Discussion Box Office - How Much will TFA Make?

I do agree that TFA needs to be very good, probably 85% RT with strong audience approval as well, to have a good shot at beating Avatar.

For me, the reason I said 40% chance at breaking Avatar's record in the U.S. is because I feel it's a bit under 50-50. If you had asked me earlier this year I might have said more like 20%. Avatar just made so much money that in some ways, it's tough to imagine, but if you delve into the numbers it actually comes out looking a lot better for TFA than I had realized before giving it much thought.

I think one of my first thoughts was, well, TPM made $431 million and was a huge box office sensation. It was, after all, the 2nd most successful film of all-time on first release, both in America and worldwide. That's pretty impressive. So the idea of TFA making $775M or something and breaking Avatar's record just seemed unrealistic and we've been down that road before with TPM versus Titanic. I don't want to get my hopes up again.

That being said, when you look at the adjusted figures, you see that TPM in fact almost matches Avatar's unadjusted gross. So then what you're asking of TFA is that it be as big as TPM was in 1999. That doesn't seem as unlikely now. Yes, TPM was the first Star Wars movie in 16 years, and yes, it was a big deal to have Lucas return to the franchise. But this is 10+ years later and -- us prequel lovers aside (I'm one) -- there are many fans who I can imagine being more excited by what comes after ROTJ than what came before it. The prequels also had a little bit of an uphill climb for TPM and AOTC because you have awesome Jedi, you have Yoda, and you have a Star Wars feel, but you don't have any of the old characters, you don't have X-Wings, you don't have the Falcon, etc. Not until ROTS do you start to see more that resembles the OT. Yet TPM was able to overcome all of that and smash at the box office big time over a long summer playing at every multiplex in the country, basically.

Now you have TFA, which benefits not just from higher ticket price averages but possibly a higher-than-average ticket price in general. In other words, we all know how dumb averages are. I mean "dumb" in the sense of simple information, not highly specific. If the average ticket price for a year is $8.25, what does that really mean? It means that X number of tickets were sold and the box office total was Y, so if you divide Y by X you get Z, with Z being the average ticket price. That's all well and good, except that it doesn't provide more specific information like what is the average ticket price for a kid-friendly PG movie? What is the average ticket price for an adult indie drama, rated R? What is the average ticket price for a PG-13 rated blockbuster? I am betting there's a wild swing between those films. The R-rated indie drama has almost no 3-D showings and no IMAX showings, but benefits from a lot of night admissions and probably fewer matinees than other films. The kid-friendly PG movie has tons of matinee tickets (a bad thing) and tons of child tickets (also a bad thing) and kids are less picky about how they see a movie, so in all likelihood not very many 3-D tickets sold, either. If you have a family of 4 or 5, do you want to see Minions in 3-D at night for $60 for your family or would you rather see it Saturday afternoon, non-3D for a total of $30? Exactly.

With TFA, you're going to have a lot of fans like us who want to see it at least once in IMAX if not more than that, and if not IMAX, then a premium format like RPX or Dolby Atmos or whatever else is out there, including 3-D showings of various types. Yes, Star Wars still has a HUGE kid audience, which is only going to help the movie excel, but it also has a large, hardcore fan base who knows and appreciates the differences between different exhibition formats. We've already seen based on the pre-sales numbers that it's dominating IMAX and it will be there for 4 weeks.

So after all of that, is it too difficult to imagine TFA simply matching the ticket sales numbers of TPM? Not really. There are more people in the country and there are more theaters available than 16 years ago. Beyond that, there are more actual Star Wars fans. A kid who was 6 years old when TPM came out is 22 years old today and can see the movie as many times as they want. Maybe when they were 6, they saw TPM on DVD, not in theaters. They'll be there for TFA.

