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Back in April I took my first stab at a Box Office prediction, I did so because a number of Hollywood sources were already making their predictions public. It was unusually early for a movie, even for a Tent Pole from Warner Bros. My math back than suggested a model with $49.5 Million being a very like landing spot.
We are a few days before opening and its time to make some last minute adjustments.
While I predicted The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would be soft, I didn't think it would be non-existent two weeks in. My model for TASM2 had a light opening weekend and two strong follow on weekends, instead we got a decent number in the first weekend, a massive drop in the second weekend and a massive drop in the third weekend.
Why the massive drop in Weekend three for TASM2, well basically because it is soft sales the movie is being moved out of the premium theaters into more standard formats. Last weekend at the 37 nearby cinema TASM2 was on an average of 4 screens, this upcoming weekend 2 and not a single Imax or other large format screen, one theater actually is dropping it out of 3D.
Over the past 30 days Warner Bros. has rolled out the marketing campaign and hype machine, aimed specifically at 30 to 60 year old women. Considering I am a 43 year old white guy I really can't say whether this specific marketing campaign is working or not, sorry.
Let us take a step back and review where has this strategy been successful, last year's Paramount tent pole World War Z had a similar strategy in marketing, arguably Godzilla's marketing campaign is almost an exact copy, down to the minimal views of the monster. World War Z opened to $66 Million in its first weekend. One problem Godzilla lacks Brad Pitt or a name on the same a-list. It's not that I think the actors in Godzilla are bad actors, rather they don't have the name recognition that Brad Pitt has.
Last year Warner Bros. release Pacific Rim starring a similar slotted cast of good actors but none really on the a-list. Godzilla and Pacific Rim share a eerily similar story line with one feature mechanized Godzillas known as Jaegers and the other Godzilla. Pacific Rim under performed at the America Box Office, albeit in a more crowded weekend.
America audiences have never been exceedingly large for these types of films, even the first Transformer's film opened low before a solid three weekends at only 40% drop. While Warner Bros. is working hard to forget about Sony's 1998 Godzilla and working even harder to not see the campy Showa Godzilla movies of the 50's, 60's 70's and 80's, all 16 of them.
In 1998 the movie was set in New York, simply because the audience for the film had seen Godzilla and the two dozen wannabes destroy Tokyo and San Francisco and Hawaii often enough. I read somewhere the idea that east coast audiences could care less if LA falls into the ocean. This movie returns to its roots. Will the large east coast audiences show up to watch San Francisco get pummeled?
So how do you create a model or this?
But that's not the only problem in building a model, usually when you look at a Tent Pole film you know it will have two weeks of minimal competition, Godzilla just has the opening weekend as X-Men: Days of Future Past explodes onto the screen in the following week, and it will be taking all the premium screens. Usually you have some since that part of the audience will stay away and catch the movie the following weekend when the theaters are less crowded which probably won't be an option.
After adjusting my comparables, competition and hype models
On the low side of the model I am looking at $52 million (Pacific Rim) on the high side around $67 Million (World War Z) and unlike many of models I have no distinct middle ground. The key is how many women go to see this movie, and what will their makeup be. Clearly I think from personal experience that this movie will be more like Pacific Rim and end up just shy of $60 Million.
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