re: Avengers Endgame Box Office Watch - Now just $15.5M behind Avatars Record

Actually, no it doesn’t.

Friday values are always inflated because the pre screenings on Thursday get lumped in.

And Sunday typically see a dramatic cut, even as much as half of Saturday’s.

Play it out logically.

Many movie theaters played nothing else last night.

And of those, a sizable number played through the night until morning.

Even if you want to assume that massive focused effort was continued without fail through the entire weekend, and people still kept showing up at the same rate the entire time, under these ideal conditions (305x3) it STILL wouldn’t hit a billion.

And given the long run time, I expect at least a drop off of ~10-15% on saturday’s numbers compared to Friday.

The problem is that fanboys keep on thinking box office is a measure of audience response, but the reality is there is a point where it doesn’t matter how much you want to see it: there are only so many seats available to watch the movie at.

Deadline Hollywood Box Office Updates

3rd Update Friday

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Industry estimates are seeing $130M-$140M for today including $60M. “I don’t see how the pic doesn’t get to $300M-plus,” said one rival distribution exec.

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4th Update Friday

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$140M-$150M opening day, blasting away Star Wars: Force Awakens‘ record first day and single day records of $119.1M. Industry estimates have Endgame‘s weekend between $315M-$330M

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So in that matter of 3 hours or so, the early estimates have jumped from $10 million for Friday, and $15 to $30 million for the weekend.

This is a similar trend we’ve seen with Pirates 2, The Dark Knight, Avengers 1, The Force Awakens, and Infinity Wars, etc., films that blew away previous opening weekend record: each update seems to trend upwards as the initial estimates and projections are based on the patterns of film openings that were much lower and don’t (probably can’t) account for the unprecedented attendance patterns that are occurring in real time.

Yeah typical movies do see drop off on Saturday and Sunday, but this is not your typical movie. Literally every showing is sold out through the weekend. If this thing opens $330M+ just domestically it’s gonna easily pass $1 Billion WW.

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I think the only metrics where it will have a billion dollar opening “weekend” are the ones that start the measurement from showings all the way back on Wednesday.

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I think that is the timeline it’s referring to, with some markets getting a 4.5 day opening, some getting a 3.5 day opening (Thursday night previews), with Russia (about 4-5% of foreign total) opening on Monday instead.

That’s a matter of opinion. I see it as an obvious ploy to buck the trend given that opening weekend is typically defined as midnight/late Thursday showings to Sunday. Exceptions for a holiday weekend.

But here comes Disney, well aware they have a billion dollar contender, having a 100 million dollar night in advance of what they are calling their “official” debut.

So count it, or not, do your thing.

I just wanted to be clear in advance that my prediction was based on the traditional Thursday-Sunday sum.

Aka from the time Disney officially said it was released.

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Yeah typical movies do see drop off on Saturday and Sunday, but this is not your typical movie. Literally every showing is sold out through the weekend. If this thing opens $330M+ just domestically it’s gonna easily pass $1 Billion WW.

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Friday will be the biggest day by far since Thursday showings are included in Friday totals. On the other hand, since only about 10ish percent of schools are out on Friday, the weekend multiplier should be higher than if it was over Summer or Winter breaks, but less than a weekend where closer to 100% of schools are open.

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But here comes Disney, well aware they have a billion dollar contender, having a 100 million dollar night in advance of what they are calling their “official” debut.

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This isn’t something new or exclusive to Disney.

For example, Jurassic World (Universal) opened on 06/12/15 in the US but many foreign markets opened on the 10th or 11th.

Jurassic World Foreign Box Office

Same thing with Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows Part 2 (Warner Brothers) back in July of 2011.

HP Foreign Box Office

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Or it’s just supply/demand. If theaters know they have guaranteed butts in seats, why wouldn’t they push to show it as early as possible?

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Because there is momentum, contracts, and schedules involved.

They’ll upswing showings as they evaluate advance orders, but they aren’t going to blow up what’s already scheduled in the middle of the weekend.

Okay?

I’m just saying that my statement was based on that.

It’s only when I did some deeper digging I saw that early time step up and you have a lot of sources with different information based on if they count that number or not.

If the total number is truly 305 million WW as of right now, including whatever days you want, then it doesn’t matter, the logic I based my prediction on holds.

If it does NOT count that number, then it doesn’t.

And no, I wasn’t trying to claim my stance had anything to do with what Disney can legitimately claim and advertise.

I was just saying what I based the statement on up front so someone can’t shift the goalposts later.

Thursday-Sunday WW won’t be 1 billion

Depending on the lie of the actual numbers and not this mad rush on contradictory tweets and reporting, you can potentially move that caveat as well.

Let me use small sentences.

Different people report different numbers

305 total now is on losing side of projections

If 305 is everything to this point, bad for 1 billion goal

If it is 305 + extra days then different situation