I cannot find any reason to bet against TFA when it comes to topping Jurassic World. If someone would want to convince me that it likely won't do that, I would need some solid argument based on an unconsidered factor. As much as I've heard is, "It's December," which is a stupid argument beyond belief. People have MORE free time and vacation time in December than most months of the year. For me, running my own company, I basically don't do any serious work all month. I'm off in December and have been throughout my time in the film industry / running a corporate video company. Our clients don't do work during the holidays so we can't really, either. That means more TFA viewings for me, compared to summer, which is our busiest time of the year and where about half of our revenue comes from. I'm not the only one like that, either, lots of people have extra time during the holidays for watching a great movie.

People keep clinging to, "BUT JW was so big!" Yeah, it was, and remember last time Star Wars went against the phenomenal Jurassic Park, it was our 4th movie and its 1st movie with groundbreaking special effects, TPM still killed it easily $431M to $357M first release. Why would this time be any different? What demographic went to see JW but absolutely won't be seeing TFA? I saw JW once in theaters, and not on opening weekend because I was on vacation (even though everyone claims that December is a bad month because people are traveling, the opposite can be true -- I traveled in the summer and missed the JW opening). Young kids shouldn't have been seeing JW at all, but some did. That being said, more kids will see Star Wars. It won't be close. Teenagers, it's a wash, probably they see both. Adults, Star Wars wins again because of nostalgia and more die-hard fans.

 

Zoolander 2 is out on February 12, almost 2 months after TFA is released. I'm calling TFA stays in the #1 spot until Zoolander 2... then may reclaim it the next week anyway.

 

If it does that, "Avatar" will fall.

 

LOL, I wish, that would be nice to see it stay #1 for a while.

I hope that TFA at least has a fairly lengthy run so I can see it many times. It bums me out that theatrical viewings have changed so much since the prequels. With TPM, I could count on being able to see it all summer long and I did. It stayed at my local theater until the last weekend of August. Then it played for another 5 weeks at a theater just 2 miles further down the road, which was fine too.

With TFA, it will be a massive film and outgross TPM significantly I think, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to see it in March still, especially towards the end of March.

 

Bowen: I've seen rumors that TFA comes out on Blu-ray in April.

I actually like that movies have shorter lifespans in the theater and come out sooner on home media. I certainly don't have the time and money to go to the theater and watch one movie as many times as I want. I'll (probably) see TFA once and then wait for the Blu-ray.

 

four months seems like a good estimate but I'd wager mid to late April, certainly not early April. I'd even throw a ball to first week of March. to use Avengers: Age of Ultron as a guesstimate, it came out first week of May, blu ray first week of September (and was on digital 2 weeks beforehand)

 

Dude, no, you have to see TFA more times in theaters than one. How could you not regret that later if it's amazing?! lol. It's Star Wars in a theater!!

I can't imagine not seeing it at least a few times opening weekend let alone in the entire run. I mean, just because I don't spend 2 years looking forward to a movie only to spend 2 hours seeing it and then it's like, "Well, that was fun. Now it's over." Haha. I'm pretty much more like, ok, December and January are spoken for, not taking on too many responsibilities during those months as I have TFA to watch!

I want to go see it in Los Angeles when I'm down there for a company meeting in January because I badly want to see it in the Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos format that's only playing in 10 theaters nationwide. El Capitan is showing it that way I believe and that would be a really cool experience if it's still playing by then.

PS: It's always possible Disney re-releases TFA a few weeks before the Blu-ray release with "added scenes" or a special trailer of Rogue One or something like that, "One Week Only, in IMAX!" Who knows, especially if it becomes the highest grossing movie ever, or is close, it would be a cherry on top of an amazing theatrical run.

 

It's a month away from opening weekend and TFA has already made $50 million in ticket sales.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/star-wars-force-awakens-racks-842279

 

Yup, that was the big news of the day. I was really waiting for that article for weeks, Googling daily things like "The Force Awakens box office" or "projections" or "estimates" or "ticket sales" and finally today woke up to find that haha.

I think TFA has a legitimate chance at a lot of really big records, at least here in the United States. I'm definitely excited to see how it performs. I feel like it is new territory, a special type of blockbuster, and who knows how high it goes?

