Thor: Ragnarok Box Office Prediction

[Iceman]

$800m beginning to smell very close.

 

[Iceman]

Praying that Ragnarok has strong enough legs to eventually stumble past the $900M mark, that would be so damn awesome. With JL failing as spectacularly as it has, I guess it's more possible now than it would have been if JL was a success...

Would be nice and it has a shot at no.1 worldwide CBM this year even if it misses that.

 

[iEquinox]

Yes. $900M is what's still 'possible'. I'm so hoping for at least $906M so the whole Thor franchise can join both Iron Man and Cap in surpassing the $2b mark in 3 films.

Hmm. $900M seems extremely far-fetched.

It would need a multiplier of over 4.5x on its worldwide weekend to reach $900M. OS multiplier will probably be roughly to 3x. With that, it would need a domestic 3rd weekend multiplier of 6.2x to reach $900M. No MCU movie has ever even gotten close to that, and I don't see Ragnarok pulling off that unprecedented feat either.

$850M is the realistic target. $900M is pretty much off the table.

 

[bubbadoom]

...just another $162 million to go...

 

[iEquinox]

...just another $162 million to go...

lol. And a billion is "just" another $262M, right? Let's not get carried away. All that leads to is disappointment, while there's no reason to be.

 

[metaphysician]

Well, if its anything, I went to see it again this morning. Sure, the showing was matinee prices, and it was the latest possible "morning matinee" ( 11:30AM ), but even for all that. . . theater was pretty packed. At least 75% full, maybe more.

 

[RoryTate]

What is interesting to me is the wide range of poll options for the final box office total of Ragnarok. Over in the JL BO prediction thread, the lowest of their poll options is 700-800, and there is a possibility JL won't even reach $700m. None of the votes would be right then. Ouch.

 

[Vincanws]

Similarly JL would have deffo gotten more than $100M OW for sure (or even 120M ) if there were no superhero movies for a month or so.

.

I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Thor is making around $21M this weekend. That's not a significant take away from JL. I think the main blame there can be levelled at the divisive reviews and coming on the heels of similarly divisive DC movies in BvS, SS etc. Every DC movie has so far earned less opening box office than the last. But I think given the characters, JL would have only opened bigger and reversed the trend with great word of mouth, and this didn't get that. It absolutely needed to hit it out of the park.

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Hope it gets too 800 it deserves it.

 

[kedrell]

Hmm. $900M seems extremely far-fetched.

It would need a multiplier of over 4.5x on its worldwide weekend to reach $900M. OS multiplier will probably be roughly to 3x. With that, it would need a domestic 3rd weekend multiplier of 6.2x to reach $900M. No MCU movie has ever even gotten close to that, and I don't see Ragnarok pulling off that unprecedented feat either.

$850M is the realistic target. $900M is pretty much off the table.

Off this last OS weekend? It made an additional $24.1M OS this weekend. A 3X would mean another $72.3M total left to come in from OS. That'd leave $90M to come in from DOM to make it to $900M. That's definitely on the high side of the way it's been ahead of GotGV2(11% ahead WW) but not all the way there(otherwise it'd have $98M left DOM). More unlikely than not, I'd agree but I'd give it only about 40% chance of doing it at this point which is far from dire. I give it about a 60% chance of passing $850M, a 50% even chance of reaching SM:H to round out those guesses. I think this weekend's DOM was clearly impacted by JL strongly. TR should have made another $5M easy without such direct competition. I believe it will more or less recover, especially with the help of the holiday coming up. It'll need a DOM multiplier off this weekend of around 4.1X to accomplish this. That's a stretch, sure but my fingers are crossed. That'd give a final DOM total of $337M.

 

[kedrell]

Hope it gets too 800 it deserves it.

It'd be impossible to miss it at this point, baring WWIII breaking out or some such unforeseen event. It's got at least $100M WW left in the tank for sure, bare minimum.

 

[iEquinox]

Off this last OS weekend? It made an additional $24.1M OS this weekend. A 3X would mean another $72.3M to come in from OS.

No, a 3x multiplier would mean $48.2M more. A movie that opens with $100M and gets a 3x multiplier doesn't add another $300M after OW; it ends with a $300M total.

That'd leave $90M to come in from DOM to make it to $900M. That's definitely on the high side of the way it's been ahead of GotGV2(11% ahead WW) but not all the way there(otherwise it'd have $98M left DOM).

