What does that have to do with my point? I'm saying movies with exceptional legs are helped from lack of succeeding competition. So if JL were the type of film with potential in a lengthy run, it would have been cut short by the behemoth that is Star Wars.
But JL most likely wont have exceptional legs. I mean look at the legs of the movies that released in the same spot in the last few years:
Fantastic Beasts 3.14
Mockingjay Pat II 2.74
Mockingjay Part I 2.77
Catching Fire 2.69
Breaking Dawn Part II 2.07
Breaking Dawn Part I 2.03
Deathly Hallows Part I 2.36
New Moon 2.07
Twilight 2.76
FB is the odd one here as it basically behaved like an original movie. Its legs were like Philosophers Stone and not like the other HP /Wizarding World movies.
The later Twilight films were heavily front-loaded YA movies. Their legs were only relegated to them and it doesnt mean anything for other movies in the list.
So the wiggle room for legs is between (2.35 2.85) IMO. This is a fairly standard range for legs when it comes to blockbusters during any time of the year. I dont think there is much of a chance for JL to sprout exceptional legs.
Your percentage report is simply an assessment of its performance prior to SW hitting the scene, but you can't ignore the numbers after it hits too. Those films don't do the same numbers if that spot were left vacant. What would have been the opening weekend for SW is going to be split amongst all the established releases. That's the unknowable number I'm referring to which is going to be left on the table.
But I didnt ignore the number that a Thanksgiving live-action releases will make after a SW movie is released. I specifically mentioned how much MJ2 and FB managed to achieve even after a SW movie hit the theaters and those numbers are not tiny fractions and they add a substantial amount to the final domestic tally.
I understand the point you're trying to make here about SW being a behemoth and cutting down the overall life of all films that will be in theaters around the same time. I dont disagree with you. Plus it happens with each and every movie that gets released in theatres. Blockbuster movies are dime a dozen these days. The release schedule is chock a block with big budget FX heavy movies. X movie will always suffer because of Y movie coming out in a week or two. But the movies thatll display extra-ordinary legs will withstand everything like a boss, i.e Wonder Woman. But WW is a freak of nature and replicating its success will be insanely difficult for other blockbusters, impossible even.
Heres the thing, no one in their right mind will disagree with you and say that SW wouldn't hurt JL or the other films when it gets released. All the movies will get pulverized in TLJs opening week. The Friday will look appalling for all the movies and Saturday will be hit really hard as well. So will the rest of the week starting from TLJs opening Friday. But I think normalcy will start getting restored after that step by step. The whole Christmas week will see decent to very good drops going into the New Year and there will be further small drops one week before MLK weekend .Thatll be when movies get back to the usual standards. So the effect is there but its also overestimated to an extent when folks say that other movies will hafta shut shop because of SW.
The 2nd and 3rd Hunger Games movies were affected by Hobbit movies and the final one up against TFA in 2015 but I wouldn't a say lot were left at the table. In fact all the HG movies performed in and around the same ballpark even against varying degrees of the strength of the competition.
Lets look at the legs of the Hunger Games movies,
THG 2.67 (the only HG movie that release in Nov.)
CF 2.69
MJ1 2.77
MJ2 2.74
We can observe that the Hunger Games movies had a ceiling and a base when it comes to legs. The range would be between (2.67 2.78) and even with TFA tearing it up in the domestic market and breaking records left and right, MJ2 still managed to go past the base and achieved to get very close to the ceiling of the franchise. So did TFA actually cut
very heavily into MJ2s run??
CF and MJ1 did manage to post much better absolute figures than MJ2 when the Hobbit movies hit them in their respective years but both of those movies were accumulating bigger dailies and were coming of much bigger prior weekends.
Plus if we are to assume* that MJ2 would have reached the franchise peak if it werent for TFA, it still would have made [2.77x102.65] = 284.35 million
Thatll be a difference of just [284.35-281.65] = 2.7 million. I wouldnt really call that a lot of money left at the table.
*Nao that assumption in not a bad one to make under the circumstances. The legs were getting better for the HG movies with each passing one so its fair to say that MJ2 would have continued the trend. Nao one reason for the slightly bigger legs would be a smaller OW. Smaller OW means less upfront demand and better prospect for legs with good WoM. So with the lowest OW among all the HG movies, we could have gotten a slightly better multiplier for MJ2. So when MJ2 didnt reach franchise best multiplier, we can say that TFA did hurt the movie. So if we make a linear extrapolation of MJ2s legs compared to CFs legs, we get (2.83xOW). Thatll give us 290.5 million. 8.9 million more than the actual final total.
But this calculation is entirely based upon the theory is if the OW is lower, the subsequent legs will be better. But JL wont have a low OW. Its OW will be closer to Catching Fire than Mockingjay Part II. JL will have more upfront demand and itll also behave like a front-loaded CBM. So theres a solid chance that JL will make bulk of its domestic BO share within the opening 4 weeks. HG movies made low 80s in the opening 4 weeks but I wouldnt be surprised if JL breaks the 90% mark during the same time-frame.
