*** Official "2003 Box Office Prediction and Discussion" Thread (2 Viewers)

[Patrick Sun]

BTW, most of this wish list stuff about the Oscars should go in the Oscar thread.

 

[Brian W.]

You know, I just noticed something: Although Spider-man opened much bigger, ROTK has already almost caught up with it. Spider-man grossed $151,622,504 in its first 7 days... ROTK grossed $150,139,984 in its first 7 days. Maybe it will top $400 million after all.
I don't think ROTK is a lock for best picture, either, but I do think it's a lock for director. In the critics awards so far, it's 50/50 between Jackson and Coppola -- they've each won four. It's funny, several of the awards, Jackson won director while Lost in Translation won picture, and on some of the awards that's reversed! I think Coppola is too new to win the Oscar, though I do think she'll be nominated.
http://www.moviecitynews.com/awards/...coreboard.html

 

[nolesrule]

It has a lot to do with the Wed-Tues opening week for ROTK compared to a Fri-Thurs week for most films. I wouldn't expect ROTK to make more than $8M on day 8 (Christmas Eve, the first two LOTR films made $7.3M and $7.8M in day 6 and day 7, respectively), while Spidey's day 8 was a Friday, which made $19.9M.

Don't expect another $20M day from ROTK, unless it is this coming Saturday, though I wouldn't bet on it. Spidey made as much in its second weekend as ROTK did in its first Fri-Sun.

Assuming ROTK stays at roughly the same levels as The Two Towers through the run, it should finish in the $350-365M range. Let's not forget though, that after the first 4 weeks, FOTR typically outgrossed TTT daily for the rest of the run (BOM tracked daily for 34 weeks on the comparison chart) and had better legs.

It's too early to say for sure, but I think $400M is highly unlikely. We'll know for sure after the 3rd weekend.

 

[Brian W.]

It has a lot to do with the Wed-Tues opening week for ROTK compared to a Fri-Thurs week for most films.

That explains why ROTK would make less on the weekend, since it had already been out for two days, but it doesn't explain the full week gross, which is still a seven-day period involving the same seven days.

It also doesn't explain the days following the first weekend. ROTK made aprx. $13.5 million on its first Monday, its sixth day in release, while Spider-man only made $11 million on its first Monday, its fourth day in release.

It could be due to the kiddies being out of school (though I don't think most of them were out yet on Monday), but time will tell.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Most kids should be out of school the week of Christmas, no?

 

[Matt Stone]

Most kids should be out of school the week of Christmas, no?

That's been my experience.

 

[nolesrule]

Kids will also be off school next week too, since New Years is on Thursday.

Also, some M-F places of business shut down from Christmas Eve until Jan 2, or in this year's case, Jan 5, like where my wife works.

 

[Brian W.]

Well, I was just talking about Monday. When I was a kid, Christmas break usually didn't start till Christmas Eve. Here in L.A., it's the whole week for some students and Tues. for others. But you're right, most of them probably were out on Monday.

 

[nolesrule]

Most schools around here give nearly 2.5 weeks off for a winter break.

 

[nolesrule]

BOM has a rough estimate for Christmas Eve of $7.56M, which would be less than TTT's Christmas Eve take if it stands, probably due to the lenghth of the film combined with a smaller number of showtimes.

The LOTR movies do get a boost from Christmas week and New Year's week, so the only way to judge how ROTK will do is to compare it to the two previous films. Both previous films had to rely on these two weeks of vacation to get a serious boost in their grosses in proportion to their opening weekend. In this day and age of fast openings, their final grosses as compared to their openings are disproportionately large, and it has more to do with those two weeks than any other reason.

Spider-man, on the other hand, had a traditional release cycle combined with strong weekends. It had one holiday movie day, Memorial Day on the 25th day of release. The Memorial day boost was the difference in getting over $400M.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The theatrical release of TTT was around 3:15 minutes. I doubt ROTK is getting less showtimes (than TTT) due to it being around 6 minutes longer at the same timeframe when compared to last year's TTT release and its performance around Christmas.

I'm still sticking by the "seen the finale, don't need to see it 3 times" reason why ROTK will be close to TTT's box office take, but not get anywhere near $400 million.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

The theatrical release of TTT was around 3:15 minutes. I doubt ROTK is getting less showtimes (than TTT) due to it being around 6 minutes longer at the same timeframe when compared to last year's TTT release and its performance around Christmas.

