Theatrical Future/PVOD Thread

[Nick]

Its a wierd time. Bad Boys for life was the #1 movie last year domestically. Yeah people are hungry for the movie experience but until we get back to pre-pandemic numbers there is nothing but reading the tea leaves.

But the thing is, for this specific franchise, these are almost about as good as they could've expected pre-pandemic. One could even make the case that GvK did better opening now than if it had opened in a healthy time last year, as it would've been more easily forgotten.

GvK was truly the first big blockbuster to be released in the "vaccine rollout phase" of the pandemic and it has done pretty decently. I think by Summer, movie theaters will be at much increased capacity than for GvK and we'll be able to see where the box office stands once movies like F9, Black Widow, Jurassic World 3, etc come out.

 

[quinnmac000]

Universal cleverly using F&F to state theatres are back come see us...

 

[Nick]

Although Mortal Kombat narrowly beat out Demon Slayer this weekend, one has to wonder either what effect HBO Max had on Mortal Kombat's performance or how big Demon Slayer would've been if it had opened in more theaters.

Case/point - Mortal Kombat opened in ~3060 theaters and Demon Slayer opened in ~1600 theaters, meaning MK opened in almost more than half and yet MK almost got beat out for the weekend. MK's per theater average was $7,582 while Demon Slayer almost doubled it with $13,215 per theater.

With theaters restricting capacity and no big new releases for about a month, i'd almost expect Demon Slayer to finish with the higher box office based on those numbers, especially if the film expands its theater count.

 

[quinnmac000]

Although Mortal Kombat narrowly beat out Demon Slayer this weekend, one has to wonder either what effect HBO Max had on Mortal Kombat's performance or how big Demon Slayer would've been if it had opened in more theaters.

Case/point - Mortal Kombat opened in ~3060 theaters and Demon Slayer opened in ~1600 theaters, meaning MK opened in almost more than half and yet MK almost got beat out for the weekend. MK's per theater average was $7,582 while Demon Slayer almost doubled it with $13,215 per theater.

With theaters restricting capacity and no big new releases for about a month, i'd almost expect Demon Slayer to finish with the higher box office based on those numbers, especially if the film expands its theater count.

So anime isn't niche.....is that what we are finally admitting?

 

[Nick]

So anime isn't niche.....is that what we are finally admitting?

This is the highest grossing film of all-time in Japan first of all, so it's clearly something that was highly anticipated. However, this is the first anime to open this big domestically since Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back all the way back in 1998, and that opened at $31M.

And no, Detective Pikachu doesn't count, as that's a Hollywood movie, whereas movies like the late 90's/early 2000's Pokemon films, Dragon Ball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh were all Japanese imports, along now with Demon Slayer.

I'm not saying that the demand isn't there, what i'm saying is there isn't enough that has been released, so the sample size is small.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

So anime isn't niche.....is that what we are finally admitting?

Executives either still don't want to admit that people will see hand-drawn films or they're old fogies who still have left over "We can't let Japan take over American industries," paranoia from the 1980s.

 

[awhen]

Executives either still don't want to admit that people will see hand-drawn films or they're old fogies who still have left over "We can't let Japan take over American industries," paranoia from the 1980s.

I recently rewatched the documentary Gung Ho and find it still relevant today. I also read on Facebook the Japanese still own all the golf courses.

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

Although Mortal Kombat narrowly beat out Demon Slayer this weekend, one has to wonder either what effect HBO Max had on Mortal Kombat's performance or how big Demon Slayer would've been if it had opened in more theaters.

Case/point - Mortal Kombat opened in ~3060 theaters and Demon Slayer opened in ~1600 theaters, meaning MK opened in almost more than half and yet MK almost got beat out for the weekend. MK's per theater average was $7,582 while Demon Slayer almost doubled it with $13,215 per theater.

With theaters restricting capacity and no big new releases for about a month, i'd almost expect Demon Slayer to finish with the higher box office based on those numbers, especially if the film expands its theater count.

Funimation had IMAX secured for Demon Slayer's opening week, but because WB delayed Mortal Kombat for an extra week of Godzilla vs Kong in IMAX, Demon Slayer could only get its opening Thursday in large formats at most theaters. It's returning to many IMAXs this weekend, either sharing with MK or fully controlling it. DS should have a better hold than most recent anime titles due to this.

 

[Tobias]

Universal cleverly using F&F to state theatres are back come see us...

Seeing this kind of trailer reminds me, it's kinda funny how full circle things have come with Universal in this whole pandemic period.

When they put Trolls World Tour out on streaming, theater owners were pretty mad at them, claiming that "They will remember this!"...only for many other studios to follow suit and with varying degrees of making studios/directors/theaters mad. Yet Universal continued to release films in theaters last year, and they fared pretty well.

Flash forward to now, where signs of life are starting to return in the industry. An what does Universal plan to roll out in theaters? Another entry in a very successful series that has a big fanbase and has been pretty good at making over a billion each with the past two main entries. A universal blockbuster popcorn film, something that makes perfect sense to hedge your bets on bringing people back into theaters. If theaters want a nice shot in the arm, this is the film to have. I think a bunch of theater owners are suddenly going to forget about TWT being released on streaming...though I do notice they're irked at Disney keeping Luca on streaming since Pixar films are a easy source of box office from families.

