The Force Awakens Early Star Wars 7 Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 2

[Loden Greatstorm]

So I guess I was wrong about this passing Avatar. I will need some big legs to carry it.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

So I guess I was wrong about this passing Avatar. I will need some big legs to carry it.

It's going to pass Avatar on Wednesday in North America.

If you are talking about overall, I don't know, let's see how well it does in China. As I've said before I think it's going to come in slightly under Avatar worldwide but I've been wrong before so who knows?

 

[InCali]

So I guess I was wrong about this passing Avatar. I will need some big legs to carry it.

If it follows anywhere near to Avatar from here on out, it will finish with over 1.1B. It would need about 1.6+ OS to be in the ballpark.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

If it follows anywhere near to Avatar from here on out, it will finish with over 1.1B. It would need about 1.6+ OS to be in the ballpark.

Yeah, depends on the trends. China is the key.

 

[InCali]

Yeah, depends on the trends. China is the key.

At this point, everything is the key. I wrote earlier that it appears to be holding really well internationally. If that keeps up and China comes in big, there's a shot. If I had to guess, I'd say it comes in about 300M short of 2.75, but, as I've said, I suck at this game.

 

[Erzengel]

For this to beat WW it'll need help.

I don't think that right now it can make 2.0 billion in foreign receipts, I'm not even sure it can make 1.8 even with China. That means if they made $300 million minimum in China, they would have to make an extra $1.5 billion everywhere else. That's a hard road.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Nobody is expecting 2 billion overseas, that has no chance of happening.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Speaking of overseas, international number now up to $786.1 million per boxoffice.com. That would be a hike of about $16 million since the last report on Sunday. Global total is $1.5363 billion. Needs about $130 million globally to pass Jurassic World.

 

[InCali]

Speaking of overseas, international number now up to $786.1 million per boxoffice.com. That would be a hike of about $16 million since the last report on Sunday. Global total is $1.5363 billion. Needs about $130 million globally to pass Jurassic World.

Is that the Monday number or a weekend adjustment?

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Is that the Monday number or a weekend adjustment?

They didn't say. Doubt a weekend adjustment would be that much tho.

 

[InCali]

They didn't say. Doubt a weekend adjustment would be that much tho.

Then I'd say that's pretty good news. The int'l numbers have been pretty much tracking DOM numbers. TFA clearly didn't take the hit it did here in the US/Canada. It's possible it could go over 1.1B without China. That's a steep hill, but possible.

 

[Unbreakable Lex]

Domestic percentages of all 7 Star Wars films:

APM - 46.2%
AotC - 47.8%
RotS - 44.8%
ANH - 59.5%
ESB - 54%
RotJ - 65.1%
TFA - 48.6%

I was curious why everyone thought TFA would struggle to get to the 40% domestic gross numbers most movies seem to enjoy. Those percentages above seem to show why. Of course, the prequel numbers should be used more reliably since the global film market has changed so much over the past 38 years.

That being said, I think we can assume the world wide gross to only grow about 3.5% faster than it's domestic total from here on out. I guess China will make that up.

 

[JOE]

So 2nd worldwide is pretty much a lock?

 

[InCali]

Domestic percentages of all 7 Star Wars films:

APM - 46.2%
AotC - 47.8%
RotS - 44.8%
ANH - 59.5%
ESB - 54%
RotJ - 65.1%
TFA - 48.6%

I was curious why everyone thought TFA would struggle to get to the 40% domestic gross numbers most movies seem to enjoy. Those percentages above seem to show why. Of course, the prequel numbers should be used more reliably since the global film market has changed so much over the past 38 years.

That being said, I think we can assume the world wide gross to only grow about 3.5% faster than it's domestic total from here on out. I guess China will make that up.

I don't think ANY of those numbers are particularly relevant. The international market has undergone dramatic growth over the last 11 years since RotS was released. Those domestic numbers for 1-3 are a result of the incredible popularity of SW in the US and I think it carried over to TFA. Right now we're sitting at about 49/51 DOM/OS and I think the main reason for that is the overwhelming popularity of SW in US/Canada (I'd like to see that breakdown.....I wonder if anyone does that.....), but I think it's catching on OS. We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised to see that 40/60 split from here out, but it'll probably be a little bit closer than that. The China number if it's in the 300M range will probably move the percentage in the neighborhood of 11%. So if it ends up being 46/54 without China, it will be more like 40.5/59.5 with it.

 

[InCali]

So 2nd worldwide is pretty much a lock?

I think so. Also remember Titanic grossed 1.8B with it's initial release. (1.2 OS and 600M DOM). The rest of that came in the 3D release so it's not really an apples to apples comparison.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Looks like we have a Monday domestic actual, $8,021,882. Here's hoping for a discount Tuesday bump!

 

[JOE]

Any numbers forecasted for China yet? Pre sales numbers?

 

[Unbreakable Lex]

I don't think ANY of those numbers are particularly relevant. The international market has undergone dramatic growth over the last 11 years since RotS was released. Those domestic numbers for 1-3 are a result of the incredible popularity of SW in the US and I think it carried over to TFA. Right now we're sitting at about 49/51 DOM/OS and I think the main reason for that is the overwhelming popularity of SW in US/Canada (I'd like to see that breakdown.....I wonder if anyone does that.....), but I think it's catching on OS. We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised to see that 40/60 split from here out, but it'll probably be a little bit closer than that. The China number if it's in the 300M range will probably move the percentage in the neighborhood of 11%. So if it ends up being 46/54 without China, it will be more like 40.5/59.5 with it.

