BvS Batman V Superman Box Office Prediction - Part 1

[Noctis]

plus look at the OW of the last 3 weeks before FF7, a bunch of $50m's and 60m's for home, Cinderella, insurgent etc. 2016 could mirror that with Warcraft, KFP3 etc, so FF7 proved that OW before BvS wont affect it.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/?view=releasedate&chart=&month=3&yr=2015

 

[Pickleweasel]

Best scenario for Warcraft is a 75 mil OW, 35 mil second weekend, and 17 mil 3rd weekend (when BvS is released)

17 mil is nothing.

 

[mclay18]

The final numbers for Furious 7 are $147.1 million for the Easter weekend. Pretty sure BVS will eclipse that by at least $8M-$15M next year...

Like SPIDEY said a few pages back, March and April aren't dump months anymore. $152M for the first Hunger Games, $95M for CA:TWS and a whopping $147M for Furious 7.

Not to turn this into a BVS vs. CA:CW debate, but the former is going to have serious breathing room compared to the packed May 2016 schedule facing the latter.

 

[Charlatan]

275 mill opening weekend.

 

[Jonwo]

Warcraft probably will be at $10-15m by the time BvS is released but given the poor track record of video game adaptations, it's hard to predict how it could do.

 

[Rocketman]

275 mill opening weekend.

It's definitely not impossible - especially with 3D and if they have the widest release ever.

Man, things are going to get VERY interesting with Star Wars, Avengers, and Justice League, and even Avatar. Records could very well be made and broken from month to month. No one will hold any title for long. It's literally just billions of dollars being thrown back and forth until 2020.

 

[Marvin]

It's definitely not impossible - especially with 3D and if they have the widest release ever.

Man, things are going to get VERY interesting with Star Wars, Avengers, and Justice League, and even Avatar. Records could very well be made and broken from month to month. No one will hold any title for long. It's literally just billions of dollars being thrown back and forth until 2020.

Never(ever) bet against James Cameron.
Though things could get tricky with more and more movies jumping into his early winter leg room.

 

[fake]

275 mill opening weekend.

That is pretty much impossible. There isn't enough theater capacity/ticket price inflation currently to push one movie to that figure.

The highest grossing weekend overall to date was Christmas 2009 which grossed 257M combined for all movies. To gross 275M OW, a movie would literally need to be the only game in town i.e. be on around 4500 theaters. Have all holdovers be dead i.e. grossing less than 10M and capture the zeitgeist in a way no movie has done to this day.

If on average, we take theaters to have 6-7 screens, then with a 4500 theater release, a movie would need a movie to basically be sold out on each and every screen to even have hope for such a number.

A realistic OW for BvS is in the 150-160M range which gives it great hopes for legs throughout April, especially since April is empty and it wont lose IMAX till Civil War.

 

[Aejej]

BvS would have to be a straight up bad film to not make at least a billion. That being said, it doesn't matter if it "beats" CW in the box office. I hope it does, though, if not just to diminish some of the DC hate.

Indeed. The confirmed/rumored characters appearing in BvS are enough to lock in half that much alone. So the other half simply hinges on it being a well-made film. I certainly don't think it will lack for action. Whereas the next few Marvel films are going to be sourced pretty closely from the books, I'm very curious to see how much of BvS is Dark Knight and Birthright material balanced with new content. It's the CM film I'm most looking forward to in the next 12 months.

 

[GreenKToo]

I won't be surprised if BvS does at least 170 mill ow, possibily more.
It all Depends on how well they market it. The hype is already there anyway, just give it a little push and the opening records could fall.

 

[Noctis]

i did hear on AMC movie talk that WB plan to spend about $2 billion a year in marketing DC movies
they say it right about 2:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDc-S3wzwp0

 

[STARMAN]

I might be more interested in this movie's second week performance. Most point to Avengers opening weekend but I find myself more impressed with it's second weekend of 100 mill with about a 50% drop.

 

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

i did hear on AMC movie talk that WB plan to spend about $2 billion a year in marketing DC movies
they say it right about 2:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDc-S3wzwp0

Campea misinterpreted that. WB spent 2 billion+ a year on marketing for their entire annual slate and plans to cut down by 10% (by using "social media" more effectively).

 

[Iceman]

That is pretty much impossible. There isn't enough theater capacity/ticket price inflation currently to push one movie to that figure.

The highest grossing weekend overall to date was Christmas 2009 which grossed 257M combined for all movies. To gross 275M OW, a movie would literally need to be the only game in town i.e. be on around 4500 theaters. Have all holdovers be dead i.e. grossing less than 10M and capture the zeitgeist in a way no movie has done to this day.

