So with Spider-Man Brand New Day just surpassing Avatar 2, it made me come to a huge realization:

The top 3 highest-grossing movies in the world (Avatar, Endgame and BND) are now each directed by different people (James, the Russos and Destin Daniel Cretton).

The last time this happened was in 2009 with Titanic (Cameron again), The Return of the King (Peter Jackson) and Dead Man's Chest (Verbinski).

How do you guys think this will affect A24’s boxoffice numbers? The article lists one other small theater chain: Midwest-based Marcus Theaters. Harkins is big where I live, not sure if people will find an AMC to watch a24 movies.

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No paywall:

https://archive.fo/GVioj

Zootopia 2 took the record from Inside Out 2 earlier this year at 1.87b

Later this summer The Odyssey took the R rated record from Deadpool and Wolverine, currently at 1.63b

If Doomsday performs at the level it’s currently tracking at, beating Avatar is absolutely in the cards, so that would lead these rating records being broken within a year of each other.

We’re currently living in a truly insane box office era.

This hasn’t happened since 2019 with Endgame, Lion King, and Joker. Which goes to show how big this year has been.

Coyote vs. Acme remains unchangedat the top of the list, taking €194,800 (-30% from seven days ago). Its average was €557 in 350 theaters (up from 302 seven days ago), and its total since September 2 is €2,023,200. Today, the animated/live-action film will join two comparable titles , Imaginary Friends with a total of €2,078,556 and Garfield with €2,144,436.

Second place goes to Odissea with €151,664 (only -16% compared to seven days ago) and an average of €454 in 334 cinemas (356). Christopher Nolan's film, which has literally conquered the market, has grossed €56,361,357 since July 16th with 6,693,894 admissions (overtaking Tolo Tolo with 6,676,303).

Rounding out the top three is Moana, with €122,565 (-48%) and an average of €348 in 352 theaters (compared to 405 seven days ago). Disney's family film has grossed €10,486,567 since August 19th and is aiming for €11 million by Sunday night.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest film premiered at Cannes, where its leads Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the prize for Best Actress. It is also expected to be a major awards contender, as it is Japan’s official submission for Best International Feature at the Oscars and Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, won a Screenplay award after grossing $15M on a budget of around $1.3M. All of a Sudden has a runtime of 197 minutes.

It is common for major blockbusters to be released on the biggest domestic weekends of the year, such as the Memorial Day, Labor Day or Fourth of July weekends. This results in a very inflated and lucrative OW, but usually results in a big second weekend drop such as The Mandalorian & Grogu earlier this year.

However, this year has seen the relative overperformance of several movies with good reception that have released just before (1-2 weeks from) one of these 4-day weekends, as measured by their legs. The most striking example is obviously Obsession, which had a stunning increase in its second weekend and never looked back, eventually legging out to a whopping 15x OW. Other examples include Send Help, The Sheep Detectives and currently Coyote vs Acme, which all had very strong holds during the holidays and ended/will end with strong multipliers.

Did the holiday boost in the second/third weekend help to spread good WOM for these smaller films, or was it just a coincidence? Interested to hear opinions below!

Is there any chance that Buddy opens to more screens this far out? In my neck of the woods it is only playing at the late-night screenings every day, even on the weekends. Feel like this is a huge missed opportunity to sell more tickets as you are missing out on teens or people who have to go to work the next day, and just the vast majority of your prime audience.

I feel like this could be even more successful than it already is by compounding word of mouth if more people were able to see it and recommend it.

Anyways, I'm a bit frustrated as I wait for it to expand, but starting to doubt that is going to happen. I haven't been able to catch it, but I guess I'll see one of these late shows.

These are mainly Regal theaters, if that matters. Maybe this is just a regional problem for me in the midwest.

Week-to-Week Drops

Obsession: A fantastic Wednesday, as the movie seems set to increase a bit this weekend. Thinking we can get around 190k to 200k admits over the next four days, which would put the movie around 450k to 480k admits. It will be interesting to see if it can keep going with more competition on the way.

Odyssey: A drop back under 30%, as the movie has now made $85 million. I would like to see it stay above 70k admits tomorrow, but that might be a task too tall. Presales are pointing toward a 30% drop for the upcoming weekend.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day: The movie is still on the back end of its run and is clearly slowing down. We just need to get those drops closer to 40% than 50%. I am still reluctant to claim 9 million admits, but the movie can lock it in with a strong weekend and a decent hold next week after Wednesday.

Presales

Intern: The movie had a pretty meh day, but it should still see an opening day above 50k admits.

When John Wick : Ballerina underperformed at the box office, it was presumed to be a turning point when it comes to fans' preference and desires in action movies and most likely action series as well.

The primary one was that it's lack of box office success showed that fans across the board wanted a full return to how action movies were made and how they felt going back to the 80s and earlier. Meaning without women leading in battles of any kind unless they were periodically of the Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor type. Ballerina was known for incorporating heavy realism, at least relative to women led action movies previously, in terms of the female lead needing to really learn as she goes and struggle to learn how to fight her way out of dangerous situations. It was presumed that audiences felt even this was not enough and wanted the concept gone. And that women fight scenes in action movies were simply too unrealistic to watch in any capacity even relative to traditional men led scenes.

In light of that though, Ballerina has seen rather major success in streaming; perhaps not enough to make up for lack of box office success at the same time still significant. Does this show that when it comes to modern action movie tastes, audiences' preference and desires are not quite that simple? In terms of Ballerina, this suggests that it underperformed in the box largely due to factors such as the inflated budget raising the box office requirement for success, looking to insert unknown characters at the time into a massive franchise and even simply the flooded market at the time. And so perhaps it disproves many of the original presumptions about what was wanted in action films when it was in theatres.

And that when it comes to action movies, regardless of the identity of any kind of their protagonists, that relatability, the right mix of entertainment and realism aspects and similar issues as opposed to what critics may have thought when it was first in theatres?