2019 At The Box Office (2 Viewers)

[Malcolm R]

I also never (and I mean never) buy snacks or drinks in the theater. ...So when I go to the movies, my net cost is the price of a matinee movie ticket and that's it. There's nothing else I pay them for,...

Cinemark and Regal have obviously decided that the guaranteed additional payment from advertisers, who are being charged more to run their ads closer to the feature than before, is worth the hypothetical potential loss of business from anyone who decides to stay at home as a result of this nonsense. That is a very shortsighted view, but there doesn't seem to be much we as customers can do to change it.

I have mentioned to employees at my local theater that I'm very displeased by this, ...

Not to scold you (or rebut your argument that the ticket itself is relatively inexpensive), but given the inequitable split of box office ticket income between the theaters and studios, the theaters depend greatly upon concession sales to stay in business. That's why they charge $8 for popcorn and $6 for a drink. If those sales wane, they look to other means such as increased and more intrusive on-screen "junk".

 

[Jake Lipson]

If those sales wane, they look to other means such as increased and more intrusive on-screen "junk".

I know that. I appreciate you bringing it up. And I totally understand why they would make the choices that they have made, even though I don't like them. Other people who spend more money on food and drink are probably more valuable in this respect. But the money I save by not buying food or drink, I put back into the theater by going to another movie. That's how I can see as many as I do.

Also, my theater is a Cinemark. Their subscription plan is one ticket per month for $8.99. Matinee tickets here are cheaper than that. My point in bringing this up is that they don't have an all-you-can-eat plan comparable to AMC's A-List or Regal's Unlimited. So when I go to the theater as much as I go to the theater, I'm actually paying individually for all of those tickets. I wouldn't be able to afford to go as much as I do if I also insisted on having concessions.

I support the theater by being such a frequent customer that many of the people who work there know me and and talk to me and recognize me every time I come in. I can't go that often and also spend a lot of money on snacks, so I choose the way that gives me more movies.

That may be the case for people like us here at HTF, but I really don't think the general public doesn't give a shit about any of that. I wish they did, but I just don't think so.

I think you are right. My parents are a good example. They almost never go to the movies -- my mom last went to Green Book when my aunt and uncle were visiting because it was something to do as a group, but almost certainly would not have done so independent of them. On the rare occasion that they watch something at home -- which is almost never -- they would only notice if it looks terrible. As long as it's not defective, whatever condition it is in is fine with them, whether it's a DVD, a Blu-ray, or watching something in pan and scan on TV with commercials.

When my mom was recovering from surgery earlier this year, I offered to show her Blu-rays while she was off from work, but instead she chose to record movies with the DVR because to her it was easier to just press a button on the TV remote to fast forward through commercials than for me to come in and put on a Blu-ray. She had no concern whatsoever for the condition of the presentation.

My dad will record movies on the DVR and watch them in five or ten minute increments for months on end. I think he's still got stuff in the DVR that he recorded in the middle of the summer. I've seen him watch these on everything from an iPad to a phone while sitting in doctor's offices. It doesn't matter to him that filmmakers of a two-hour movie never intended for their story to be broken up over the course of several months, and it certainly doesn't matter to him on which device he is watching it. Last year, I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm on the biggest screen in this part of the state, and he saw it via the DVR and it took him probably months to finish it. I had what I think is clearly a much better experience than he did with the same movie, but he still saw the same movie I did, so the quality of his experience versus my experience does not matter to him. In his mind, Lawrence of Arabia is Lawrence of Arabia no matter how you see it.

I want to be clear that these are not meant to be criticisms of my parents. I'm just using it to illustrate how many members of the general public do not care about film presentation. There are many other things that my parents care very much about, but movies are not one of them.

At this point, nothing in the world would make my parents into frequent moviegoers. So perhaps they are not entirely relevant to this discussion. But they are a personal example about how other people perceive the subject of our passions very differently than we do here at HTF.

