LOTL/Hangover Weekend Tracking

Ok, so I mean his first starring role in a non-SNL skit...

Holy Crap, DHD listed The Hangover to get 50M this weekend!?! Damn, way higher than I expected. I've been busy all week, and I would have added this bad boy to more slates if I was paying attention. Luckily I email Shryke on Thurs and added to the June leagues, but I didn't add it to any other, which mean my Half Year final round may suffer if everyone loaded up on it.

J-Man wrote:Holy Crap, DHD listed The Hangover to get 50M this weekend!?! Damn, way higher than I expected.

Holy freaking crap! What the heck caused this to happen!?!

But seriously, there's another movie this weekend that deserves a "Holy Crap!!!" and that's Up. It fell only 35%! That's Finding Nemo numbers!

And here's a bunch of stats I got from World of KJ.

The only R-rated comedies ever to make mid $40's OW or higher were American Pie 2 and Sex and the City.

This will probably be the biggest summer weekend ever where no single movie made over $50 million.

Up is being underestimated this weekend and could wind up with around $46-47 million. It would only need a 3.66 multiplier from this weekend on to become the second biggest Pixar movie ever.

Last year, 7 movies made over $170 million. This year, assuming NatM2 and The Hangover make it, we will have 7 in just Jan-June.

And we seem to be getting back to the Blart/Taken style B.O. of Jan-April. Also fantastic holds for Star Trek and NatM2 and not too bad for DMtH.

WOW! That's all I have to say. I caught Mase's projections on Facebook just now then I ran over to Finke's DHD to verify that projection.

First off, I knew The Hangover would do good but 45 million 3 day projection, which will make it amongst the highest R-rated comedy openers & is officially the sleeper smash of the summer. If word of mouth is strong can this play out like Wedding Crashers. A film that had decent buzz (pre-release) but mostly a surprise hit and kept chugging through out the summer.

Secondly, UP like I predicted will now get to 300 Million. The word of mouth is the best for a movie since The Dark Knight. And on it's second weekend against family friendly 'Land of the Lost' is projected to drop a measly 19 percent that is completely unheard of and will definitely have the lowest 2nd weekend drop off for any movie that has grossed more 40 million in it's opening weekend.

This is a huge weekend that has revived a nearly dead box office after a disappointing opening & run for Terminator, NATM2 looking to be much smaller than the first one, Wolverine failing to get to 200 mil.

I have to say that I agree with Buscemi (gasp!) when he says that Observe and Report was better than the Hangover. Only slightly though. I gave O&R an 8 and The Hangover a 7.5. However, the Hangover was released in the summer, had a better trailer, wasn't hoping to piggy back off Paul Blart and is a lot easier to take just because its utterly stupid. I don't say that as a negative either. I don't see either being remembered in 5 years, but that is just me. Surprising box office numbers for Hangover, no one, not even W, thought it would pull in over 40 million. And if Up gets to 300 million, I will be very pleased, because it was the best film of the year so far and it definitely deserves it, even if I didn't have it on any slates. Land of the Lost just proves that when you make a trailer as stupid as that, like with Speed Racer, no one is going to see it. Trailers are still the biggest factor in getting people interested in seeing a film.

The Land Of The Lost-Speed Racer analogy is very true. i didnt expect Land Of The Lost to be a smash but i didnt expect to do this poorly. I expected at least 10 million than what is currently projected. The only difference between the 2 for me is that i want to see Land Of The Lost and had no interest in Speed Racer.

Also geez very true about trailers. Trailers get the job done. Trailer's quality and the frequency they are shown normally lead to box office sucess. Trailers can be attributed to many films successes that proably wouldnt have been succesfull without good trailers [ex Cloverfield many others].

Again, nothing extremely surprising to me. I see J.I.'s SpongeBob avatar excitedly bounding through the air while reading his posts and imagine he's doing the same thing... But, there's really not a "style of B.O." that encompasses just this year. People will see what they want to see. You just have to figure out what that is and how they'll like it after they've been there (repeat viewings + WOM = legs). They have to WANT to talk a movie up after they've seen it.

I can't speak for the January releases because I was mostly offline (broken CPU) at that time, but whoever didn't see that MvA, F&F, Obsessed, Star Trek, Up, and The Hangover were going to be relatively big hits just isn't paying attention (or maybe they have a life?). All of them were tracking well and all of them were "I want to see it" films. They all had great marketing campaigns as well. Its not like these films are coming out of nowhere... Now if My Sisters Keeper jumps up and overtakes Transformers for an opening weekend win or if My Life in Ruins would have taken over this weekend with no visible marketing campaign/intrest, then you're talking about a shocker...

A couple of months ago I wasn't sure about Up because all the previous PIXAR films had been created during the same sit-down, it didn't look kid friendly, and the trailers were more teasers. But its PIXAR, so it can't really fail (with our pricing system it would have had to hit under $160 M to be considered close to a failure). Add that to the fairly weak schedule (compared to May) until Transformers and I went ahead and grabbed it in most Ultimate leagues.