 

[Nick]

W

Funimation had IMAX secured for Demon Slayer's opening week, but because WB delayed Mortal Kombat for an extra week of Godzilla vs Kong in IMAX, Demon Slayer could only get its opening Thursday in large formats at most theaters. It's returning to many IMAXs this weekend, either sharing with MK or fully controlling it. DS should have a better hold than most recent anime titles due to this.

Why didn't Demon Slayer delay by a week is my question, especially with no major new releases on the calendar until Cruella/A Quiet Place 2 on May 28th.

Seems odd that they decided to battle it out against each other when there's no competition right now over a month.

 

[quinnmac000]

Box Office: ‘Demon Slayer’ Overtakes ‘Mortal Kombat’

"Demon Slayer" has powered past "Mortal Kombat" at the weekend box office.

variety.com

 

[Nick]

Box Office: ‘Demon Slayer’ Overtakes ‘Mortal Kombat’

"Demon Slayer" has powered past "Mortal Kombat" at the weekend box office.

variety.com

Absolute titanic falls for both Demon Slayer and Mortal Kombat. Both opened around $22M last weekend, so normally, a healthy drop would be 50-55%.

But theses movies dropped both right at around 70%(!). Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer dropped from 23.3M and $21.1M opening weekends down to $6.2M and $6.4M.

To me, this says the movies were highly front loaded films that saw their fan bases show up, but have failed to attract other audiences.

 

[rageofthegods]

Anime movies tend to fall hard and fast, so no surprises there.

Mortal Kombat is more interesting. The article brings up something I've been thinking about re: HBO Max releases and their legs, that being that repeat business is comparatively low for streaming day-and-date releases (though that's notably not true for PVOD or Premiere Access releases). Compare the legs of Judas and the Black Messiah and Promising Young Woman, for example. Part of that comes from PYW benefitting from reopenings, but not all.

It's an R-rated actioner, so I doubt its drops were ever gonna be good, but the streaming component does seem to hurt legs.

 

[Nick]

Anime movies tend to fall hard and fast, so no surprises there.

Mortal Kombat is more interesting. The article brings up something I've been thinking about re: HBO Max releases and their legs, that being that repeat business is comparatively low for streaming day-and-date releases (though that's notably not true for PVOD or Premiere Access releases). Compare the legs of Judas and the Black Messiah and Promising Young Woman, for example. Part of that comes from PYW benefitting from reopenings, but not all.

It's an R-rated actioner, so I doubt its drops were ever gonna be good, but the streaming component does seem to hurt legs.

Repeat business is a big problem with the HBO Max day and date releases. A decent amount of people that went to see Mortal Kombat probably have HBO Max, but wanted the theatrical experience. However, now that they’ve seen it in a theater, they can do repeat watches at home, which mean far shorter legs for those movies.

And the difference between something like across doing well despite PVOD or Raya doing okay despite Premiere Access is that you have to buy those Individually, separate from your streaming service. With the day/date releases, as long as you are signed up for HBO Max, you get the movie included at the same price you were paying before you weren’t getting a day/date movie included in your subscription.

 

[Nick]

Marvel put out a big "get your ass back to the theaters" trailer and it's freakin awesome. Using Stan Lee quotes and narration to drive home the motion in this was absolute genius on their part. Putting in a clip of the audience reaction during Endgame - once again genius.

 

[quinnmac000]

In a surprise twist, first film to go to streaming for Universal is....

Universal Putting ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ On Peacock Streaming Service Theatrical Day & Date In Bold Swing

Even though Universal jumpstarted the summer box office overseas this past weekend with F9‘s $163M opening, the studio feels the need to take DreamWorks Animation sequel The Boss Baby: Family Business and put it on its Peacock streaming service on July 2, day-and-date with its theatrical...

deadline.com

 

[rageofthegods]

Genuinely shocked by this. I guess it makes sense because it's correcting for oversaturation in a challenged market (e.g. highest weekend total of the pandemic has been <60m), but it's not a good sign that studios are still opting for day-and-date this late into the pandemic.

 

[Nick]

This is about a week old news, but still worth posting. Wanda Group essentially cashed out and is no longer has majority say at AMC:

Wanda Sells Off AMC Theatres Stake for $426 Million

Wanda has had a controlling stake in the exhibition giant since 2012, but January's Reddit-fueled rally saw the company trade in its super-voting Class B stock for Class A common stock, giving up control but giving it the option to cash out.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

AMC no longer requiring masks either. I’m waiting this out, all feels far too soon.

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

AMC no longer requiring masks either. I’m waiting this out, all feels far too soon.

To be fair, most people weren't wearing masks in theaters to begin with, concessions or not. I've never seen compliance inside auditoriums higher than 50% since returning to the theater. Almost all patrons have been good about wearing a mask in the lobby though.