The Black Panther Box Office Speculation Thread - Part 3

[Iceman]

On track for a great hold this weekend. The Friday estimate is $1,227,000, which is a drop of just 15.3% from last Friday.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?view=1day&sortdate=2018-04-20&p=.htm&track=marvel2017b.htm

Will be interesting to see how IW affects things next weekend.

Awesome! Could that hold have had some pre-IW buildup BP viewing built in?

 

[BoxWatcher]

Seems like Rampage, Blockers, and Ready Player One should lose more sites than BP next weekend. Considering Rampage only made 5M on its second Friday despite being in 4115 theater sites in its second weekend of release. I don't see it regrouping to surprise like Jumanji did given IW is scheduled to suck up all the air for the next several weeks. So lack of demand should cause it to lose theater counts. Blockers averaged only $670 per site yesterday and Ready Player One only $599 from 3134 and 3208 total sites, respectively. By comparisons, BP averaged $636 per site from just 1930 total sites on Friday. So, despite being in roughly 40% less theaters than both Blockers and RPO, BP is performing nearly as well or better on average.

If Black Panther were still in 3-4K theaters this weekend it might have pulled in 8+M to outperform Blockers, RPO, and Truth of Dare. I don't know how the agreements between movie distributors and movie theaters work, but some bean counter has got to be making a strong case for not slashing BP's theater count next weekend and the following couple weeks, but keeping it constant or maybe even increasing it a couple hundred theaters as IW's release approaches to at least test out the coat tails it might have on BP.

 

[iEquinox]

Seems like Rampage, Blockers, and Ready Player One should lose more sites than BP next weekend. Considering Rampage only made 5M on its second Friday despite being in 4115 theater sites in its second weekend of release. I don't see it regrouping to surprise like Jumanji did given IW is scheduled to suck up all the air for the next several weeks. So lack of demand should cause it to lose theater counts. Blockers averaged only $670 per site yesterday and Ready Player One only $599 from 3134 and 3208 total sites, respectively. By comparisons, BP averaged $636 per site from just 1930 total sites on Friday. So, despite being in roughly 40% less theaters than both Blockers and RPO, BP is performing nearly as well or better on average.

If Black Panther were still in 3-4K theaters this weekend it might have pulled in 8+M to outperform Blockers, RPO, and Truth of Dare. I don't know how the agreements between movie distributors and movie theaters work, but some bean counter has got to be making a strong case for not slashing BP's theater count next weekend and the following couple weeks, but keeping it constant or maybe even increasing it a couple hundred theaters as IW's release approaches to at least test out the coat tails it might have on BP.

Some of your points are based on the assumption that every theater contributes (roughly) the same amount to the overall gross, but that’s definitely not the case. The relation between theater count and theater average is not linear at all. A smaller theater count means the average remaining theater is bigger, which leads to bigger theater averages. For example, a theater in the middle of a big city will be getting several times more visitors than one in a small town. And since they're in a better location, they attract enough visitors to justify having more auditoriums than a theater in a small town, which means they can accommodate more movies at the same time.

The theaters that drop a movie first are the ones that don’t have enough screens to accommodate a lot of movies at the same time, and those are the smaller theaters which attract smaller amounts of visitors in the first place. Because of this, you will often see a movie's PTA increase when it loses a lot of theaters. But obviously the PTA in the theaters still playing the movie will still have dropped like it does on any other week. Comparing 2 PTA's when the theater count is not similar is comparing apples and oranges. Let’s say you have 2 movies: movie A has 4,000 theaters and a $600 PTA, and movie B has 2,000 theaters and an $700 PTA. If a theater is playing both movie A and movie B, which one are they more likely to drop? The answer is movie B, no contest. Even though movie A’s PTA of $600 is lower than movie B’s PTA of $700, movie A’s PTA in its top 2,000 most profitable theaters will be much higher than $700, and the vast majority of movie A’s top 2,000 theaters will be the same ones that are still playing movie B.

So if you were to multiply BP's theater count by 2 now, its gross would not even be close to 2x bigger, because the theaters it has lost are exactly the ones where it wasn’t making that much to begin with. Black Panther would not have made $8M+ this weekend, even if it was still in 4,000+ theaters. Increasing the theater count that drastically would have a much bigger effect on the PTA that it would on the overall gross.

