MediaTalk | Season 3 | Ep. 47 - After Fall Box Office Fumbles, Winter Blockbusters Seek to Heat Up Screens

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Mike Reynolds: Hi, I'm Mike Reynolds, a senior reporter covering the media industry with the S&P Global Market Intelligence tech, media, and telecom news team. Welcome to "MediaTalk," a podcast hosted by S&P Global Market Intelligence, wherein the news and research staff explore issues in the ever-evolving media landscape. Today I'm joined by S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Senior Research Analyst Wade Holden, who specializes in the box office and movie business. Wade, how goes it as we approach Thanksgiving in the holiday season?

Wade Holden: Oh, it's great. 

Reynolds: Wade and I are also gonna be talking with Mac Mathews, Max's Associate Editor of Editorial Design and Publishing at S&P. Mac, you're looking forward to the holiday season with the family and heading to a few movies along the way?

Mac Mathews: I am. I've got my Alamo app where I can look at what seats are remaining for "Wicked" this coming weekend. And already, you can't get anything in there, so that movie looks like it's gonna do pretty well just based on what I can see in my app. 

Reynolds: Okay. That's fair enough. We'll be getting to that in a moment. Today our film office is gonna take a look back at what turned out to be a lukewarm fall season. We'll also be assessing the holiday winter season that features the second half of, as Mac just alluded to, "Wicked for Good," the third "Avatar" entry, and a few other films that could also strike box office pay dirt. Wade, let's start a little bit with the sluggish fall, if you will.

Holden: Yeah. It was interesting. It was a down week to start, but then the combined efforts of "The Conjuring: Last Rites" and "Demon Slayer" put the fall season in a strong position after the second and third weeks of the season. Had a couple of good weeks of growth there. And then, they ended up conjuring gross to 176.7 million, and "Demon Slayer" was 132.4 million. But unfortunately, those ended up being the two biggest films of the fall. The fortunate thing is the buffer that they put up in those two weeks of growth that we had was big enough that we ended up only down 2.7% to 977.2 million for the fall compared to 1 billion last year. A couple of really good weeks followed by a string of down weeks that slowly eroded the big boost that those two films put up. 

Reynolds: Okay. Mac, what was your take on the fall season? We just missed that nice round number of $1 billion that Wade just spoke about…

Mathews: Yeah, the fall was a bit rough. There was a "Mortal Kombat" sequel. It was supposed to come out, it got moved to next year, and then, I guess according to the KBox chart, it would be in the winter, but there was the Michael Jackson biopic was moved to next year as well. Okay. Okay. And, but yeah, so I think that with those, we have had some movies do well, but a lot of things have been flopping up through this past weekend. "The Running Man" didn't do well. There was a, "Now You See Me," the third one in that series seemed to do okay. "Predator's" done pretty well actually for itself. Yeah, so it's been a mix. 

Reynolds: Okay. You mentioned the Michael Jackson biopic. There's been a few the last few years with the Dylan movie and a couple of others. I think there was a decent hope for the Springsteen one this year, but if you've seen Bruce live, it's thumbs up. Maybe the "Nebraska" album's a bit of a downer. It really didn't work. Any sense for that, Wade?

Holden: I didn't see it, but I know it has favorable ratings from the audience online and the critics not so much, so I don't know if that's some of it too. Yeah, it's strange. Typically these musical biopics tend to do all right, so it seems to feel like an outlier to me. 

Reynolds: Mac, your thoughts about the boss not really connecting here?

Mathews: Yeah, first off, it's called "Deliver Me from Nowhere," instead of the boss or something with Bruce Springsteen in there. So I don't know, I just wonder how well we're looking at the boss's place in the market. "Bohemian Rhapsody," that wasn't, it didn't have the word Queen in the name, but it had the right... Sure. A huge hit. And yeah, I just kinda wonder if this Bruce Springsteen one didn't really capture the marketplace in the same way. So I'm willing to think of it as not the public saying we don't like Bruce Springsteen so much as we don't understand that there's a movie out there that we might like because it's not called "Born in the USA," "Dancing in the Dark," or "Thunder Road" or something. 

Reynolds: Makes sense. I think also to the point about "Bohemian Rhapsody," right? A huge international hit that, a 40-year hiatus. Bruce is still out there, so I don't know, interesting that the Dylan movie did pretty well last year. But anyway, there was another movie you were interested in when we spoke last time. "One Battle After Another" from Paul Thomas Anderson had a big star in it, a guy named Leo. I don't know that it worked as well as everyone had hoped it would either.

