Saturday, September 03, 2011

Labor Day Derby

With more tropical storms swirling, nobody knows how the three-day weekend will financially shake out. But here's how the animation/mo-cap part of it looks now:

6. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (Fox) Week 5 [3,193 Theaters] Friday $1.8M, Estimated 4-Day Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $162M ...

10. The Smurfs (Sony) Week 6 [2,706 Theaters] Friday $875K, Estimated 4-Day Weekend $5M, Estimated Cume $133M

Sadly, Disney's widening of Cars 2 for some extra Labor Day moolah has not been a wild success, as the Mojo notes:

... [T]he re-rollout of Cars 2 stalled. The Pixar sequel took in an estimated $215,000 at 2,043 locations, or around half of Toy Story 3's re-expansion on the same Friday last year. With $187.7 million in 71 days, Cars 2 will be the first Pixar movie since A Bug's Life not to reach $200 million, and it's also the company's least-attended movie yet by a wide margin. ...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How are these numbers even posted not even 1/2 way into the 4 day week end. I understand estimates on a sunday with two days to estimate, but 1 and barely a 1/2 day for an estimate, these number should be highly suspect, and why bother to post it. Let it be inaccurate on some other site.

Steve Hulett said...

I update.

In the meantime I need blog fodder. There are only so many posts about Walt Disney Animation Studios or Jeffrey's place in me during a given week.

Anonymous said...

Fact is, the estimates are often pretty damned close, and it is something people are interesting in following. If the first commenter here doesn't find this post worthwhile, he or she is free to skip it.

Anonymous said...

I usually do, but I wanted to know How these estimates could even come out predicting the numbers based on such a short period, but I guess I can't ask that or point out the integrity I find of this site

Anonymous said...

You can ask it all you want. The fact is that the studios have tracked the patterns of how the weekend grosses for different kinds of films will track though an entire weekend, based on the initial numbers on Friday. It's simple predictive mathematical modeling. It's certainly more accurate than predicting the weather three days out, and yet we all find the latter worthwhile, even if it's almost always not 100% accurate.

Anonymous said...

what is the simple predictive mathematical modeling used?

Anonymous said...

Ask the studios. They're the ones who developed the models, and they're the ones who give the press the numbers they generate.

Hey, if you want to play math games, why don't you take the last year or two worth of box office data, both studio estimates as reported on Friday night/Saturday morning, and actual numbers as revealed on Monday or Tuesday, and see how 'suspect' those numbers actually are. Or you could keep whining in the comments section of an industry blog. Bet I know which course you'll take.

Anonymous said...

Who's whining? You sounded as if you suggested a good idea, what the reason for the jab at the end?

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