Published Jul 5, 2023
Who doesn’t like numbers, so here’s a little something to think about…glancing back over the past 5 years (sans the ugly years, 2020-21), an interesting statistic that jumps out is the relationship between (a) the average opening weekend gross per wide release title and (b) the rollup of each of those opening weekends into a cumulative total calculated as a percent of the industry’s annual gross.
With only a slight deviation, the opening weekend gross per wide release title has averaged approximately $30M. Similarly, adding up all those opening weekend grosses and dividing them by the annual industry gross equals approximately 30%. Both metrics look to remain fairly constant irrespective of the number of wide release titles in any given year…meaning moviegoers are doing their part and showing up, but exhibitors need content like air, so the studios need to continue to step up. Remember, the most powerful person in Hollywood is the moviegoer!
Dropping these factoids into a simple mathematical equation, where…
x = the number of wide release titles
y = the average opening weekend $ gross per title
z = the cumulative opening weekend gross as a percent of the annual total $
Since (y) and (z) remain constant, the only true variable (as always) is the number of wide releases. With half the year now in the barn (43 wide releases), and looking to the next 26-week release calendar, let’s see what the math tells us as to how the year may play out…
As always, titles may move or drop, and others added but at $9.8B we would achieve 86% attainment of 2019, which was the 2nd highest grossing year in industry history, so we’ve set the bar intentionally high. Thru week 26 the industry stands at $4.5B, or 80% attainment of 2019, so we have some heavy lifting to do in the second half. But, looking ahead, key titles to be excited about include Indiana Jones 5, Mission: Impossible 7, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Haunted Mansion, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Equalizer 3, Dune 2, The Marvels, Trolls Band Together, Hunger Games, Napoleon, Wish, Wonka, Ghostbusters 2, and The Color Purple. Plus, there is always a "sleeper" hit or two that sneaks in every year.
Given where we stand with our 26-week numbers, $9.0B for the year is pretty much assured, but it would sure be nice to hit closer to 100 releases (only 4 more) this year, which if the above ramblings are anywhere near plausible thinking, would give us some extra boost AND possibly inch us up to $10B, a nice milestone victory. Fingers crossed.
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