Mathews: Compared to the budget, you could say that, but it's still a $200 million grossing film from an indie director who's never made a movie that's made anywhere near that amount. And I think a lot of that money comes in based on Leo being in there. So I do think Leo is one of our few movie stars we've got left in a traditional sense where people see that face on a poster and they go, oh, I should see this. Okay. Wade, your... 

Reynolds: Thoughts about "One Battle."

Holden: Yeah, I think Mac's right. It really is. It's the budget. The budget is just anchoring the film down. It's probably just a little too high, rumored somewhere, 130, 175 million. You need roughly 300 million to cover that. Yeah. Just to cover that. You're not even talking about any sort of advertising expenses after that. If a film had half the size of that budget, then we might be talking about how a wild success this might be for Paul Thomas Anderson. 

Reynolds: Okay. Yeah. Again, money and budgets are all relative, so that's for sure. One more here. "The Smashing Machine" starred The Rock as Mark Carr, wrestler and UFC Champion. Emily Blunt was his obsessive girlfriend. I think a lot of critics liked it. There was some Oscar talk for The Rock. He did a lot of publicity. Wade, any thoughts about this one? Again, I think another one, it did fairly well, but maybe some thought it was gonna do better.

Holden: Yeah. I think people attracted to this might, it's gonna be like a kind of niche audience, right? The UFC, while it's big, right? It's definitely not the biggest sport on the planet. No. By no means. And how many people who watch that sport now are aware of him and his story? So I think, just handicapping it from the get-go is it not being a recognizable person to the masses and then just, I think really just trying to hopefully have The Rock sell tickets and a lot of times when it's not him in an action film, it struggles. 

Reynolds: Mac, are you a Rock guy, a UFC guy?

Mathews: Not really. Yeah, I have seen my share of Rock movies and yeah, I agree with what Wade was saying. And this one, they hid that it was him too. 

Reynolds: That's true.

Mathews: Yeah. So when you get a movie star and then you hide their face, that's, I dunno. 

Reynolds: Alright, let's stream a little, guys. Wade, when we were talking last, you were very interested in the latest version of "Frankenstein." Can you talk about that a little bit for us? I mean, I loved it.

Holden: I'm a fan of Guillermo del Toro. I like his vision on things. He makes pretty films. And it's a classic story and it's a far cry from the pop culture bolts in the neck. Universal monster from yesteryear. Getting a major film treatment for that story. From a visionary director, I thought it was fantastic. It's very rare that I'll sit and watch something at home and not fiddle with my phone at the same time, and my phone was down on the couch and I was glued to the screen. 

Reynolds: Cool. Mac, did you check this out on Netflix or did you go to the theater? I think you told us.

Mathews: Yeah, I saw this one in the theater, which was a point of pride that, you know, a lot of these streaming releases, I'm like, why isn't this going to the theater? And so when there's something like this, when you get a chance to see it in the theater and I can fit it in my schedule, I like to go. I was there. You released it in the theater. I showed up. Here we're here to talk about box office. That's what we care about here. So it matters to me if it's in the theater or not. 

Reynolds: We were gonna talk about this last time and we all forgot. My boss, Sarah, she's the industry editor for the tech, media, and telecom news team here at S&P. She also wanted to speak about another Netflix film, the "K-Pop Demon Hunters." Sarah, you watched, it was also a big hit in your neighborhood this Halloween season, right?

Sarah James: Yeah, I actually hadn't seen it until after Halloween and we saw all the kids trick or treating as K-Pop Demon Hunters. And I was trying to explain to my husband, I was like, oh look, there's another K-Pop Demon Hunter. And he was like, I just don't understand what it is. And so having already heard the songs on the radio and seen the short videos online, we finally watched it and got what everyone was talking about. The music is super catchy. And the story, if a little bit silly, is delightful. So it was very sweet. 

Reynolds: Multiple Grammy nominations for the hit "Golden," including Song of the Year, Best Pop Duo Group Performance. It's not gonna go away anytime soon, guys. Any in the Demon Hunters here?

