely to report box office) and the wide expansions of Bones And All and The Fablemans (I don't expect much from either, but the latter could have a solid run if WOM builds, despite its likely poor initial wide expansion). In limited release, the Golden Lion-winning doccumentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed opens in one or two locations to a likely solid PTA - I don't believe it is in the game, but if it is, it is a strong choice in Ultimate.

Top 5

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - 60 m 5-day, 40 m 3-day
Strange World - 30 m 5-day, 20 m 3-day
Devotion - 8 m 5-day, 5 m 3-day
The Menu - 7 m 5-day, 5 m 3-day
Bones And All - 6 m 5-day, 3 m 3-day

PTA

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Strange World
The Fablemans
The Menu

Next Week

Join transformers as he covers the potential sleeper hit Violent Night, and the limited release of Spoiler Alert. Until then, enjoy Thanksgiving!

[Buscemi2]

We're already getting doom and gloom about this week's box office but should we be surprised? None of the new movies looked good and their marketing wasn't very strong.

The simple solutions are to 1. don't make movies only studio executives and angry white guys want to see and 2. learn to promote them. Maybe Avatar will be an early step towards following both these.

[Buscemi2]

Cinemascores (so far):

Bones and All: B
Strange World: B

I have to imagine we'll get a Devotion Cinemascore by Sunday while The Fabelmans and Glass Onion were most likely not polled.

[transformers2]

A B might as well be an A+ for Bones and All. While it's not quite as artsy as Guadagnino's other work or graphically violent as it could've been given its subject matter, it's still a slow, often extremely bleak horror romance with a sizable existential streak.

[Buscemi2]

There have been industry suggestions that Chalamet's fans might have skewed the score upwards. I don't think it's going to be like Barbarian or Smile where it overcomes the lower score and becomes a word-of-mouth hit.

[transformers2]

Yeah, it would be very surprising if it transformed into a sleeper hit, just kind of surprised that its exits were that strong.

[Buscemi2]

Lionsgate must be kicking themselves for not making a deal for Glass Onion. It's looking at a $9 million five-day weekend, well ahead of the openers not named Strange World.

[numbersix]

What's interesting about Glass Onion is that it proves to Netflix that they can release an original in theatres and make some extra money off it (rather than their usual approach of dumping a film in a few theatres to please the film-maker, like what happened with The Irishman), and we could see a greater effort made. This will also help them considering they're losing subscriptions, so a duel model might work.

[transformers2]

What's interesting about Glass Onion is that it proves to Netflix that they can release an original in theatres and make some extra money off it (rather than their usual approach of dumping a film in a few theatres to please the film-maker, like what happened with The Irishman), and we could see a greater effort made. This will also help them considering they're losing subscriptions, so a duel model might work.

Agreed. Considering how much money their current business model loses them, doing something like this from time to time would help their bottom line while also boosting the product-needy exhibition circuit. That being said, Ted Sarandos was extremely dismissive of the idea of having more Glass Onion-style theatrical releases in the future when somebody asked him about it on their last earnings call. Maybe its strong showing over the 5-day holiday stretch (its current estimate of just under $13 mil in less than 650 theaters is excellent) will force them to reconsider.

[Buscemi2]

$12.8 million would be a higher five-day than any Lionsgate title this year (their biggest first five days for any film in 2022 was Moonfall's $11.4 million in nearly 2,800 more theatres than Glass Onion). No wonder why the company's getting spun off for a potential sale.

As for future Netflix wide releases, I have a feeling they'll use Pinocchio and Bardo's Regal-exclusive performances as an excuse not to and hope the ad-supported tier of the site rescues those margins despite said lower priced Netflix leaving certain titles off. When I went to Pinocchio on Monday, I was the only one in the theatre.

Edit: and after I said that, I found out Netflix will be replacing Glass Onion with Pinocchio at some locations instead of extending Glass Onion for another weekend.

[Screen203]

Cinemascores (so far):

Bones and All: B
Strange World: B

I have to imagine we'll get a Devotion Cinemascore by Sunday while The Fabelmans and Glass Onion were most likely not polled.

I'm not sure what score The Fablemans would get if polled. In some ways, it's not really the movie that's being advertised.

[Buscemi2]

The film industry loves movies that make themselves look good but the general public doesn't care about insider-type movies. It would have probably been an A-/B+.

[transformers2]

The Fabelmans got an A in its OW polling. Would be surprising if it didn't poll similarly in its semi-wide break, but that should remain a mystery since PostTrak also seems to have not done any polling on it.

On a related note, Devotion got an A- alongside a 92% positive score from PostTrak, so maybe it'll have some legs over the next few weeks

3-day Estimates:
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $45.9 mil
Strange World $11.3 mil
Glass Onion $9.2 mil
Devotion $6 mil
The Menu $5.2 mil
Black Adam $3.4 mil
The Fabelmans $2.22 mil
Bones and All $2.2 mil
Ticket to Paradise $1.9 mil
The Chosen $1.6 mil

Strange World has got to be the worst OW for a Disney animated title (excluding the day-and-date lockdown release of Raya and the Last Dragon) in 15-20 years right? The not exactly spectacular 2nd weekend for The Inspection appears set to top its PTA ($89k in 32 theaters) and a title playing in 4,000+ less theaters only made $2 mil less on the 3-day and $5 mil on the 5-day (with the upper hand of having Tuesday previews no less!!!). I don't think too many people were bullish on it, but it's still a shockingly bad result for the longtime bread and butter of the industry's biggest juggernaut

[Buscemi2]

Winnie the Pooh opened to fewer than $8 million. Of course, Disney didn't do much of an ad campaign after the film flopped internationally three months earlier.

But anyway, Strange World had little shot of taking off. The film looked too similar to both Up and Encanto and the ad campaign was very muted for a big budget holiday film. Also, Disney had critic reviews embargoed until a few days before opening, which certainly didn't help publicity. No wonder why Bob Iger is coming back to restore Disney's fortunes.

[transformers2]

Weekend Actuals:
1.Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $45.6 mil
2.Strange World $12.2 mil
3.Glass Onion $9.2 mil
4.Devotion $5.9 mil
5.The Menu $5.5 mil
6.Black Adam $3.3 mil
7.The Fabelmans $2.26 mil
8.Bones and All $2.25 mil
9.Ticket to Paradise $1.9 mil
10.The Chosen $1.5 mil

PTA:
(Glass Onion $13,218)
1.Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $10,705
2.The Fabelmans $3,544
3.Strange World $2,911
4.The Inspection $2,781
5.Devotion $1,734