If on average, we take theaters to have 6-7 screens, then with a 4500 theater release, a movie would need a movie to basically be sold out on each and every screen to even have hope for such a number.

A realistic OW for BvS is in the 150-160M range which gives it great hopes for legs throughout April, especially since April is empty and it wont lose IMAX till Civil War.

What do you think the max for any one film (opening weekend US) is now in 2015 if somehow everything fell into place like you mentioned above? Also how close was the first Avengers to full capacity?

 

[fake]

What do you think the max for any one film (opening weekend US) is now in 2015 if somehow everything fell into place like you mentioned above? Also how close was the first Avengers to full capacity?

I have no idea of the existing theater capacity in the US, but I remember that Avengers was as close to full capacity as possible since theaters had underestimated the demand early on, by Saturday they were adding shows every 15 minutes or so.

Spider-Man 3, The Dark Knight and The Avengers all sold more or less the same number of tickets on OW. Avengers had 3D while the other 2 didn't (Box office mojo doesn't account for that). That figure seems to be the peak for ticket sales on OW for any movie in history, would estimate it at 20-22M tickets.

 

[Iceman]

I have no idea of the existing theater capacity in the US, but I remember that Avengers was as close to full capacity as possible since theaters had underestimated the demand early on, by Saturday they were adding shows every 15 minutes or so.

Spider-Man 3, The Dark Knight and The Avengers all sold more or less the same number of tickets on OW. Avengers had 3D while the other 2 didn't. That figure seems to be the peak for ticket sales on OW for any movie in history, would estimate it at 20-22M tickets.

Theoretically the Sunday number could match the Saturday's if enough people were prepared to stay up late and couldn't get into earlier shows. And Harry Potter 2 did 91m on opening Friday 4 years ago. I think depending on how many midnight shows they go with, 100m F, 70m S, 70m S should definitely be possible. That's already $240m!! Will have to see if audiences are hyped enough for those kinds of figures.

 

[mclay18]

Furious 7's weekday numbers are impressive for post-Easter. $14M on Monday, $13.1 on Tuesday... could be close to $50M by this Friday, where it'll be close to $200M domestic.

BVS should exceed those numbers just on inflation and 3D surcharges alone.

 

[dalonewolf]

If Furious 7 is going to make a billion (and it looks like it will), then BvS sure as hell will too.

Furious 7 has hit $400 million in 4 days. Can you even fathom what BvS does in 10?

When I said that bvs could hit a billion in 2 weeks people looked at me crazy but in 4 days bvs will be at 400-500 mil ww maybe even more
My prediction was 200 mil Dom and 277 foreign overall o.w

 

[Noctis]

one thing i wonder is whether or not the general audience is craving for another Batman film thanks to the success of the Nolan films, even though its a different film, theme, actor and tone then the former its still considered a batman film (with superman of course lol) so will that alone be enough to get the same box office as the TDK films, or even push that number with the added 3D and Superman & Wonder Woman?

 

[rockandrollsoul]

one thing i wonder is whether or not the general audience is craving for another Batman film thanks to the success of the Nolan films, even though its a different film, theme, actor and tone then the former its still considered a batman film (with superman of course lol) so will that alone be enough to get the same box office as the TDK films, or even push that number with the added 3D and Superman & Wonder Woman?

Yes

 

[KingKane88]

Without reading much of any responses in this thread, i will give my "Expert" opinion on what i feel this film will do...

Man of Steel i predicted 700Mil, i wasn't far off. BvS i predict 950Mil to 1.3Bill. This film is a bit more difficult to put a price on, considering the fact that we do not know how good it will be yet, but what it does have going for it is it has the all mighty "Batman" in it, a MONSTER plus coming off of the Multi Billion dollar Dark Knight franchise.

The $950Mill is a guarantee considering having Bats and Sups in a Movie together for the first time, plus WB is going to market the SH#T out of this! If you thought WB went BatSh#t crazy on Man Of Steel with the WalMart marketing, ect? WB is just going to go that much more Ape-Sh#t crazy with there marketing of BvS! I mean, i couldn't even walk into a Wal-Mart back in May of 2013 without seeing posters, signs, Twizzler and cereal packaging all having a pic of Henry on the packaging as Sups, it was insane!!!

The 1.3Bill is if it gets word of Mouth for actually being a good film, $950mill if it fails in critics eyes. Sad but true, much of the public do not know how to think for themselves anylonger and rely on others to tell them what to and how they will think of a film (And the majority of the public buys it.)

My thoughts.

 

[Marvin]

Without reading much of any responses in this thread, i will give my "Expert" opinion on what i feel this film will do...

Man of Steel i predicted 700Mil, i wasn't far off. BvS i predict 950Mil to 1.3Bill. This film is a bit more difficult to put a price on, considering the fact that we do not know how good it will be yet, but what it does have going for it is it has the all mighty "Batman" in it, a MONSTER plus coming off of the Multi Billion dollar Dark Knight franchise.