 

Well, we're just different. I'd definitely watch it in IMAX and/or Atmos if I had a chance, but IMAX is two hours away and in a different country with different subtitles, which is really distracting. And for Atmos, I don't even know if it's available anywhere in Europe right now. Certainly not anywhere near me.

Besides, midterm exams (or however you call them in the US) start at the end of January, so I certainly won't waste my time by going to the theater all the way through December and January. I wish I could though. As it stands, I'm already having to go to another city just to see it in a good theater.

Anyway, the news about advance ticket sales really tell the story. This is shaping up to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest opening weekend of all time.

 

Darn well if you get the chance, catch it a few times! It's such a cool experience seeing Star Wars in theaters, I think. I have such good memories of all of my past viewings.

Although this is lost in the sands of history, and judging by how people like to talk now, you'd think I am making this all up, so it makes me wish I recorded it, but when I saw TPM in theaters 50 times over the weeks, it was EIGHT WEEKS into the run before I had one single screening that didn't have heavy applause at the end.

Everyone hated TPM, so I guess they were all clapping that it was over (lol, j/k), but that was one of the coolest experiences for me. I honestly couldn't believe I was sitting there in a theater in July and there was STILL applause at the closing credits. I haven't been to a movie with applause at the end since The Avengers, I think.

 

Wow, that's really cool to hear. Additionally, I heard a lot of people say that there was applause at the end of TPM even on its 3D re-release. I think it's hard to argue that these films are appreciated by the general public and I like to believe that the internet clouds our judgment.

 

Whenever I watch Star Wars, one of my daughters comes running. If I don't put in Episode I, she says "Awww, not Phantom Menace?" Some things are just cool to hate without reason.

 

If Jurassic world was able to break box office records, then Star Wars could do the same.

 

Obviously this movie is going to make a ton of cash, but I get the feeling that the quality is going to play a huge factor in roping in people who aren't familiar or motivated to go watch it on their own. I think another key to this movie (and we will find out) is how well the makers are actually able to tell their story in a way that will interest the general public. I'm sure lots of people can't be bothered watching the first 6 (or re-watching) but still might be keen to see the next if it's not filled with too much backstory and detail they don't understand.

If it were me, knowing what kind of money is to be made here...I'd tee up for the next movie. Cliffhanger/reveal ending.

 

I think they'll make TFA highly friendly to people who don't know much of anything about Star Wars except the obvious -- Luke Skywalker is a Jedi, there's something called the Force, blah blah, etc. I think it'll have plenty for us fans to obsess over and discuss, but I also think it will be accessible to a new generation of fans who is only somewhat familiar with the previous films or not that familiar at all. It makes sense, after all, as it is set so many years after the Saga up until this point that it's a new adventure for everyone, for old school fans, for new fans, for non-fans, etc. It's just good sense story-wise and marketing-wise to make TFA accessible for all, I think.

Box office tracking for TFA officially comes online tomorrow! It's crazy we are this close now. Tracking for movies starts about 4 weeks early, or in this case just more than 3 weeks early. Early insider talk is $185M to $220 million opening weekend.

I'm really hoping with the hype being so big now that TFA doesn't disappoint at the box office on opening weekend because sadly the average person doesn't know anything about the box office, so if they hear TFA made $190 million and some stupid media organization has a headline like, "Star Wars no match for Jurassic World: Disappointing Opening Weekend" or "Star Wars fails to match hype in subdued opening weekend" or something stupid like that, it's going to hurt the film unnecessarily. If it comes in at the low end of those figures, $185 million, it will beat the existing December record by $100 MILLION, which is absolutely insane. That would be an incredibly impressive December opening and very well could lead to a monster second weekend that will be the biggest in cinema history.