$90M more DOM seems awfully optimistic... That would be a 3rd weekend multiplier of over 5x... Only one MCU movie has ever done that(GotG), and that had incredible late legs. Matching that is a monumental task to ask for Ragnarok.

And it's 11% ahead of GotG2 internationally, not WW.

More unlikely than not, I'd agree but I've give it only about 40% chance of doing it at this point which is far from dire. I give it about a 60% chance of passing $850M, a 50% even chance of reaching SM:H to round out those guesses. I think this weekend's DOM was clearly impacted by JL strongly. TR should have made another $5M easy without such direct competition.

I don't think it would have made another $5M this weekend without JL. That would have been a 53% drop coming off of a holiday weekend on which it dropped 53.5%...

Look at Doctor Strange. A drop close to 60% on the third weekend was expected from the day this movie was announced. JL had an effect, sure, but I doubt it was so big that Ragnarok would have made a whopping 23% more this weekend without it...

I believe it will more or less recover, especially with the help of the holiday coming up. It'll need a DOM multiplier off this weekend of around 4.1X to accomplish this. That's a stretch, sure but my fingers are crossed. That'd give a final DOM total of $337M.

Again, it would need 5.1x, not 4.1x, to do this. And only one MCU movie has ever accomplished that before. And that one had insane late legs. 13 out of the previous 16 MCU movies did not reach a 4x 3rd weekend multiplier, let alone 5x+.

Following DS after this weekend puts the domestic total just below $310M. So far, Doctor Strange has been outpacing Ragnarok when it comes to legs. Maybe Ragnarok can take a bigger advantage of Christmas/New Year holidays than DS to keep up/beat that $310M number, but $337M? I don't think so.

 

[TheVileOne]

With Thanksgiving weekend, it definitely has enough steam to reach $900 million worldwide.

 

[iEquinox]

With Thanksgiving weekend, it definitely has enough steam to reach $900 million worldwide.

It really doesn't. But anything in the $800Ms is great anyway, and it's going to pass $800M comfortably.

 

[TheVileOne]

Justice League is dropping like a rock next weekend because of Coco, which is spectacular. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving will give Ragnarok a boost.

 

[iEquinox]

Justice League is dropping like a rock next weekend because of Coco, which is spectacular. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving will give Ragnarok a boost.

I have already accounted for a sub-25% drop for Ragnarok next weekend domestically. This doesn't change that Ragnarok won't reach $900M... I'd love if it did, but it just won't. All logic points to this coming in under $900M.

 

[TheVileOne]

iEquinox, what is domestic ceiling at this point in your opinion? Like $315 million maybe? Less or possibly more?

 

[iEquinox]

iEquinox, what is domestic ceiling at this point in your opinion? Like $315 million maybe? Less or possibly more?

I'd say it could still go past $315M(I'm careful about throwing around words like "ceiling"), but aiming at $310M for now. Let's see if it can keep up with Doctor Strange's domestic drops going forward(which would put it at pretty much exactly $310M).

It has been losing ground on DS when it comes to legs:
Second weekend drop: DS: 49.5% Ragnarok: 53.5%
Third weekend drop: DS: 58.7% Ragnarok: 61.8%

So keeping up with it definitely won't be easy, and ending up a little lower than $310M wouldn't surprise me.

Ragnarok does have one advantage over DS though. DS lost many theaters before Christmas/New Year, so it couldn't take full advantage of the holidays. Ragnarok is pulling higher numbers than DS at the same point of their release, so it would make sense if it can hold on to more theaters when the holidays arrive. That could give Ragnarok a boost when it comes to late legs compared to DS.

Ceiling is a word I'm careful with. I don't set ceilings close to what I feel is possible, because movies can always surprise you. I feel like passing Homecoming's domestic total is off the table though, for these reasons:

Homecoming is nearly $4.5M ahead of Ragnarok after the 3rd weekend, and that's after Ragnarok opened $5.7M higher than Homecoming did. So Ragnarok has already lost over $10M on Homecoming since opening weekend, even with Ragnarok being helped a bit by a small holiday(Veteran's Day) while Homecoming was not.

It's clear which one of the two has more momentum at the domestic box office at the same point. Homecoming's 3rd weekend number is even slightly ahead of Ragnarok's 3rd domestic weekend, and Homecoming was still going in July, with very strong weekday numbers in comparison. Domestically, I really can't see Ragnarok finishing ahead of Homecoming.