The $950Mill is a guarantee considering having Bats and Sups in a Movie together for the first time, plus WB is going to market the SH#T out of this! If you thought WB went BatSh#t crazy on Man Of Steel with the WalMart marketing, ect? WB is just going to go that much more Ape-Sh#t crazy with there marketing of BvS! I mean, i couldn't even walk into a Wal-Mart back in May of 2013 without seeing posters, signs, Twizzler and cereal packaging all having a pic of Henry on the packaging as Sups, it was insane!!!

The 1.3Bill is if it gets word of Mouth for actually being a good film, $950mill if it fails in critics eyes. Sad but true, much of the public do not know how to think for themselves anylonger and rely on others to tell them what to and how they will think of a film (And the majority of the public buys it.)

My thoughts.

Another aspect of our society(especially the cinema going ones) is the need or want to be a part of something. Water cooler talk and things like that. Furious 7, regardless of it's 'quality' has an aspect of this happening and various people are drawn to be a part of it. That initial avengers zeitgeist, the james cameron stuff. Word of mouth is an organic way of this happening but simply being an event that shouldn't be missed is another and BvS may end up having that going for it.

 

[Pickleweasel]

i did hear on AMC movie talk that WB plan to spend about $2 billion a year in marketing DC movies
they say it right about 2:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDc-S3wzwp0

They definitely do not plan on spending a billion a movie lol

 

[fake]

Did some back of the envelope calculation as to what is the maximum amount a movie can earn in a weekend. This is not about what BvS can earn, just how much a movie can earn if all things go in its favor i.e. no competition, a 45-50% 3D share, IMAX, great reviews and it gets into the public consciousness and pop culture conversation.

The widest release in history is Twilight: Eclipse with 4468 theaters. Let's take a super-wide release of 4400 theaters to make calculation easy. According to BOM, average ticket price is $8.40 in 2D, bump that by 3$ or so for 3D.

Most of the 4400 theaters are multiplexes which will play the movie in more than one screen i.e. 3-4 screens, but there will be single screen theaters as well, so let's average that to 2 screens per theater. Seats per theater is a tricky thing to try and figure out, so I will go with a number of 200 assuming the very large theaters compensate for the smaller ones.

The big releases get 5-6 shows in each of the screens they are on, lets take the lower number of 5 per screen for a 2 and a half hour movie which means the screen will run for 12 hours (but as we have seen for high demand movies, some screens run round the clock).

So, with all those assumptions, the highest a movie can earn if it is sold out on every screen throughout the weekend is:

4400 theaters * 2 screens per theater * 5 showings per day * 3 days to the weekend * (8$ *.55 + 11$*.45 ) i.e. 45% 3D share * 200 seats per screen.

which gives us a grand total of 249 Million dollars.

Keep in mind this number will fluctuate amazingly if even one of the assumptions is off just a bit. But 249M sounds like a reasonable upper ceiling currently.

 

[Lorus]

Did some back of the envelope calculation as to what is the maximum amount a movie can earn in a weekend. This is not about what BvS can earn, just how much a movie can earn if all things go in its favor i.e. no competition, a 45-50% 3D share, IMAX, great reviews and it gets into the public consciousness and pop culture conversation.

The widest release in history is Twilight: Eclipse with 4468 theaters. Let's take a super-wide release of 4400 theaters to make calculation easy. According to BOM, average ticket price is $8.40 in 2D, bump that by 3$ or so for 3D.

Most of the 4400 theaters are multiplexes which will play the movie in more than one screen i.e. 3-4 screens, but there will be single screen theaters as well, so let's average that to 2 screens per theater. Seats per theater is a tricky thing to try and figure out, so I will go with a number of 200 assuming the very large theaters compensate for the smaller ones.

The big releases get 5-6 shows in each of the screens they are on, lets take the lower number of 5 per screen for a 2 and a half hour movie which means the screen will run for 12 hours (but as we have seen for high demand movies, some screens run round the clock).

So, with all those assumptions, the highest a movie can earn if it is sold out on every screen throughout the weekend is:

4400 theaters * 2 screens per theater * 5 showings per day * 3 days to the weekend * (8$ *.55 + 11$*.45 ) i.e. 45% 3D share * 200 seats per screen.

which gives us a grand total of 249 Million dollars.

Keep in mind this number will fluctuate amazingly if even one of the assumptions is off just a bit. But 249M sounds like a reasonable upper ceiling currently.

Fascinating stuff. I'm sure the numbers aren't absolutely perfect but that's very interesting nonetheless. Thanks very much for posting!