Now with gilt-edged Add On.
The Derby begins, and The Numbers guesstimates the numbers:
... How to Train Your Dragon is the latest 3D movie to hit theaters and so far 2010 has been dominated by such films. In fact, this will be the 13th weekend of 2010 and a 3D film has come out on top nine times. At some point 3D could flame out and crash, but I don't think that it will happen this weekend and How to Train Your Dragon could beat analysts expectations. Right now expectations range from around $35 million to close to $50 million ...
Frankly, with the critics rhapsodizing over Toothless and company, I don't know what the movie will pull in. But I speculate the epic will have staying power
However, one of the new wrinkles attached to Dragon's launch is this:
Theaters are also planning on raising the 3D ticket price by 8% to squeeze out more revenues from premium ticket sales ...
Nothing like a little gouging when you've got a hot, Three Dee commodity. A stupid thing to do, I think. Because a tipping point will come and audiences will start to opt out of paying extra money to see the Dimensional Version.
Add On: The LA Times has the same thought about rising ticket prices. The greed is taking over.
Killing the golden goose: Exhibitors raise 3-D ticket prices sky-high
Add On Too: The Nikkster's spies and stoolies project weekend box office receipts (subject, of course, to later revisions ...)
FRIDAY 10:45 PM UPDATE: My sources just gave me these updated Friday box office figures with weekend estimates. ...
1. How To Train Your Dragon 3D (Dreamworks Animation/Paramount) NEW -- Friday $13.5M, Estimated Weekend $47.5M
2. Alice In Wonderland 3D (Disney) Week 4 -- Friday $6.2M (-36% from a week ago), Estimated Weekend $22.5M, Estimated Cume $298M
3. Hot Tub Time Machine (MGM) Friday $4.5M, Estimated Weekend $13.5M
4. The Bounty Hunter (Relativity/Sony) Week 2 -- Friday $4.2M (-45%), Estimated Weekend $12.5M, Estimated Cume $39M
5. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (Fox) Week 2 -- Friday $3.1M (-57%), Estimated Weekend $11.5M, Estimated Cume $37.3M
Add On Three: B.O. Mojo pegs Dragon's Friday numbers at $12.2 million.
Add On Four: Box Office Mojo calculates Dragon's weekend take as $43.3 million. As the Nikkster says:
Even rival studios readily acknowledge that DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg had one of his best films in years coming out this weekend. "It's exciting, adventurous, emotional," one competitor gushed. "But it's been tracking badly." That's because the pic lacked comedy, unlike DA's previous hits Kung Fu Panda and Monsters v Aliens. (Those often annoying wisecracks written into so many DA movies are real crowd pleasers.)
So Dragon finished its opening weekend with a $16M drop from Monsters v Aliens which debuted the same time last year. This, even though both pics commanded higher 3D ticket prices, and Paramount distributed Dragon to more 3D theaters. (Dragon's studios kept wanting to compare the pic not to its own MvA but to Sony's 3D Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which opened with $30M in September also to great reviews. It's the box office game of managing expectations.) Still, with 97% positive reviews and an "A" Cinemascore, moviegoers liked the product, which heads into 2 weeks of school holidays and should play to good multiples ...
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14 comments:
I keep hearing Titan is going to steal all of the Dragon screens when it comes out. Is that true at all?
i will likely not pay for the 3d for the kids. we have forked out extra the last three 3d extravaganzas. it is getting a bit old from a financial point of view. if the kids were older and had jobs, go for it.
hearing the possibility of an extra 8%? in these times? no way. pricks. hollywood isn't that f**king great.
Titan is likely going to steal 3D screens away from Alice which has already been out for 4 weeks. Dragon should gain, especially if WOM is great (which it is).
Almost all Alice screens were already taken by Dragons. Dragons will have to split it screens with Titans.
I have it on VERY good authority that Dragon will not lose a single 3D screen next weekend when "Crash of the Titans" comes out.