Where have I seen this situation before? Oh, yeah, The Phantom Menace! Failed to beat Lost World's opening weekend, immediately deemed a commercial disappointment, sets non-holiday Monday record, then breaks the record (easily) for biggest second weekend ever en route to being the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time worldwide and 2nd biggest movie ever in North America on first release (behind only Titanic, and the first Star Wars with its many releases). Now we are here in 2015 with another stupid dinosaur movie holding the opening weekend crown, another chance for media to misinterpret a huge opening, and another probability that no matter what happens, Star Wars will pass Jurassic World's domestic total.

 

Great information and perspective...

 

Several of my friends have asked for advice in staging a Star Wars marathon, because they had never seen any of the movies before. I think it's safe to say that even the novices may go into this movie ready to see what happens next.

 

That's amazing and ridiculous haha. I keep hearing these types of stories and they're very encouraging when it comes to The Force Awakens and the future of the franchise.

My HVAC tech who is here trying to fix my system was 17 when A New Hope came to theaters, so he's an older gentleman, and he is definitely not "with it" when it comes to Star Wars. Like he pretty much said he didn't care about "all of the rest of the films" after A New Hope, which he saw many times in theaters. He complained about the Ewoks and Jar Jar and said "I mean they're good movies still, but not quite the event that A New Hope was... for me." Anyway, he said the new trailers for TFA just blew him away and he says it has "that feel of Star Wars" that he thinks connects to how he felt with A New Hope. He said he'll avoid seeing it for weeks because of the crowds, but he definitely wants to see the movie. I think when you have people like that in your audience group too, who don't go to the movies often, didn't even see the last massive Star Wars hits (let's be honest, Attack of the Clones aside, the other 4 Star Wars movies were all major event films with major ticket sales and each won their year at the box office), you're going to have a MASSIVE hit.

Nobody wants to go too far out on a limb here in predictions because how can you EVER predict something to be "the biggest ever" without sounding like a loon? I mean, that's the nature of something that breaks records -- you can't usually see it coming. It just sort of happens. That being said, I didn't feel this strongly about TPM because I kept having doubts like, "Well, this is the biggest movie ever in my opinion, but I'm 16, and none of the girls in my class care about this film at all."

Now, fast forward 16 years from TPM, and Star Wars is cool to girls, too. It's not nerdy to like Star Wars anymore (maybe it's nerdy to collect SW stuff, yes, but not just to like it -- they like it too!). We have Her Universe and a whole "geek culture" that thinks Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Marvel, and all of that stuff is fun and cool entertainment. Tides have changed for the better where there's no negative peer pressure even among girls with things like that.

Variety just released the first article about The Force Awakens official tracking -- $170 million or above is the current tracking. Remember, this is early tracking, and also remember it's almost impossible for tracking to proclaim a record. Jurassic World was only tracking for $120 million DAYS before opening and it hit $210 million, so anyone who thinks TFA can't do that same thing forgets recent history The most interesting part of the article, TO ME, was that it indicated a nearly even split among men and women moviegoers. This is HUGE and cannot be understated. With 58% male audiences, The Force Awakens is a massive, Avengers 2 or The Dark Knight size hit, good for $500 million, maybe even $550 million. With a nearly even split of men and women, and young and old (which it also indicated), The Force Awakens could sail past Avatar and claim the crown.

At this point you need to be asking yourself not whether The Force Awakens COULD beat Avatar, but why wouldn't it do so? If interest is strong among all four quadrants (young / old / male / female, as Hollywood calls a "four quadrant picture"), and awareness of the movie is nearly 100%, why wouldn't this be the biggest movie ever? Perhaps only if the quality doesn't deliver and the movie's word of mouth is mixed or poor. BUT if this movie is a hit, if it's as good as it looks from all of the trailers, then it combines major culture event with great entertainment and the result will be unbelievable.

 

I would say $1.75 billion is likely, with an opening weekend of over $500 million almost a certainty. Unadjusted for inflation, no Star Wars film has ever made over $1 billion in its inital theatrical run, but I think The Force Awakens will go far over that.

 

If Avatar became the highest grossing film ever, I think Star wars can.