Holden: I'm pushing 50, so I don't know if I'm the target demographic. I'm not that interested in it, but from an analyst standpoint, I think it's interesting that you get a film like this, who it, it strikes big in the cultural zeitgeist. It goes viral and it's huge. And Netflix says, hey, yeah, let's put it in theaters. And it made just over a couple of weekends, it was a few months apart. It earned 24 million bucks or something like that. That's what's being reported. That's just icing on the cake, right? If they can do that, because they're getting their streaming money's worth out of it with probably how many times it's been watched and to just add that little extra in there. And I'm sure the exhibitors appreciated it greatly. Getting family audiences in there to check it out and buy concessions, which is a big business for them. 

Reynolds: Mac, any thoughts here?

Mathews: I've seen it. I've seen it at home. We went to the singalong version. Oh man, you were the man. You were the man. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. The kids are very into it. I've learned some of the songs on guitar so they could sing along at home. Yeah. Gotten the full Hunter experience. Wow. Wow. 

Sarah James: Hey Mac, I wanted to follow up real quick. On the Netflix earnings call, the Netflix executive said "K-Pop Demon Hunters" wouldn't have been as big of a hit without the repeat viewings that Netflix enabled. Do you think that your kids would have become as big of "K-Pop Demon Hunters" fans if it had been released in theaters traditionally, as opposed to being on Netflix first and then into theaters?

Mathews: That's such a big question. And it's really hard to know. If it had just been released straight to theaters, I'm not sure if we would've made it to see that one. 'Cause it was the seeing it at home and just casually and not really thinking much of it. Actually, my youngest saw it just on her own and then just started talking about it and then we started hearing about it elsewhere. So it crept up on us like that. Whereas I'm not sure if a preview for it would've brought us to the theater. 'Cause my kids aren't always as into stuff that looks like it's just a bunch of fighting. They're a little sensitive about that. But it's really the music that catapulted the movie and got them so into it. Yeah, I think it would've done well, but from a lower maybe starting point, it would've been one of those ones that catches on, oh, this is actually really good. There's good songs. And I think, it may be, I would love to see what happened in an alternate dimension where that went straight to theaters. Because yeah, it's been so interesting to think of that one and how it would've done, I guess the takeaway for the industry is what films should be seen at home first, and then will get a bigger box office or just become a bigger phenomenon just based on it going to streaming first and becoming familiar. And then it can become a juggernaut or can a property or a film become a juggernaut without that runway, right? 

Sarah James: Those movies that used to have a smaller opening weekend, but then just have legs that ran forever.

Holden: I don't know if you could do that with a traditional type film. I think it works for a family film because like my kids are. I have an adult child and one who's almost an adult now. When they're young, like those films are on just on repeat and they go and they play and they play. And it creates excitement. So I don't know if a non-sort of animated family type film could do what "K-Pop Demon Hunters" did. 

Reynolds: Alright, we're gonna talk about one more. Netflix again, the limited theater release and then onto the streamer. This is "Wake Up Dead Man," a "Knives Out" Mystery. It's coming, I think its theatrical release is right around Thanksgiving and then I guess it'll be on your home screen a little bit later. I'm surprised this one, wasn't this a theatrical hit? There's some big stars in this thing, guys?

Holden: The first movie, "Knives Out" was. Yeah. And I think Netflix picked it up, "Glass Onion," right? That was the second one. Yeah. I think Netflix did a similar strategy to what they're doing with "Wake Up Dead Man," where they put it out in theaters briefly and then it was released on their service. Yeah, again, I think it's just a different business when for these streamers, they want their content to turn into a subscription revenue as opposed to... 

Reynolds: The one weekend. Yep. The dropout. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's get back to the theatricals, which is what we're supposed to talk about here a little bit more. Wade, a bit of a slow start for the winter holiday season, but I think things have turned around a little bit of late.

Holden: Yeah, it's been a slow start. "Predator Badlands" did well and bumped up the second week returns. But again, then, as I think as Mac alluded to, we had a rough third week here with "The Running Man" underperforming. And the "Now You See Me, Now You Don't," the third film in the "Now You See Me" trilogy. It did all right. Its opening weekend was just slightly less than its predecessor from nine years ago. That's pretty good that they can maintain the same ticket revenue for that amount of time between the two films. So right now, I think this weekend is when it is gonna pick up. I think... 

Reynolds: So. I think so. Mac, you wanna talk about what's coming out here on November 21st for us?

Mathews: Yeah. We've got "Wicked for Good." And I expect it to do really well. It's part two of the saga with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande back again. Yeah, and that comes out just one week before "Zootopia 2." 

