Martin Grove’s Post

SATURDAY AM: Despite “Marchmellow” weather in the Northeast and a B+ CinemaScore, Sony‘s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is expected to still reach an opening between $42M-$44M this weekend after a $16M Friday. PLFs and some of the Imax are accounting for 36% of box right now. Frozen Empire, which cost more than Ghostbusters: Afterlife, $100M to $75M before P&A, is co-financed by TSG. By the way, that B+ CinemaScore is the same grade as the all female 2016 Ghostbusters. This should be a wakeup call for Sony on the goody goody family nature tone of this franchise and its longevity moving forward. More on that later. There are heavy rains along the Atlantic Coast from Washington D.C. up through Vermont with flood watches in effect, however, no significant cinema closures are expected. Mckenna Grace makes a face at baby Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man. Sony Overall the box office with $97.6M is expected to be off -17% from the same weekend a year ago as that’s when Lionsgate’s roared with John Wick: Chapter 4, which posted the highest opening in the franchise with $73.8M and led the marketplace to $116.6M. Updated PostTrak exits from ComScore and Screen Engine are 80% positive on the Gil Kenan directed sequel with a 64% definite recommend. Grades are lower among kids versus Afterlife at 89% postive and a 57% must see right away. Male leaning of course at 55% with 46% of the crowd between 25-44 years old with another 30% of the audience 13-24 years old and the largest quad a tie between 18-24 and 25-34 years old at 23%. Diversity demos are 48% Caucasian, 27% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black, 8% Asian and 5% Native American. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is playing best in the South, South Central and Midwest. Top grossing cinema in the nation so far is AMC Disney Springs in Orlando FL with over $50K. NEON’s Sydney Sweeney nun horror movie, Immaculate, did $2M yesterday for what’s shaping up to be a $5M opening in fourth place. CinemaScore is a C which is par for a horror movie (they get B and C CinemaScores). PostTrak is significantly lower at 52% positive and a 30% definite recommend. Euphoria crowd is coming out at 52% female with 75% of the audience between 18-34. Largest demo is 25-34 at 39%. Diversity demos were 44% Caucasian, 30% Latino and Hispanic, 11% Black, 10% Asian, and 5% Native American/other. Best markets are the East, South Central and West with the AMC Burbank the pic’s top grossing cinema stateside at $15,3K. Elevation has Canada. The movie, which was fully financed by Black Bear, and a passion project of Sweeney’s, cost under $10M. It’s a P&A deal for NEON. The release model for this horror movie is very similar to what Blumhouse use to execute with its microbudget BH Tilt movies. IFC’s has the other specialty horror fil

JULY 4TH AM UPDATE: Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4 came in a little lighter than spotted, but strong enough at $27M at 4,030 theaters. While 5-day forecasts are always hard to project this far off, everything becomes clear by Friday. Even at this level, the fourth chapter of Gru/sixth Minions title could still see a $70M 3-day and $120M 5-day. Interest in this bunch hasn’t waned yet for audiences who gave it an A CinemaScore, the same grade as chapters 1 and 2, and a notch above Despicable Me 3’s A-. Overall it’s the fifth A for the Minions/Despicable Me franchise.

For The Atlantic, Shirley Li with a great article about the summer movie season. 'Until these perceptions change, though, this summer will appear to be a strange one, an anomalous dip caused by months of low earnings that haven’t encouraged general audiences to head to theaters on a regular basis. In the meantime, the industry is trying to manipulate so many variables—which actors could become box-office draws, which franchises aren’t experiencing fatigue, which projects should stream rather than play in theaters, which dates might be most appealing for release—but no individual movie will cure Hollywood’s box-office blues. Instead, Dergarabedian Comscore, Inc. said, “Stability is key … Every piece of this puzzle relies on the other.” The moviegoing experience itself needs to be routinely appealing to be lucrative—and a meme-worthy popcorn bucket or film-title portmanteau will only stoke interest for so long. Ironically, Dergarabedian noted, the underperforming films will help next year’s headlines: “2025 is going to look really strong,” he said. “Let’s talk a year from today, and I will be saying very different things.” https://lnkd.in/gZgNmjS7

