PREDICTIONS: december 8-10
The calm before the storm... the storm being Star Wars next weekend. Broad holdover films look to see small drops whilst awards season releases continue to expand as many titles vie for adult arthouse dollars.
NEW RELEASES / expansions
the disaster artist (a24)
The Room, the movie upon which The Disaster Artist is based on, is a cult classic. If you haven't seen it and want to experience the worst/best the movie industry has to offer, watch it now.
Last weekend, The Disaster Artist had an amazing opening weekend in just 19 theatres, with a per theatre average of $63K. To give some context around how strong that is, it's in the top five best PTA's for any film opening in over 10 theatres. While this is undoubtedly a great start, it's not entirely surprising. As mentioned, The Room was a huge cult hit, with independent cinemas screening sold-out late night showings of the film regularly for years. Those same people who drove the original to cult status were the ones clamouring to see The Disaster Artist on opening weekend in those 19 theatres, so the massive PTA in those theatres does make sense.
Where the big test will be though, is outside of that hardcore audience. Unlike other cult classics like Fight Club, The Room is a classic because of how bad it was, and that is a niche within the niche of cult films - meaning the awareness among broad audiences of The Room's existence is very, very low. A film based off a film with such a niche has a big hill to climb to break out and appeal to broad audiences. The first 19 theatres was the easy part - the next 800 this weekend will be the true test of The Disaster Artist's broad appeal, or lack thereof.
While A24 has earnt their reputation for distributing high quality arthouse films that perform well at a specialty level (Moonlight, The Room), they have not yet proven themselves at wide releases. Just this year, they opened Free Fire in 1000 theatres to a woeful result of $990,000, with a PTA of less than $1,000... ouch. Also this year, They opened It Comes At Night in 2500 theatres to $6million, with a PTA of just $2,300. Both of those weak results don't exactly inspire confidence. Two exceptions are the recent Lady Bird, which is destined to end up their highest grossing release to date, and The Witch in 2016, which managed over $8million from 2000 theatres - a decent $4000 PTA. If A24 can get The Disaster Artist to a $4K PTA in its 840 theatres this weekend, that's $3.3million - which would be considered a disappointing result.
We also see A24's Spring Breakers, also staring James Franco, as a good comparison title - perhaps the best one we have for such a unique release. That film opened in 3 theatres to a $88,000 PTA, before going wide to 1,100 theatres and managing $4.8million and a $4,400 PTA.
With the added star power of the Franco brothers combined with the very strong reviews and award season buzz, there's an outside chance that this could hit a $7,000 PTA and reach close to $6million for the weekend. While we think it can better the performance of The Witch, we're not confident that The Disaster Artist has enough broad appeal to reach a $5,000 PTA - we're going with a $4million weekend for a PTA of a little under $5,000.
HOLDOVERS
Coco had a strong second-weekend hold, dropping just 46% in the post Thanksgiving frame. To put that in perspective, Moana dropped 50%, Tangled dropped 55%, The Good Dinosaur dropped 61% and Frozen dropped 53%. Clearly, word of mouth is strong and audiences are liking Coco. Looking at those titles and their third weekend drops (-34%, -34%, -33%, and -29% respectively), there's an obvious pattern for these thanksgiving releases, making Coco's weekend easier to predict. With Coco's great second weekend hold and strong midweek grosses, it's safe to assume it drops less than 30% this weekend. We'll go with 28% for a hint under $20million this weekend. That would give it a total of $137million with plenty more to come as it looks to finish near Moana's $248million tally.
Justice League had a big second weekend drop and an even bigger third weekend drop of 60% - by far the largest in the top 10. Weekday grosses have been mediocre too, so while it will bounce back from last weekend's drop, we still see it holding worse than the rest fo the top 10 again on what is traditionally a low drop weekend. Expect it's cash to drop by almost half to $9million and $211million after four weekends, on it way to maybe $240million - well short of Wonder Woman's $400 million earlier this year, and only just higher than Marvel's Doctor Strange from this time last year.
Wonder, Thor: Ragnarok, Daddy's Home 2 and Murder on the Orient Express all had similar drops last weekend in the low-mid 40% range have all had strong weekday grosses. All should hold at a 30% drop or better. Daddy's Home in particular has had fantastic weekday holds - that combined with it's holiday nature should see the smallest drop of the lot - closer to 20%.
Lady Bird and Three Billboards have been enjoying very successful expansions as they head into the award season with nominations for both starting to come through. Lady Bird actually increased 6% as it increased from 700 to 1,100 theatres and held a solid $3,500 PTA. Three Billboards held exactly steady last weekend - but with the caveat that it did more than double it's theatre count to 1,400 - so it's PTA of $3,000 is a little weaker than Lady Bird's. Both are expanding again this weekend - +360 for Lady Bird and +190 for Three Billboards. Based on last weekend and the expansion, it's safe to assume Lady Bird will have a stronger hold - it may even increase again slightly. We'll go with a steady weekend for Lady Bird of just over $4million, and a slight 15% drop for Three Billboards at just under $4million.
WEEKEND CHART