Holden: So Fandango said that "Wicked" already, I think is the highest presales ever for a PG-rated film that they've had, I believe. Wow. I believe I saw that. Yeah. So it's tracking really well, some are saying, 115 million this weekend, some are saying maybe even up to 150 million this weekend. And then I've seen early predictions for "Zootopia 2" that over, you know, over its five-day release over the Thanksgiving holiday. They're expecting around another 150 million long opening weekend from that one as well. Okay. We're going into, it's gonna be like a nice one, two family film punch here for the week of Thanksgiving.

Mathews: And these are just gonna keep playing too. So yeah, we could be looking at two $1 billion films or getting, or in the neighborhood. I know the first didn't get that close to a billion dollars. So yeah, seems... 

Reynolds: About 755 million or something like that.

Mathews: Yeah. I don't know if it's fair to think that the second one could target that. But if you're looking at an opening, if it gets close to 150 and is well-reviewed, then I think you, yeah, I think you can start talking about a billion-dollar movie. 'Cause you're getting close to "Barbie" levels of enthusiasm at that point. 

Reynolds: The other thing here is again, whatever the box office turns out to be, and hopefully it will get to that billion-dollar level. It just has an incredible amount of cross-promotional tie-ins, whatever you want to call it. Dunkin' Donuts has "Wicked" drinks. There are cereals. There are dolls, American Girl dolls that are 300 bucks to throw that are all sold out, but you can still buy the outfit. I was watching an NFL game yesterday. Lexus had a commercial. Yeah, Lexus LX is the official car of "Wicked for Good." It's just an incredible amount of stuff. Your thoughts on this, is it good, bad, overkill? Surprised again, back in the day, Disney used to have a McDonald's thing, toys at Happy Meal every time a film came out. To me, this is just incredible.

Holden: It feels to me like business as usual for a huge hit film. That's a time-honored tradition now when you have a gigantic franchise property that you, okay, you license it out and try to earn money that way too. For sure. I think it's helping gain a lot of traction, and I think there's excitement for it. And if it does what the first film did last year, it's got a chance. It's got enough runway this year that it has got a chance to become the top-grossing film of the year. What the first one did, 474 million domestically. And a "Minecraft" movie has been the top film for weeks and months now. And it's at 423.9 million. We have a real good chance of "Wicked for Good" being the top film of the year before it's all said and done. I think the upcoming "Avatar" film that's gonna be released too late in the year possibly to hit that mark. Stranger, crazier things have happened for sure. The "Spider-Man: No Way Home" box office from a few years. Like they, those last couple weeks of the year they took in a ton of money. It could happen, but I think "Wicked for Good" is probably the best shot at a film taking down a "Minecraft" movie to be the number one film of the year. 

Mathews: I think "Zootopia 2" could have a chance. An animated movie for kids can really go, if it becomes the must-see thing. I will say though, that the amount of enthusiasm for "Wicked" seems to be just so feverish that it may take some of the energy away from "Zootopia 2," but yeah, I don't know. They may also be targeting slightly different age groups.

Holden: Yeah. "Zootopia" is 341 million back in 2016. Okay. Yeah, not, didn't quite hit the levels that "Wicked" hit. Oh, okay. There's a chance. One of the things to consider too is with everything showing, everything from Disney eventually showing up on Disney Plus, and you gotta think a lot of these families subscribe to that service. How many repeat viewings are gonna happen and how fast will that film show up on the streaming service to keep momentum and keep subs happy there? 

Reynolds: Interesting. Those films are coming out shortly. As you mentioned, Wade, they've got a little bit longer runway. The "Avatar" film doesn't come out till the 19th. That only gives it 12 days or so to their tally for this year. The first one's the biggest film ever. The second one, I think, drew 2.2 billion. Expectations this time, Wade? Mac, can you go first on this one?

Mathews: Yeah. I don't know how to quantify the enthusiasm for "Avatar" because it's this franchise that you don't really hear people talking about in everyday conversation, as was the case with Marvel at its peak or "Wicked" or anything? I guess with the second one and this one coming closer on the heels of the second one and then the space between one and two, right? Sure. There's maybe some more momentum, but it really felt like the first one came and went and didn't leave as strong of a cultural footprint. And then the second one came up and then just, it did so well that you just said you just had to mark this as being something of significance to our culture. And so yeah, now we've got some momentum building. So I would think that with the way that the second one was received, that this one stands to do potentially just as well. Which is no small... 

Reynolds: Feat. The first one, if I'm not mistaken, was in 2009. The second one was in 22. So this one, as you said, this one's coming closer on the heels. Wade, your thoughts about the third entry here?