And maybe Rampage, Blockers and RPO do lose more sites than BP next weekend, but the vast majority of those sites will be the ones BP has already lost, not the ones where they are still competing for screens. In the vast majority of theaters where they are still competing with BP for screens, Rampage, RPO and Blockers will be making more money than BP, and therefore those theaters are more likely to drop BP than they are to drop any of those 3. That’s why those 3 will still have a bigger theater count than BP next weekend. The vast majority of the theaters that still have BP are the ones that have enough room to accommodate both it and those other movies at the same time.

And on top of all this, losing screens and losing theaters are also two different things. To make room for IW, many theaters will just lower the amount of showtimes for other movies, instead of dropping those other movies completely. That’s why you often see that movies have better holds on a blockbuster’s 2nd weekend. In the OW, a huge blockbuster (like IW) will need a huge amount of screens to meet the demand, and other showtimes will need to be cancelled to make sure that blockbuster has enough screens to meet that extreme demand. A week later, when the demand for that huge blockbuster is not as extreme anymore, that leaves a lot more breathing room for the other movies, making it easier for those to maintain their showtime count, and have better holds as a result.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

https://twitter.com/BORReport/status/988061226260348928

BoxOfficeReport.com
@BORReport

Black Panther grossed an estimated $4.64M this weekend. 66-Day total stands at $681.08M.

That's an incredible hold for BP (-19.6%). The actuals will probably come in higher for a drop closer to 15%. Totally f**king awesome.

 

[Iceman]

It's hardly fallen at all! Thins thing just doesn't want to end its run. Really want this to get to $700m.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

It's hardly fallen at all! Thins thing just doesn't want to end its run. Really want this to get to $700m.

700m is probably not happening at this point. Needs a lot to reach that milestone.

But the drive-in features (double features) with A:IW will help BP in the coming weeks, so achieving 700m will be very difficult but not totally impossible.

 

[kedrell]

Only $8,722,343 left to beat TLJ.

 

[Iceman]

700m is probably not happening at this point. Needs a lot to reach that milestone.

But the drive-in features (double features) with A:IW will help BP in the coming weeks, so achieving 700m will be very difficult but not totally impossible.

I hope a lot of people are interested in that. Especially some who only saw it when it opened and fancy a refresh ahead of their IW viewing.

 

[Iceman]

Only $8,722,343 left to beat TLJ.

It's going to happen earlier than I thought with the surprising recent holds. It's crazy how much BP is going to beat TLJ by domestically.

 

[Tymminator]

This is a no brainer for a natural Double feature, hopefully they will capitalize on it.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

https://twitter.com/BORReport/status/988491950235013120

BoxOfficeReport.com
@BORReport

Black Panther grossed $4.93M this weekend. 66-Day total stands at $681.37M.

It's an astonishing hold (-14.55%). Incredible numbers just before A:IW storms into theaters next weekend.

 

[Iceman]

TLJ feels so close right now.

 

[KevTravels]

I wish for it to hit $700 million domestic as well as knock The Last Jedi off its spot.

 

[kedrell]

The former I'd give 50/50 at best. The latter is as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow...well almost.

 

[Iceman]

The Monday figure hardly dropped from last Monday (-14.2%). Maybe IW coming up is helping it but the late legs are looking seriously strong.

 

[kedrell]

$6,980,637 to go.

 

[Samuron]

I never thought it would beat TDK's adjusted take, but it's almost there.

 

[kedrell]

Yep, less than $2M DOM away.

 

[KevTravels]

i wonder if analysts are running how much of a boost BP is giving Infinity War either with box office or general audience awareness.

 

[Donald Thomas]

i wonder if analysts are running how much of a boost BP is giving Infinity War either with box office or general audience awareness.

Aloha,
BP is still playing in my theater. IW will start this Friday, so I think each one helps the other.
Long Live the King of Wakanda

 

[kedrell]

BP is likely to lose a lot of screens to IW though.

 

[Iceman]

Aloha,
BP is still playing in my theater. IW will start this Friday, so I think each one helps the other.
Long Live the King of Wakanda

Exactly how I see it. They are helping each other.

 

[AverageMan]

Be interesting to see this weekends totals.
IW is going to stomp everything, wouldn't be surprised to see BP increase instead of dropping.

 

[Fallen]

I think many people will choose to see Black Panther again because Infinity War will be sold out everywhere. According to Fandango, over 1,000 showings of the movie have already sold out in pre-sales alone.

 

[Iceman]

Really hope that happens.