Just saw it in 2D -- wonderful. Now I'll go see it in 3D to compare.
Nikki Finke has the weekend estimate already pegged at $44 million.
If we want to see a movie 9/10 times I'll go for the 2D screen and save a few extra bucks. But when it comes to these price increases in general, it will most definitely cause us to visit the movie theatre a lot less. If Disney's new plan to rollout the dvd/bluray sooner comes to fruition then these theatre owners are going to regret this price increase.
But these days, I don't like to give my money away for just anything.
I can pull at least three Disney examples straight off the top of my head about "Why NOT to start bragging about How Much Money It'll Make on opening weekend before it makes it."
Not that the movie won't probably do well, just that it tends to put the movie in the thankless position of being punished for not living up to the set-in-stone figure created by a publicist's imagination, now matter how well it does.
(You take PATF, I'm still trying to avenge Cars...)
If you truly love this movie as much as you say you do, STAY AWAY from the predictions. There's no competition this week to keep it from being #1, but you'll have only yourselves to blame if you start shouting that whatever figure it made wasn't "enough", and then trying to concoct reasons why.
"Nothing like a little gouging when you've got a hot, Three Dee commodity. A stupid thing to do, I think. Because a tipping point will come and audiences will start to opt out of paying extra money to see the Dimensional Version."
Agreed.
The higher ticket price for 3D was already too high. The true fans (comic and animation geeks) and industry people will turn out, the teenage gamer boys , etc. will turn out and I'm sure Dragon will do well this weekend. BUT, in fact the 8% ticket price increase (price gouging) doesn't play well with many average folks.
I have out-of-town guests (non-industry people, not comic or animation geeks/fans) this week and was building up Dragon to them , proposing we all go see it last night (Friday) and they were almost to the point where I had talked these two normal adults into seeing a 'cartoon' ,but when they found out the ticket price for the 3D screening they quickly lost interest. No way would they pay that to see a 'cartoon'. They might get it later on Netflix.
Maybe losing these people's business at this stage of the game won't really impact the profit margin, but I think you're right , Steve. At some point more of the audience is going to revolt against the higher ticket prices. Honestly the 3D effect/spectacle is not THAT interesting to keep pulling people in. The Novelty Factor does wear off after a while.
I've heard the surcharge in the first place isn't for "glasses cleaning", as popular myth has it, but for the expensive digital projection system--
But I seem to recall most chains have had DLP for a good nine years now, and I question the timing of whether it "suddenly" became more expensive for theaters during the battle of the three most studio-hyped spring-tentpoles.
Think we'll see the start of a backlash, not against "3-D movies are too dark" or "They give me a headache", but against studios' eggs-in-a-basket reliance on just how MUCH the audience wants to see 3-D in general--They'll come to see a good movie in 3-D, but once it becomes that common, 3-D alone isn't going to bring the curiosity seekers back to the theaters again as much as it did in the days of Chicken Little.
"Nothing like a little gouging when you've got a hot, Three Dee commodity. A stupid thing to do, I think. Because a tipping point will come and audiences will start to opt out of paying extra money to see the Dimensional Version."
Isn't that exactly how supply and demand works? Econ 101 says there is a point that raising prices will start to drive away more customers than you are making up for in the higher cost.
"Estimated Weekend $47.5M"
If that estimate holds then it will be on the high end of analyst projections which bodes very well for the movie. Good movies deserve to do well in the Box Office. I just wish it always worked that way.
I dropped my grand kids off (7 and 9) to see the Dragon cartoon. They said it was cute. But they won't be seeing it again, as I felt gouged at the box office.
I dropped my grand kids off (7 and 9) to see the Dragon cartoon. They said it was cute. But they won't be seeing it again, as I felt gouged at the box office.
Who leaves a 7 and 9 year without adult supervision? If you felt gouged at the box office, blame it on the theatre not the film.
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