Holden: Yeah, I agree with Mac. I think there was skepticism for "The Way of Water," right? Because of the timeframe between the first two films and I think the first "Avatar." I think some people probably put off some of the success to the novelty of 3D screening at the time. That's when it was trying to really kick off in theaters and I know it made quite a bit of money in 3D showings. And those generally incurred a higher ticket price too. And so I think there was some skepticism for "The Way of Water" being able to come close to what the first "Avatar" did because the enthusiasm has waned for going to the theaters and watching a film in 3D, that technology's pretty much gone the way of the buffalo. But seeing what "The Way of Water" did domestically in theaters, $684 million. You have to think that the enthusiasm is there for "Fire and Ash" and something they can probably expect a similar result. I know, yeah. The early predictions are around 120, 150 million for the first weekend. 

Reynolds: Okay. Alright. We've talked about "Wicked" and "Avatar." We've talked about "Zootopia." Guys, what else is coming up this holiday season that you have your eyes on? Mac?

Mathews: There's a "SpongeBob" movie, right? Yeah. There's a "SpongeBob" movie. And that will come out with enough distance after "Zootopia 2" that it could make a holiday splash. I'll be interested to see how this action-comedy, "Anaconda," does the reboot that's taking an original property and giving it a new spin. It's Jack Black who has become a huge star for children's entertainment. He's of course well known to all moviegoers though, so it'll be interesting to see him in a property. Yeah, paired with Paul Rudd to see if this can really take off. 'Cause Paul Rudd was in an action-comedy "Death of a Unicorn" earlier this year, and it didn't really do too much. And it was also playing in the horror thriller space with a creature feature. So this is familiar territory for Paul Rudd. But it's been a while since we've seen Jack Black being something that wasn't aimed at kids. It was more aimed at adults, but he's a big name. 

Reynolds: Wade, what are you thinking here?

Holden: I will say I'm seeing a lot of marketing push for the new Brendan Fraser film "Rental Family," and apparently, it's a well-done film, so that seems interesting. And that's coming out this weekend, right? Okay. Yeah. A little counter-programming to "Wicked," okay. And then over Thanksgiving when you have "Zootopia 2," then I'm always a sucker for a romantic comedy. And the Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Turner film "Maternity" is coming out. The trailer piqued my interest and then Quentin Tarantino's, he's releasing in theaters, I don't know for how long, like a supercut of the "Kill Bill" movies. Oh, really? Wow. With a little bit of re-editing and stuff to change things around a little bit. Yeah. But it's gonna be like a four-hour movie. Wow. I love the "Kill Bill" films. 

Reynolds: And when is this supposed to be?

Holden: Box Office Mojo has it on the calendar for December 5th. One of the big things that they're doing, at the end of the first film, you find out that her daughter is alive and is with Bill. In the supercut, that's cut out, that reveal is cut out and you don't know that her daughter is alive until she shows up later toward the end of the film because he says it has more of an emotional punch that way versus leaning it on the cliffhanger from the first film. 

Reynolds: We're at the end here, guys. Mac, Warner Brothers has been the top of the box office in the US almost the entire year. But it's not gonna finish that way, right?

Mathews: Yeah. 'Cause they don't have anything else coming out. The headlines about them later this year might be about their sale if that happens, but probably won't be about a big box office. 

Reynolds: And so Disney will push through with "Avatar" at the end of the day. And I think that's gonna be the fifth or sixth year running, right, for Disney, a top box office. Yeah.

Holden: It will be the fifth year in a row. Yeah. Five-peat as it were. 

Reynolds: Wade, AMC Theater CEO, Adam Aron, he says this holiday season could be the biggest one in quite some time. Given what you guys have talked about, do you agree?

Holden: This holiday season, yeah, I think with "Wicked for Good" and "Zootopia 2" and "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" and "Avatar: Fire and Ash," there's a lot to be hopeful for a big holiday season. The final, what, six or so weeks of the year? 

Reynolds: Alright. That concludes this episode of Media Talk. I just wanted to thank our guests, Wade and Mac, for sharing their industry knowledge and thank you so much, guys. It's always...

Holden: A pleasure. 

Mathews: Yeah, thanks for having us. 

Reynolds: Alright, and this is Mike Reynolds. Thanks to all of you for listening. Enjoy the films and some popcorn too. We'll catch up soon on the next episode of Media Talk. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.