Other Crap

Wonka opens with $55 million.

Every time I read something written about the industry, I have to wonder what kind of drugs these writers take.

• First of all, there was the famous "slump," which could easily have been identified as no slump at all if anyone had bothered to look at the numbers. The apparent slump was caused by a fluke year in 2004 which had all kinds of extraordinary windfall numbers (sometimes 25% over the previous year) reaped by The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 911, both of which brought non-moviegoers into the theaters. Looking deeper into the numbers, one finds that 2005 has been running steadily ahead of 2003, the last year without extraordinary non-recurring income. 2005's negative numbers versus 2004 just represented a return to business as usual, following last year's windfall.
• Then there was the offbeat theory that this would be a poor weekend because the new Potter book would keep people out of the theaters. Scrap another theory. If Potter books affect the box office, the impact appears to be positive. It was a great weekend in which both new films exceeded expectations. This year was about 9% above 2003, a result similar to but slightly better than what has been happening recently - perhaps five million better than I expected. The key point here is that the effect of the 2004 windfall had all but disappeared by mid-July, so 2005 is now running substantially above 2004 as well as 2003. Here is how the Top 12 performed:
  • 2003 - $138.4m
  • 2004 - $140.8
  • 2005 - $151.2
• Where and how did Wonka and Wedding Crashers pick up an extra fifteen million dollars over the Warrior's predictions? There are three sources of that:
  1. First, the overall box was about 9% over 2003, and my expectation would have been about 5%-6%, consistent with trends. The difference added some six million to the total box.
  2. Warrior's estimate was even more conservative. He expected a Top 12 in the $142-143 range, while I thought that group would gross something closer to $145-146. That accounted for another three million.
  3. Fantastic Four slipped dramatically (about 60%), and all of the other carry-overs underperformed as well. The holdovers came in about six million below expectations, with about half of that shortfall coming from FF.
  The fifteen million from those three sources seems to have gone to Wonka and Wedding Crashers.