Amph The 2023 Box Office Blood Barbie

Still about 3 hours away from weekend estimates hitting, but Friday estimates are up and show A2 falling from 1st to 3rd with $2.4m, with 80 for Brady and Knock at the Cabin dueling for 1st and 2nd with only 50k difference between them at $5.4-5.5m. Will be interesting to see how that plays out for the weekend or if one of those will end up being front-loaded.

The performance for Brady is seen as a very good sign, as the demos show it is recapturing demos that have been staying away from theaters, with almost half being over 55 and about 70% being women. It's also interesting as it has done so with discount pricing in effect to attract those older audiences- AMC, for example, is doing matinee pricing for all showtimes. This is seemingly the first attempt at dynamic pricing where the price decreases based on the film vs upcharging for tentpoles (as some places did for The Batman last year).

And it's also notable for being a film that was pulled from a streaming service release on Paramount+ in favor of a theatrical release. The same executive at Paramount, Brian Robbins, did the same thing with Smile last year, making it a similar success story. As a result, it's also being taken as an example that other distributors are planning to follow (essentially, not just dumping a movie to streaming but actually putting them in theaters with a proper marketing push when they warrant it).

EDIT- Estimates have Knock at $14.2m at #1. The flipside of that is that it is also M Night's lowest opening. Brady took #2 with $12.5m. A success for the pricing strategy, though it was undermined by the temperature drop in the northeast which likely harmed its pull here.

A2 took in $10.8m in 3rd. That outs it, worldwide, at about $20m behind Titanic.

 

It likely won't top Maverick, but it's probably too early to say that it is it for A2- A1 famously got by on its long-game, $1m days. And indications are that they're willing to give A2 a similar theatrical run (even though it'll definitely be bleeding premium screens quickly over the next 2 weeks, there could conceivably still be single showtimes made available on those). And, from that same run point of (roughly, on average) sub-$1.5m days, A1 took in a further $120m more during its original theatrical run.

Now, A2 is starting to approach losing its pacing lead over A1 (but that is still another week away), and I don't think people are expecting as long of a low-number-run as A1 had in that stretch. But, while it may pace behind A1, that still means that Maverick remains within the realm of possibility (as A2 only has to pace about 75% behind A1 to reach that point). We basically won't know for another 3-4 weeks at least if that remains the case.

Because I think it's fair to say that, if A2 shows enough low-number legs to get within spitting distance of Maverick, they'll let the theatrical run last just long enough to let it finish on top.

EDIT- On the worldwide front, the next interesting thing to watch for is A2 passing Titanic, and if it will do so before the release reclaims that spot and a jockeying for position ensues over the next week or two. It needs to do another $20m-ish before Fri (since Titanic's Thurs previews will get lumped in with Friday numbers), which seems very likely (though the numbers may not get added until later depending on reporting).

So, I would predict that A2 may claim the #3 spot, but only for a day or two. Then Titanic will retake the spot and hold it for no more than a week. By the end of Ant-Man's opening weekend, A2 will be back in the #3 position.

 

But also makes you wonder if would have sold as many tickets without the discount. It's also interesting because Brady was 2nd on Fri, 3rd on Sat and 1st on Sun. You usually don't see that trend over an opening weekend.

Anyways, after 52 days in theaters, with weekend actuals available now, A2 remains ahead of A1 by $7.7m (or 1.21%). And for a point of reference with my rounding in terms of accuracy, doing so kept the margin of error to this point to under $1m, with A1 being overestimated by $0.4m and A2 being overestimated by only $0.2m.

And now I need to add some rows to my spreadsheet .

 

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if A2 jumps back up to $1m days this month at any point (well, outside of weekends). It fell to the $700-800k range on Monday.

 

They don't really list that data fully, I don't think- except on All-Time Adjusted lists, since that figure is the initial value they base their calculations on. Some of that data is on wiki for the top-selling ones, though it's a mixture of territories (and information on international sales prior to the 80's are scarce) so it's more difficult to compare vs the US-only ones.

Generally, though, for the US you find Gone With the Wind at the top of the list at around 200m tickets sold, The Force Awakens at around half that, and Titanic in-between at around 70m below GWTW. Star Wars and Jaws represent the 70's in that range above and below Titanic, with ET and ESB for the 80's, and the rest of the top 15-ish being from the 30's, 50's & 60's. And Avatar 1 at 15. Those lists haven't really been updated in the last few years though.