 

[Tino]

Chart Index

1 (1) Frozen II Walt Disney $34,670,000 -60% 4,348 -92 $7,974 $337,594,901 3
2 (2) Knives Out Lionsgate $14,150,000 -47% 3,461 n/c $4,088 $63,486,491 2
3 (3) Ford v. Ferrari 20th Cent… $6,537,000 -50% 3,746 +161 $1,745 $91,110,353 4
4 (4) Queen & Slim Universal $6,530,000 -45% 1,715 +25 $3,808 $26,894,005 2
5 (5) A Beautiful Day in th… Sony Pict… $5,200,000 -56% 3,491 +256 $1,490 $43,120,415 3
6 (19) Dark Waters Focus Fea… $4,100,000 +560% 2,012 +1,918 $2,038 $5,284,749 3
7 (6) 21 Bridges STX Enter… $2,880,000 -48% 2,465 -200 $1,168 $23,932,696 3
8 (7) Playing with Fire Paramount… $2,000,000 -53% 2,253 -426 $888 $41,982,325 5
10 (10) Joker Warner Bros. $1,040,000 -47% 956 -190 $1,088 $332,141,623 10
11 (9) Last Christmas Universal $1,010,000 -50% 1,260 -592 $802 $33,447,175 5
12 (11) Harriet Focus Fea… $810,000 -56% 1,000 -84 $810 $40,851,550 6
13 (-) Parasite Neon $700,000 333 $2,102 $19,353,735 9
14 N PLAYMOBIL STX Enter… $670,000 2,337 $287 $670,000 1
15 (15) Jojo Rabbit Fox Searc… $562,000 -54% 579 -151 $971 $19,296,823 8

https://m.the-numbers.com/

 

[Jake Lipson]

Charting with Dan is back:

 

[Tino]

Top 20

1 N Jumanji: The Next Level Sony Pict… $60,100,000 4,227 $14,218 $60,100,000 1
2 (1) Frozen II Walt Disney $19,182,000 -45% 4,078 -270 $4,704 $366,542,072 4
3 (2) Knives Out Lionsgate $9,250,000 -35% 3,413 -48 $2,710 $78,927,248 3
4 N Richard Jewell Warner Bros. $5,000,000 2,502 $1,998 $5,000,000 1
5 N Black Christmas Universal $4,420,000 2,625 $1,684 $4,420,000 1
6 (3) Ford v. Ferrari 20th Cent… $4,143,000 -38% 2,895 -851 $1,431 $98,247,794 5
7 (4) Queen & Slim Universal $3,600,000 -46% 1,560 -155 $2,308 $33,174,870 3
8 (5) A Beautiful Day in th… Sony Pict… $3,355,000 -35% 2,855 -636 $1,175 $49,329,891 4
9 (6) Dark Waters Focus Fea… $2,000,000 -50% 2,110 +98 $948 $8,889,174 4
10 (7) 21 Bridges STX Enter… $1,190,000 -58% 1,533 -932 $776 $26,361,366 4
11 (9) Midway Lionsgate $880,000 -54% 1,419 -681 $620 $55,219,847 6
12 (8) Playing with Fire Paramount… $670,182 -67% 1,381 -872 $485 $43,265,000 6
13 (13) Parasite Neon $632,000 -10% 306 -27 $2,065 $20,356,718 10
- (11) Joker Warner Bros. $465,000 -54% 553 -403 $841 $333,035,374 11
- (12) Harriet Focus Fea… $450,000 -46% 648 -352 $694 $41,773,165 7
- (10) Last Christmas Universal $450,000 -56% 616 -644 $731 $34,390,840 6
- (15) Jojo Rabbit Fox Searc… $375,000 -33% 400 -179 $938 $19,981,764 9
- N Bombshell Lionsgate $312,100 4 $78,025 $312,100 1
- (20) Honey Boy Amazon St… $235,776 -46% 387 -73 $609 $2,625,720 6

https://m.the-numbers.com/weekend-box-office-chart

 

[Jake Lipson]

Also, Frozen II has now passed $1 billion worldwide as of yesterday, becoming the eighth movie to do so this year and the sixth from Disney. And they haven't even opened Star Wars yet.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The final Charting with Dan of the year is here. Because Screen Junkies is taking a well-deserved holiday break beginning next week, they'll be back on January 6 to cover everything that happens until then. It's kind of unfortunate that a Star Wars opening is happening right as they're going on break, but that's just how the scheduling works this time around.

 

[Jake Lipson]

We were talking a few pages back about the overwhelming number of new movies coming out in recent weeks. I saw five movies over Thanksgiving week and another two the first weekend of December. I still haven't gotten to A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood yet. and I also sincerely wanted to see Honey Boy and Waves, which were both placed at my big Cinemark multiplex rather than at my arthouse, where I think they would have been able to thrive longer without competing with the tentpoles for screens.