I didn't know that Star Trek would completely blast off like it has and was worried about competition mid-May, but I was sure it would be worth the price in BO as well. The only one I really whiffed on since Race to Witch Mountain (which I set the BO record margin on my slate with, so it really didn't hurt me) was Wolverine, but I didn't think it would be so freaking bad in some people's minds, which cut its legs.

Anyways, its not coming out of nowhere. The films that are doing well have all or most of these things going for them: a strong marketing campaign, great buzz, good tracking, good ratings by those that really count (the theatergoing public), and general audience intrest.

And, geez, I try not to put specific numbers on anything... I'm just no good at it. I just set a ceiling and a floor and know what's a sure thing... I did think it had a good chance to hit $100 M, though not a chance to hit $150 like it does now. And I had a feeling the IMDB would be 7.5 or so, but its at 8.3 now...

W wrote:

Anyways, its not coming out of nowhere. The films that are doing well have all or most of these things going for them: a strong marketing campaign, great buzz, good tracking, good ratings by those that really count (the theatergoing public), and general audience intrest.

I still don't understand how Obsessed was as successful as it was. It looked god-fucking-awful. Still took it on a couple slates though and was pleased with it, but don't understand it. Not to change the entire flow of the conversation, I just had to rant about that one.

Obsessed looked bad, probably was bad, but it had teriffic buzz and a low price at the fantaverse... The movie was sold on a catfight between a hot blonde woman (who strips according to the previews) and the hottest (in terms of popularity) African-American woman out there today.

OMG i just got back from hangover that is probably the funniest movie I have seen all year. And speaking of old school did anyone else notice who the band was that was playing at the wedding?

Yeah it was the Dan Band.

Yep, got back from seeing it and it is hilarious! It was one of those films where you're laughing and you notice the guy behind you with his guttoral laughter and you laugh even more because he sounds like an idiot. That kind of film...

wow, maybe i should go see it, i need a laugh

Yeah, I was there and a lady had her eight year old daughter in the back row... Not something they need to see/hear.

I'm going to see The Hangover tomorrow.

And W is right, none of these "surprises" are surprises at al. They had crazy promotion, trailers that got the job done, and they all tracked well.

As far as Obsessed goes, it had so many demographics going for it, it had no chance of failing.

Up is the only one I didn't expect to do what it has been doing, I thought the promotion was awful and it would disappear. I didn't expect it to be the best movie of the year though, I'm sure that had something to do with it.

But just to reitirate on everyone else - HOLY SHIT @ a $40+ OW for The Hangover.

You doubted Pixar?

thank you geezer for knowing that when I got done seeing it I asked everyone else I knew that had seen it and no one else could figure it out. One guy knew it was the same band but didnt know who they were. I'm glad I'm not the only one who pays attention to little things like that because after hearing you guys compare the two for the last couple days when I saw them I just started bursting out in laughter and my fiance had no idea what the hell was so funny.

To tell you guys the truth, I only started calling LOTL a bomb when I saw that 50M OW tracking. That set off alarms. I wasn't going to overrate a film like T4 again.

geezer9687 wrote:You doubted Pixar?

I didn't really "doubt" PIXAR, I just thought this one would be the lowest grossing (which still would have made it a decent pick).

Yeah, same here. I thought it'd be more Ratatouille than Finding Nemo.

BOM Weekend Est:

Top 5
1. Up - $44
2. The Hangover - $43
3. Land of The Lost - $19
4. Night At The Museum 2 - $14
5. Star Trek - $8

PTA
1. Away We Go - $35,750
2. The Hangover - $13,238
3. Up - $11,588
4. Land of The Lost - $5,545
5. Departures - $5,506

I don't think Seraphine or Unmistaken Child were in the game, but if they were, they got 2 and 1 point, respectively and instead of LoTL and Departures.

Wow, Hangover has a shot to overtake Up and be on top this weekend.

The fact that The Hangover is even challenging Up this weekend is still blowing my mind.

Seraphine WAS in the game, Unmistaken Child was not. So the PTA looks like this (for now):

5. Away We Go
4. Hangover
3. Up
2. Seraphine
1. Land of the Lost

Tennessee busted, but we still don't know about Ball Don't Lie or Downloading Nancy, either one of which COULD have been released this weekend.


Current User Ratings are as follows:

The Hangover - 8.4
Away We Go - 7.9
Seraphine - 7.4
Tennessee - 5.9
Land of the Lost - 5.8
My Life in Ruins - 5.8
Ball Don't Lie - 5.4
Downloading Nancy - 5.3


What a great weekend for Hangover. And what a tremendous start for Away We Go!

Unmistaken Child was in the game. It was an option in the June Pick 'Em.