Those numbers are pretty relative as the talk has been how much more important the movie is to North America than other emerging markets that don't have the nostalgia factor, such as China. I do understand that it's been 10 years since the lowest percentage of 44% happened and that the markets have changed. But have they changed so much as to bring this movie closer to the 40% domestic number other films seem to average? The numbers don't support it.

If it does get closer to 40% domestic and the domestic numbers end up around $950m, that would bring the movie in around 2.5b world wide.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Any numbers forecasted for China yet? Pre sales numbers?

Only a few million (US dollars) so far, per the China board over at BOT. Looking rather grim actually. But we'll see.

 

[Erzengel]

TFA vs. JW Foreign Weekend Totals

1. 281 vs. 316 million
2. 133 vs. 167 million
3. 96 vs. 86 million

Total up to Weekend 3: 770 vs 746 million

And that's with China opening at the same time.

 

[InCali]

Those numbers are pretty relative as the talk has been how much more important the movie is to North America than other emerging markets that don't have the nostalgia factor, such as China. I do understand that it's been 10 years since the lowest percentage of 44% happened and that the markets have changed. But have they changed so much as to bring this movie closer to the 40% domestic number other films seem to average? The numbers don't support it.

If it does get closer to 40% domestic and the domestic numbers end up around $950m, that would bring the movie in around 2.5b world wide.

I did a similar analysis of this. I think the reason SW hasn't hit the 40% DOM point is that it's just way more popular in the US/Canada. It's doing better than JW OS and that was considered huge. It's just that SW is over the top in US/Canada. JW might be in the 40% range (haven't calc'ed that), but that would be because it's numbers are lower DOM. Here's what I wrote:

From the last few days, it looks like TFA is starting to hold just a little bit stronger OS than in the US/Canada (EDIT: TFA probably wasn't as heavily front loaded OS as it was US/Canada and it might just be catching on.). At first glance it doesn't look to be statistically significant because the sample size is pretty small and the difference isn't that great from the numbers I crunched. That being said, it's fair to say that it's holding AT LEAST as well OS as it is DOM. Last weekend's drop was a shade better than 30% OS compared to about 40% DOM. Here's an article from deadline.

http://deadline.com/2016/01/star-wa...daddys-home-international-results-1201675263/

China could move the percentage of the OS/DOM split from about 48/52 (DOM/OS) to about 42/58 (DOM/OS) if you assume 2.3B without China and about 2.6B with it (300M BO take in China).

If 1.1B is possible in the US/Canada, 1.2B is possible OS (without China) for a total of 2.3B. That's a fairly optimistic number, but not impossible (IMO).

EDIT: After writing the above, something occurred to me. (There are a lot of suppositions in the following, so beware!!)

If TFA were to be able to get to 1.1B and IF it were really starting to catch on in the OS markets (as evidenced by some unusual increases noted in the deadline article) and IF you ended up seeing something along the lines of a traditional 40/60 split, that would put TFA around 2.75B WW. There's a lot of guesswork here, but stranger things have happened.

1B US/Canada would, as you say, put it at about 2.5B with the 40/60 split.


EDIT: After writing the above, I realized that the argument I'm making is both circular and obvious. SW is just over the top popular here in US/Canada. What would the numbers have to look like after 18 days DOM with the current OS take of 770M to hit the 40/60 split? The answer is about 513M DOM. That is a HUGE number after 18 days. More than ANY other movie has ever made in that time span. SW is just that popular here and the numbers are just crazier than Heath Ledger's joker.

 

[Bruce Malone]

I think so. Also remember Titanic grossed 1.8B with it's initial release. (1.2 OS and 600M DOM). The rest of that came in the 3D release so it's not really an apples to apples comparison.

Well to be fair Titanic came out in 1997 so unadjusted regardless it's not an apples to apples comparison any way you look at it.

That's still what boggles my mind about Titanic even leaving out the more recent 3D grosses its 1.8 billion made in the 97-98 period with purely 2d tickets would still technically be the 2nd highest grossing film ever.

 

[InCali]

Well to be fair Titanic came out in 1997 so unadjusted regardless it's not an apples to apples comparison any way you look at it.

That's still what boggles my mind about Titanic even leaving out the more recent 3D grosses its 1.8 billion made in the 97-98 period with purely 2d tickets would still technically be the 2nd highest grossing film ever.

"Adjusted" tickets are no more fair than anything else. It's way harder to crack the top 30 or whatever than it used to be. The Graduate made more money than the Dark Knight....whatever.

Titanic had a great run when it ran. Ditto for TFA. Increasing ticket prices tends to push down the number of tickets bought.

 

[Vincanws]

I really would like to see more web sites report box office comparisons taking inflation adjustment into account. Not to take away from The Force Awakens success I do think the whole 'breaking box office record' thing is thrown about a bit too generously. That being said, The Force Awakens is a case where certainly a few of those adjusted records are likely to be approached, if not beaten. For sure Avatar, and I think Titanic is at around $1.1billion domestic, so maybe?

 

[Bruce Malone]

"Adjusted" tickets are no more fair than anything else. It's way harder to crack the top 30 or whatever than it used to be. The Graduate made more money than the Dark Knight....whatever.

Titanic had a great run when it ran. Ditto for TFA. Increasing ticket prices tends to push down the number of tickets bought.

Well my point was even discarding the recent 3D release, comparing movies from different decades is never apple to apple.

It's just that Titanic is pretty much the last pre-2000's film that can still hold its own even un-adjusted. Almost all the highest grossing films of all time now have come out in the last 5 years.