 

There's also the media environment factor. The first decade or so of its release being without competition from TV or video games for home entertainment, as well as being one of the earliest feature-length films to be in color (note that the B&W Citizen Kane came out 2 years after GWTW- and Casablanca 3 years!), so there was a 3D-like "gimmick" draw to it over other features (except, say the Wizard of Oz). Throw in it launching during the Great Depression when people (especially adults) really needed an escape and you have a trifecta of conditions that can never be replicated ever again (Avatar almost got two of those, but still had that pesky home media to worry about ).

 

EDIT- Gonna replace my earlier post because the estimates didn't have Magic Mike in them for some reason. But the overall prediction of a rollercoaster weekend of different titles taking different spots on different days and us possibly having to wait until Actuals to know how the final rankings still played out:

-Fri: MM3 $4.1m, Titanic $2.720m, Brady $1.850m, Knock $1.700m, A2 $1.691m, Puss $1.31m
-Sat: A2 $3.8m, MM3 $3.1m, Puss $2.95m, Brady $2.825m, Knock $2.800, Titanic $2.685m
-Sun: A2 $1.367m, Brady $1.325m, Puss $1.24m, Knock $1.0m, Titanic $0.995, MM3 $0.94

Total Estimates for the weekend:
1) MM3: $8.200m
2) A2: $6.884m
3) Titanic: $6.400m
4) Brady: $6.001m
5) Knock: $5.501m
6) Puss: $5.500m

That's pretty crazy that #2-5 could all easily end up in in different ranks with only a slight revision of the estimates when Actuals hit. The only one that seems secure is MM3, though is clearly very heavily front-loaded as it crashed during the weekend. And while Actuals usually show notable increases over estimates for A2, I don't think it's going to have that large of an underestimation to top MM3's remaining lead.

Though this kind of weekend makes me wish we could get better daily estimate updates over the weekend instead of "Friday estimates on Saturday and, BAM!, Weekend estimates Sunday at noon" so that we could watch this back and forth jockeying for position take place in "real time".

Anyways, worth noting that the Titanic rerelease has done $22.3m worldwide so far while A2 is now only $3.9m behind it on the All-Time chart worldwide.

 

Ok, Weekend Actuals!

1) MM3: $8.3m (0.1 increase over estimates)
2) A2: $7.2m (0.3 increase)
3) Titanic: $6.7m (0.3 increase)
4) Brady: $5.8m (0.2 decrease)
5) Puss: $5.6m (rose a position with a 0.1 increase)
6) Knock: $5.4m (dropped a position with a 0.1 decrease)

But also the next three in the top 10 came in real close as well:

7) Otto: $2.6m
8) Missing: $2.55m
9) M3GAN: $2.4m
10) Plane: $1.2m

Aaaand, most notably, Friday became the day that A2 fell behind A1's domestic pacing. Day 57. By only about half a million. $642.3m for A1 vs A2's $641.8m. By the end of the weekend, that puts A1 at $661.4m and A2 at $647.3m.

However, to be fair, A1 had the advantage of Valentine's Day falling on a Sunday, and a week after the Superbowl vs the weekend of. Whereas this year Valentine's Day falls on a Tuesday. This also might factor into Titanic's performance as well, as that film's original Valentine's Day performance was the motivation for the timing of this rerelease, being the biggest day the film got during its original run. And the holiday fell on a Sat in 1998.

But with the boost of this rerelease, Titanic now sits at $666m in 8th place on the Domestic All-Time chart. A2 still in 10th with $647.3m, but only $6.2m from passing Jurassic World to take 9th. Worldwide, A2 is only $3.7m behind Titanic (~$214.3 vs $218.0m above $2b).

 

I think it depends on the cycle of things and the content. The last Star Wars film to be in the worldwide Top 5 before TFA was TPM 16 years prior. Also consider that TLJ cracked the top 10 at #9 (maybe #8?) with "only" $1.3b- and did so despite more challenging conditions and SW releases being pushed to an (ultimately unsustainable) annual rate. Imagine what it could have done with more cool-down between releases? Maybe not $2b. But it's more likely in that scenario. More hype building getting to the $1.5-.1.7b range, added to a favorable release calendar (ala A1 and TFA) and positive reaction might allow the conditions to make $2b theoretically achievable again.