 

[spider-neil]

Can someone please explain in layman's terms what a 'multiplier' is. I see the term on SHH all the time and have no idea what it means, or more accurately how it works.

 

[russian gal]

hoped the JL bombage would help TR more
anyway lets wait for Thanksgiving

is 300m DOM locked btw or can TR miss it?

In other news TR passed TDW in local currency here but b/c of *** exchange rates not in dollars

 

[iEquinox]

Can someone please explain in layman's terms what a 'multiplier' is. I see the term on SHH all the time and have no idea what it means, or more accurately how it works.

A film's multiplier is its total box office divided by its opening weekend. So if a movie ends with a $300M domestic total after a $100M opening weekend, its multiplier is 300/100=3x. That number is the main way how legs are defined. The higher the multiplier, the better the legs.

Big fan rush and bad word of mouth naturally reduce a films multiplier. So movies like BvS, with massive fan rush and very bad word of mouth, are very frontloaded. BvS didn't even double its opening weekend gross, in other words: its multiplier was below 2x, which is very rare. On the other end of the spectrum you have things like GotG and Wonder Woman, which didn't have huge fan rush, but really caught on with audiences and had great word of mouth. Their multipliers are 3.5x and 3.99x respectively, which means they are the 2 leggiest big superhero movies in the last 20 years. The average multiplier for an MCU film is about 2.7x.

Then there's also 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc weekend multipliers, which is pretty much the same as the multiplier, but you ignore whatever the movie made before that weekend. So if a movie makes $150M in its first 7 days, has a $40M 2nd weekend and ends with a $310M final total, its 2nd weekend multiplier would be (310-150)/40=4x.

Then you also have an "internal multiplier", which is a film's total weekend gross divided by its Friday gross.

hoped the JL bombage would help TR more
anyway lets wait for Thanksgiving

is 300m DOM locked btw or can TR miss it?

In other news TR passed TDW in local currency here but b/c of *** exchange rates not in dollars

I wouldn't say $300M is locked, but it looks likely. It needs a 3rd weekend multiplier of at least 3.4x. Nine out of the previous 16 MCU movies achieved this. Thanksgiving holiday should help Ragnarok's odds of making it.

 

[HammerDown]

International comparison.

Overseas ---- TR -------- SM:HC

China -------- 107.5M ---- 116.2M
U.K. ---------- 37.2 ------- 39.5
Korea -------- 33.3 ------- 51.5
Brazil -------- 27.4 ------- 31.8
Australia ---- 22.6 ------- 19.7
Russia ------- 21.2 ------- 16.3
France ------ 19 --------- 18.7
Mexico ------ 19 --------- 27
Germany ---- 16 -------- 11.6
Indonesia --- 11.7 ------ 12.3
India -------- 11.2 ------- 11.4
Italy --------- 10.1 ------ 10.1
Taiwan ------- 10 -------- 9.6
Spain -------- 9.7 -------- 11.9
Japan -------- 8.2 -------- 25.3
Philipines ---- 7.8 ------- 7.5
Malaysia ----- 7.1 ------- 6.7

Totals:
Spider-Man: Homecoming - 545M
Thor Ragnarok - 490M *

*Only 3 to 4 weeks into it's run.

 

[Loden Greatstorm]

With Thanksgiving weekend, it definitely has enough steam to reach $900 million worldwide.

Not a chance.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Very nice to see such good numbers and good hold. This should be Thor's winter soldier for the GA!

 

[iEquinox]

Actuals are in, and the domestic estimate was very accurate, weekend total is $21,669,600(-62.0%).
http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-chart/weekend/2017/11/17

Might seem like a steep drop at first glance, but it was always expected to drop big this weekend because of the holiday last weekend and Justice League coming out. (I already made a post explaining this drop before the movie was released)

The foreign number came in a bit higher than estimated, with $24,750,984(-68.0%) for the weekend, with the total going up by over $1.2M from estimates. Again, that weekend drop looks huge, but it's that big because it lost over 80% of its screens in China(normal when another big movie is released in China, it's one of the main reasons why China is so frontloaded). China weekend gross was $21.64M last weekend, which went down to $3.55M this weekend. Without China, the OS weekend drop would be 61.9%, which a pretty normal drop for a movie that has direct competition in nearly every market across the globe.

Totals after Sunday:
Domestic: $247,265,770
+ Foreign: $491,936,249
= Worldwide: $739,202,019