First of all I don't post much on DKos, but I read it practically everyday. Besides, politics, my other habit on the internet is box office totals for movies. I post more often on box office sites like Box Office Mojo (up until about 18 mos. ago) and the World of KJ (for the past 18 mos.) under the name mdana. On those sites we track movies and try to project what movies will do over the course of their run after their first weekend numbers are published.
In the past I have been pretty accurate for blockbuster movies like Passion of the Christ and Return of the King (not so great with King Kong). The only (relatively) limited release movie I did was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was probably my weakest projection. I may not be 100% accurate, but I am a better prognosticator than Chris Matthews or Tucker Carlson (not much of an endorsement, I know).
Back to the topic:the box office projection for AIT-An Inconvenient Truth (we shorten the movies to their initials). Before it opened I predicted the movie to open in the $40-50k range its first weekend, and based on that type of opening projected a $6-8 million final box office total.
The movie opened on 4 theaters which is a typical opening for a small limited run documentary. Last year March of the Penguins opened on 4 theaters for a PTA of $34.3k. AIT was able to do almost double that on the same number of theaters. MOTP went onto make $77.4m, so AIT must be on course for Fahrenheit 9/11 numbers, right? No, it is not that simple.
Another comparable movie (although not a documentary)is Good Night, and Good Luck. That movie opened last October and made $38.3k on 11 theaters, which is approximately comparable to what AIT did. What GLGN did is slightly more impressive all things considered, because it opened on almost three times as many theaters and did over half the PTA as AIT. GLGN went onto gross $31.55m. Will AIT be able to gross that much? Again, the answer is probably no. GLGN was able to make 20% of its total after Oscar nominations were announced which will be a benefit AIT won't be able to duplicate with a Summer release.
Fahrenheit 9/11 must be treated as an anomoly and not really worthy of comparison until AIT shows something abnormal. Also, F 9/11 opened much bigger in 868 theaters than any of these other movies. So for now F 9/11 is not an issue.
So far I have presented arguements why An Inconvenient Truth will not make as much as these other films. One factor I have not mentioned is the impact of a movie's distributor. A movie's distributor is very important in how much a movie can make. F 9/11's distributor was Lions Gate which was making a push with that movie to become a major player. Lions Gate previous biggest grosser prior to 9/11 was Monster's Ball which made $31.27m. MOTP and GNGL were distributed by Warner Classics. Those two movies are WC's biggest grossing movies. Prior to those two movies, WC's biggest grosser was A Very Long Engagement which made $6.5m. AIT is being released by Paramount Classics, and PC's biggest grosser was last year's Hustle and Flow which made $22.2m. This bodes well for AIT, because PC is roughly comparable to LG and WC when they opened the movies previously mentioned.
So far, I have presented mostly negatives for AIT. A positive factor for AIT is that it opened on Wednesday which diluted the strength of its PTA. Had it opened on a Friday like MOTP and GNGL, it would have had a PTA of approx. $85K using my patented mdana formula for adjusting a five day opening (opening on a Wednesday) to a three day opening (traditional Friday). That is an outstanding PTA which is harbinger of stong demand for a film.
The guesswork now becomes what kind of release pattern will PC utilize for AIT. AIT theater counts for the next few weeks have not been announced. MOTP expanded to 20 theaters its second weekend. GNGL expanded to 68 theaters its second weekend. I would look for AIT to expand in the 40-50 theater range next weekend due to the high PTA this weekend (unless PC has some other type of roll out pattern). It could be as low 30-35 theaters, but it should be over 30 theaters. The expansion could also be well above 50 theaters, but too much of an expansion too soon can kill a movie's roll-out momentum. I doubt it will expand much over 50 theaters next weekend. From what I have read from other box office watchers it looks to expand 2-3 theaters in the top 10-20 markets, which would put it at most in 64 theaters.
Now when movies expand at this rate, the sign of a movie doing well is maintaining its PTA at least 50% of what it was the previous week. So, AIT will need to sustain a PTA of $25-35K in its new theaters, to continue gain momentum for further expansion. Even if AIT dropped off to $15-20k, it would continue to expand, but its potential to expand beyond 200 theaters becomes jeopardized.