 

I'm probably considered one of the more optimistic box office predictors, simply because I now believe that it's at least 50-50 TFA beats Avatar at the domestic box office, but I don't believe there's much of any chance of TFA beating Avatar worldwide, if I understand things correctly.

My knowledge of the North American box office I would put against most other film fans and I consider myself very knowledgable, as it's a fun hobby to follow, but my knowledge of worldwide box offices is rather spotty. It's SO complicated, because you are dealing with, say, 75 other countries and their various exchange rates, different holiday traditions, moviegoing habits, local fare, etc. It's like trying to understand every sport in the world instead of just one, basically. There is a TON of knowledge you'd have to acquire, probably devoting yourself to following the box office in each country and knowing some local correspondents who could fill in your knowledge gaps.

From what I have read, the exchange rate is much less favorable to an Avatar-style theatrical run right now because of a strong U.S. dollar compared to the Euro and other currencies. That hurts because TFA could sell just as many tickets in every country as Avatar and still potentially fall a few hundred million dollars short, through no fault of its own. That's why you have to take these things with some grain of salt. Let's say -- and I don't believe it'll do this well -- that TFA made $2.6 billion, it wouldn't be fair to say immediately, "It was extremely popular, but not as big as Avatar." That may not be true. And if it is true, what kind of "truth" is there to that statement? If Star Wars beats Avatar in 35 countries but not in 35 other countries, who cares if Avatar made more money worldwide? That doesn't make it a "more popular" or "bigger" movie worldwide, because the two films tied in countries won. It just depends where you live which was the bigger film. Or what if TFA won 50 countries but not some of the biggest ones, and the worldwide total was short, then do you still say Avatar was a bigger movie even though in the majority of countries that's wrong? It just seems a weird way to look at things.

All you can say is the fact, in that case: "Avatar made more United States dollars at the worldwide box office than The Force Awakens." That would be true. lol.

I think people can't get carried away with their predictions for worldwide box office totals, because Avatar was just such a freak of nature. No movie had cleared $2 billion and only a few had made $1 billion, and Avatar somehow managed nearly $3 billion?! That's absolutely insane! Every other movie looks like a failure compared to that kind of craziness. I think The Force Awakens will surprise a lot of people with its international success, though. I think it's wrong to suggest that a lot of countries don't care about Star Wars much and aren't interested in finding out more. We already know countries like the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan are going to be huge, and I think you can expand that list to include Germany, hopefully France, and maybe Italy but those last two are more on the iffy side. Italy has never been a major market for Star Wars in the past, so I'm hoping it is this time around.

I think because TFA is such a major event film, it has a very good chance at hitting $2 billion worldwide, especially on the strength of an immense domestic performance. If it can do $750 million in the U.S., which I think it can, then that leaves $1.25 billion internationally, and I also think that's possible. But I wouldn't bet on it coming anywhere near Avatar's mammoth $2.7 billion take. If it does that, I will be so incredibly blown away I'm not even sure what to think lol.

PS: Part of the reason for my worldwide prediction is based on the Morgan Stanley analyst report indicating a $1.95 billion worldwide projected take for The Force Awakens back from this past summer. If the hype in other countries has increased since then, as it has in the U.S., perhaps breaking $2 billion is in sight. I don't see a worldwide gross below $1.5 billion and I personally would be somewhat disappointed in that figure. I think anything $1.75 billion or more is incredibly impressive and would be enormously successful.

 

You can say that again.

You've thrown around statistical predictions quite a lot and I'm not sure what your background in math is or what your sources are. I have virtually nothing to go on and maybe I'm making an inference here based on a sample size that's too small (that's the hazard of dealing with films that have been the highest grossing at any given time.)

The (unadjusted) highest grossing film before Avatar was Titanic. Both are James Cameron films. That hardly makes Avatar a "freak of nature." It could have been a self fulfilling prophecy. I suspect the reason Avatar became the highest grossing was because of the 3D gimmick. Many people were led to believe that there was a new form of cinema to partake in. But the James Cameron factor is hard to ignore.