Two Towers theatrical was 179 minutes, so it's more like a 20 minute difference between the two. That still shouldn't make a huge difference in the number of screenings, but ROTK IS more than 10% longer than TT or Fellowship...

 

[nolesrule]

The film was 20 min longer and previews/commercials seem to get longer every year.

Many theaters in my area had less showings on Christmas Eve than on a regular weekday, no late night shows. Some theaters showing ROTK onmultiple screens theaters had one less screening of ROTK than TTT did because of that.

The theater I was at for a 7:50pm show had no start times after 8pm for movies. They didn't have enough employees there to keep everything on schedule. They started the previews 10 min late and forgot to lower the lights. I had to get up both times to tell them to get their butts in gear.

And in general, many screens (not theaters) are showing ROTK 3 times rather than 4, except on weekends.

 

[Malcolm R]

Theaters around here only had afternoon matinees on Christmas Eve, then didn't open until late afternoon on Christmas Day. So over the course of the two days, films only had about 1/2 the normal showings.

FOTR was on many fewer screens, so it was selling out for weeks compared to TTT and ROTK which fully saturated the marketplace. Definitely makes them more front-loaded.

Plus I'd think the long length of ROTK might play into fewer tickets sold over Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Do most people really want to spend 3 1/2 hours in a theater on the holiday? Personally, I'd probably pick a shorter film that didn't take as much time away from other Christmas activities.

 

[nolesrule]

There were about 60 people in my 7:50pm Christams Eve showing. About 10 left during the sequence prior to the final scene (couldn't wait another 3 minutes?)

There are a lot of people that don't have a holiday to celebrate on the 24th/25th (I'll leave it at that so as not to encroach on forum rules), and going to the movies is a great way to spend time when everything else is closed.

 

[Vickie_M]

There are a lot of people that don't have a holiday to celebrate on the 24th/25th (I'll leave it at that so as not to encroach on forum rules), and going to the movies is a great way to spend time when everything else is closed.

Bingo! We slept late, puttered around, went out to eat (pretty good Thai food, one of the few restaurants open), then saw the 9:00pm showing of ROTK. The theater was about half full.

There were no late Christmas Eve shows or early Christmas day shows.

 

[Dalton]

We saw it for the 3rd time

Count me in the weird group also. My wife and i have seen it 3 times also. I guess she really likes ROTK because we are expecting a baby anyday now and she has a hard time sitting in one place for that long. I'm sure we'll be going at least one more time after the baby is born(thank god we have plenty of babysitters!). I think ROTK will do at least as good as TTT.

 

[Nick Sievers]

Count me in the weird group also.

Remember that people who hang out in the Movies section of a Home Theatre Forum are usually film lovers.
We saw it opening day yesterday. What an exceptional film. It is definitely not the last time i'll be seeing this at the theatre.

 

[Ray H]

According to Box Office Mojo, ROTK made an estimated $14,575,000 on Christmas. In comparison, TTT made $12,381,307 last Christmas.

 

[TerryRL]

Christmas Day Estimates

#1 "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" $14.5 million ($172.7 million)
#2 "Cheaper by the Dozen" $8.2 million
#3 "Paycheck" $5.1 million
#4 "Cold Mountain" $4.5 million
#5 "Peter Pan" $3.9 million
#6 "Something's Gotta Give" $3.4 million ($42.1 million)
#7 "Mona Lisa Smile" $2.7 million ($20.0 million)
#8 "The Last Samurai" $2.5 million ($66.1 million)
#9 "Bad Santa" $1.4 million ($46.4 million)
#10 "Elf" $1.2 million ($160.6 million)

ROTK now boasts the biggest Christmas Day mark in history as it took in $14.5 million yesterday (passing the $12.3 million tally of 'The Two Towers' last year). The movie has so far earned close to $173 million and will have passed the $200 million by the end of the weekend. Look for it to top the double-century mark on it's 11th day in theaters. That would tie "The Matrix Reloaded" as the second fastest film in history to pass that mark ("Spider-Man" remains the fastest to pass $200 mil, it did it in only 9 days). The 11 day trek would also better the 12 day marches of both 'The Two Towers' and 'Attack of the Clones'.

There should be no doubt now that ROTK is going to end up being not only the biggest hit of the LOTR trilogy, but also the biggest money-maker of 2003. ROTK is well on it's way to becoming only the 7th film in history to earn more than $350 million domestically.