If people are interested in this topic I can run some numbers and compare it to some other movie matches to project its final total, but if there is not much interest it is not worth my time to run the numbers. Right, now just using a ballpark estimate, I think the absolute minimum it can make at this point is $10 million. I could see it making as high as $30+ million under traditional scenerios, but I need to run some numbers on other movies. The upper limit maybe much higher. I honestly was not expecting it to make as much as it did this weekend and had not really given enough thought about how much it most likely will make. I am revising my thoughts on its box office potential.
Update: According to the revised estimates released today, AIT made $70.5k PTA, which is an increase of $4k for the three day weekend over the initial estimate. It also made $91.5k for the 4-day weekend. The increase over the initial estimate bodes well for its legs and is a modest sign that word of mouth-WOM is good (at least among its current audience). The next test will be if AIT can mantain these estimates when the actuals are realeased tomorrow. Whenever the atuals are higher than the estimates it is usually a sign of good WOM and movie that will have legs.
AIT currently stands at a $489K for its total and $366k for its 4-day weekend.
Update II: Thanks to Gray for the link to the current theater counts. I did a break down and the theater count rollout will work like this using the current commitments.
Week 1 5/24/06- 4 theaters(New)
Week 2 6/2/06- 39 theaters(New) 43 theaters(total)
Week 3 6/9/06- 36 theaters(New) 79 theaters(total)
Week 4 6/16/06- 58 theaters(New) 137 theaters(total)
Week 5 6/23/06- 40 theaters(New) 177 theaters (total)
Week 6 6/30/06- 56 theaters(New) 233 theaters (total)
Week 7 7/2/06- 2 theaters (New) 235 theaters (total)
I hope this expansion will increase, because it is too conservative/passive a roll-out expansion for a movie that has such high PTA. For comparison the roll out for 3 movies with much lower PTA's their first weekend.
GNGL
Week 2 10/7-10/9/05- 57 theaters(New), 68 theaters(total), $18.3k PTA
Week 3 10/14-10/16/05- 157 theaters(New), 225 theaters(total), $10k PTA
Week 5 11/4-11/6/05- 385 theaters (New), 657 theaters (total), $4.7k PTA
MOTP
Week 2 7/1-7/3/05- 16 theaters(New), 20 theaters(total), $20.6k PTA
Week 3 7/8-7/10/05- 44 theaters(New), 64 theaters(total),$15.9k PTA
Week 5 7/22-7/24/05- 563 theaters (New), 695 theaters (total), $6.3k PTA.
Bowling for Columbine-BFC
Week 1 10/11-10/13/02- 8 theaters, $26.1k PTA
Week 2 10/18-10/20/02- 38 theaters(New), 46 theaters(total), $15.8k PTA
Week 3 10/25-10/27/02- 65 theaters(New), 111 theaters(total), $9.7k PTA
Week 5 11/8-11/10/02- 60 theaters (New), 222 theaters (total), $7k PTA
Some of this is due to theaters space being more limited in the Summer than in the Fall. The opening of a blockbuster like X3 or Cars every weekend limits screen space for independent films. So GNGL and BFC were able to expand quickly their first few weeks while MOTP had to wait until week 5 before expanding past 200 theaters. Bowling for Columbine was able to get into 2000 theaters by week 3, because its opeing weekend White Chicks (weakest May/June/July single wide opener in 21st century)was an extremely weak wide opener and the constant media buzz about the movie.
Mikenlola asked about pre-opening studio tracking. Yes, I also frequent a site called the Hollywood Stock Exchange (people trade movie stocks). A poster by the name of notfabio usually posts Reel Source and Major Theater Chain tracking info on Tuesday. He works for some major theater in LA and gets the information early in the week. They are normally pretty good, but they underestimate family films and urban comedies too often to be taken too seriously. They don't track films that open in under 800 theaters so, they are of no use for a film like AIT.
Update 3: Current screen counts for AIT.
Arclight-3 sereens
Laemmle's MONICA 4-PLEX-2 screens
Lowe's Lincoln Square-3 screens
Sunshine Theater- 3 screens
Weekend PSA $25.6k. These are approximate screen counts, because a theater may dedicate 3 screens to AIT at certain points and at other times in the day only have 2 screens for it. My comment below is probably too conservative. The screen to theater ratio is probably more like 2-2.5 for next week's expansion.
Last Update: Actuals should be released around 5 p.m. EST. I will work on projections using this release pattern and should have a new diary posted around 7-8 p.m.
New diary
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/31/12013/2175
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