
Published Jun 16, 2022
Two weeks ago, I shared my Exhibitor Notes & Boxoffice Estimate for the upcoming June 24 release of Elvis. My key observation was that “Elvis was not going to be a blockbuster title, it would be a solid double, the type of release we desperately need for the industry to recover, grow, or even survive.” I continued the baseball metaphor and went on to note that “to enjoy a winning season, we can’t swing for the fences every time we step to the plate, we need to play “small ball” too…stealing bases, bunts, singles, doubles and anything else to score runs.”
We are currently enjoying the moment with Top Gun opening to $125M, followed by Jurassic World delivering $145M…add to this Dr. Strange opening to an eye-popping $187M and The Batman an unexpected $134M, and it’s easy to feel pretty good about our YTD recovery.
My concern is that it’s just not healthy to simply bounce from blockbuster to blockbuster. Returning to the baseball theme, we need to be mindful of two potentially sidelining injuries now brewing. First, on an LTM basis, the number of “wide” release titles is running 28% behind the same 2019 period and 40% behind on a YTD look.
Second, and to my point about needing to play small ball, YTD we have a huge deficit in films opening to less than $100M; in particular, the number of titles opening between $10M and $50M is 50% less than in 2019…we need more Lost City, Downton Abbey, Dog, Scream, Death on the Nile.
Thru June 15, the industry is trailing 2019 by 36%, which arguably could be attributed to the simple fact that, despite moviegoers doing their part and driving the average opening gross per title up 9% this year, there is simply not enough content being released to keep them engaged and regularly returning.

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