How moving from value-chain to value-network thinking can revitalize the movie theater industry: The value-chain for experiencing movies in theatres is linear. 1. Studios produce movies. 2. Distributors markets and distributes them. 3. Exhibition deliver the content (wrapped with value-add to produce a cinematic experience). 4. Audiences experiences this in a theater. A lot of effort (and money) has gone and is going into creating a loyalty relationship between step 3 and 4. Which is natural, movie theatres "own" the audience relationship. However, that's true in "data" but not necessarily in practice or emotion. The modern day movie theater experience stands on the foundation of building and compounding attention to IP franchises. All but one of the top 10 box office successes are franchises (Titanic). If we break down loyalty on this basis; it's actually composed of two components: 1. Loyalty to the physical place (my local theater where I have memories) 2. Loyalty to content (eg. I'm a Marvel fan) Loyalty at the first level is movie-independent. Loyalty at the second level is theater-independent. To add to this; in a transmedia world, fans are engaging with content across different formats and channels. Example: I just to a new city. I could be a massive fan of Disney (via theater visits in my prev city, via online engagement and streaming history). But, to my new cinema I'm a "nobody". The industry needs to break out of the linear thinking of the past, and adopt (in mindset and technology) a networked approach to audience relationship building, rewards and personalization. This allows us to keep up with changing times, new audience behaviours, and probably unlock new value for all network participants along the way. Question is, can it be done in practice? 

The Walt Disney Studios is having the kind of year they've become accustomed to enjoying when we talk about movies and theatrical box office. On the heels of DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE and INSIDE OUT 2's massive summer success, the turnaround marks an important point for the studios after several challenging years. Thanks again to Sarah Whitten for including some of my thoughts in her latest for CNBC. “Much has been said about a few of Disney’s underwhelming box office performances in recent years but it was always a fool’s errand to count the studio out for long,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “Their leadership made clear and convincing strategic moves to address the commercial struggles of several key releases coming out of the pandemic era ... We’re starting to see the early dividends of that pivot back to quality franchise content and a renewed emphasis on the moviegoing experience.” “The past speaks for itself, but there’s no doubting the importance of Disney’s role in the industry’s present and future,” said Robbins. “If Marvel and Pixar continue their turnarounds, and if the Star Wars franchise can eventually execute a similar rebound under Lucasfilm, it won’t be long before the parent studio returns to some familiar box office prowess up and down the calendar each year.” Box Office Theory Paul Dergarabedian Lucasfilm Marvel Studios Pixar Animation Studios The Walt Disney Company #Disney #BoxOffice #DeadpoolAndWolverine #InsideOut2 #Marvel #Pixar #lucasfilm #movies #cinema #theaters #film #entertainment #trending #trendingnews #trendingtopic #trendingonlinkedin

Lots of great movies coming out this summer, but this is going to be THE movie of the summer!! Let's talk about your ad running onscreen in front of all of them! #mediabuying #mediaplanning #Mediaadagency #solarmarketing #utilitiesmarketing

Shocking.... This is the story of 2 legendary Hollywood studios who sold for the same amount, but one sold for 2x its value and the other for 1/10th its value. Just before being acquired, both fired their CEO's and were led by trio of senior execs known as the Office of the CEO. Both then sold for the same price of $8 Billion, which was 2x for one of their historical book value and the other for 1/10th its peak market cap, even though the former has older movies and franchises like "Rocky" and "James Bond" and the latter that has a larger catalog, newer catalog and dozens of recent hit franchises and blockbuster hits including "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Transformers." So the questions arise >>> Question How did MGM with its old library of titles and few new releases sell to Amazon for $8.45 Billion, after it was valued at $4 Billion for decades? Answer: FANTASTIC TIMING! 😎 MGM’s top shareholder was Anchorage Capital, run by former Goldman Sachs executive Kevin Ulrich who knew or bet the height of the pandemic was the best time to sell the studio and he was right. He sold the aging MGM studio for double its value to Amazon. Question How is Paramount with its newer library of titles and many hit new releases and franchises sell to Skydance for $8 Billion after it was valued at $100 Billion at its height in 2001 and $21 Billion during the pandemic? Answer: TERRIBLE TIMING 🤢 Paramount's market cap dropped from $21 Billion at the height of pandemic (and from $100 Billion in 2001) to $8.9 Billion today. When buying and selling.....Timing is everything. Kevin Ulrich (MGM's seller) and David Ellison (Paramount's buyer) may just be the smartest men in Hollywood For more on OTT Entertainment + Sports follow Aden ®️

To succeed in this business, you have to provide what audiences *want to see* in theaters. In a post Covid-19 & post Hollywood strikes landscape especially, now is not the time to take box office gambles. "Content is king", and the studios should double down on this focus to continue the theatrical recovery we have been observing. #BoxOffice #Studios #Forecasts #Movies #BusinessIntelligence #MovieTheaters

- Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management are in talks to acquire Paramount Global, with a bid of $26 billion. - Paramount Global's special committee allowed an exclusivity period with Skydance to expire, indicating a shift in negotiations dynamics. - The potential acquisition would create a Hollywood powerhouse, combining Sony Pictures' vast entertainment portfolio with Paramount Global's iconic franchises. To know more, read the full article on #theenterprise #SonyPictures #ApolloGlobalManagement #ParamountGlobal #Acquisition #MediaIndustry #Entertainment #Hollywood #SkydanceMedia #BoxOffice #globalbusiness #theenterprisenews #followformore #global #finance