Despite my best efforts to get to everything that I could, with other things going on, I just wasn't able to do them all, and my Cinemark just posted final showtimes for this weekend. Both Waves and Honey Boy will be closing completely to make room for several screens of Star Wars, even beyond those which they put up for advance sales weeks ago. Cats and Bombshell get one screen each. Frozen II remains, but it goes down to one screen for the first time since it opened. Even A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood will be cutting down to two shows a day beginning Friday, which means I'll have to figure out how to squeeze that in this weekend. It will probably be gone completely by Christmas when Little Women, Spies and Disguise and Uncut Gems all open.

I post this not looking for sympathy -- I'm very lucky to be able to see as many movies as I do, which far exceed the number of films that any of my friends go to, and I know that -- but I think this demonstrates how broken the system is at this time of year, especially for small films, which just can't hang around long enough to build word-of-mouth into a successful run. It's not for lack of interest that I am missing Waves and Honey Boy, both of which I really wanted to see, but there were just too many movies to go around and not enough time and money to do them all.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The Rise of Skywalker is the worst reviewed Star Wars movie of the Disney era, and the worst reviewed live action Star Wars movie since The Phantom Menace.

Will that have any impact on the box office? Almost certainly not for the opening weekend -- there's enough of us that were going to see it no matter what -- but maybe in the weeks to come?

 

[Jake Lipson]

maybe in the weeks to come?

I think so. I have my ticket for tomorrow night, but if I don't end up liking it, I won't see it twice.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I think so. I have my ticket for tomorrow night, but if I don't end up liking it, I won't see it twice.

I've seen every "Star Wars" film theatrically at least twice except for "Solo" - which left screens too quickly for a 2nd time - and "Clones".

I had plenty of time to see "Clones" again but it left me so disgusted that I didn't bother.

I came to like it more on DVD, but that's still the only one that really made me want to throw a rock at the screen theatrically!

 

[Tino]

Overnight preview estimates are about $45 million.

Tracking had it at about $170 million for the weekend. Sources are now saying it will be north of $200 million.

But yeah it will definitely be hurt by the reviews and will be the lowest grossing of the new trilogy.

 

[Jake Lipson]

if I don't end up liking it, I won't see it twice.

I won't be seeing it twice.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I won't be seeing it twice.

I will. I wasn't bowled over by "Rise", but I'll definitely go again!

I was pretty unhappy with "Last Jedi" on 1st viewing and came to like it...

 

[Tino]

I’ll be seeing it 4 times. Previous commitments.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I won't be seeing it twice.

I've already seen it three times. My fourth time will be on Sunday in 3-D at an IMAX theater.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Now that the year is winding down, what is still on your list to see before the end?

I really wanted to see Honey Boy and Waves but just didn't get there due to the intense volume of movies that have been coming out. They're gone now because my theater has Star Wars on so many screens. So I'll have to see those when they come to Amazon Prime next year, instead of theatrically.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is another one I have always been interested in but haven't been able to fit in yet. My theater still has it, but only for two shows a day now. So I will be doing that on Sunday to make sure I get it in. The theater has three more new movies opening on Christmas, so I think it is clear that if it's only on for two shows per day this weekend, Neighborhood will be pushed out when those open.

I will also see Cats on Sunday.

In years past, there have usually been a couple things opening on Christmas that interest me, but this year the only one I want to see then is Little Women. So that will be next Wednesday and will more than likely be the final new release I see this year.

 

[Tino]

Now that the year is winding down, what is still on your list to see before the end?

1917 of course. The best film of the year!

 

[Jake Lipson]

1917

I literally can't do that one in 2019 because it won't be playing near me until it reaches wide release in January. Since you are in NYC, you'll most likely to be able to find it on Christmas. Enjoy it, again.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Now that the year is winding down, what is still on your list to see before the end?

I really wanted to see Honey Boy and Waves but just didn't get there due to the intense volume of movies that have been coming out. They're gone now because my theater has Star Wars on so many screens. So I'll have to see those when they come to Amazon Prime next year, instead of theatrically.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is another one I have always been interested in but haven't been able to fit in yet. My theater still has it, but only for two shows a day now. So I will be doing that on Sunday to make sure I get it in. The theater has three more new movies opening on Christmas, so I think it is clear that if it's only on for two shows per day this weekend, Neighborhood will be pushed out when those open.

I will also see Cats on Sunday.

In years past, there have usually been a couple things opening on Christmas that interest me, but this year the only one I want to see then is Little Women. So that will be next Wednesday and will more than likely be the final new release I see this year.

So you're asking what movies we literally want to see before 2019 ends, or what 2019 releases we still want to see?

The former seems like an odd question - why would I care if I saw, say, "Bombshell" on 12/31/19 or 1/1/20?