So before TS4’s official tracking came out, BoxOfficePro was saying $105-130M for OW range, and they said $113M OW and $390M total. I was saying $120-130M OW, $420-440M Dom, and $1.05-1.1B WW which I thought was reasonable.

And then comes the tracking. Reports are that it had “record-breaking presales” for all animated films, even higher than that of Incredibles 2, which opened to $182.7M in 2018. The range is $150-200M for the OW. By the week of release, the general OW consensus is about $140-170M. Disney says $140M while the trades say $160M, and BoxOfficeMojo says $165M. Heck most people on Reddit had it at $190M+ I’m pretty sure. But then starting Friday (opening day), it starts going down and down and down. After $12M in previews the night before, the range is still $150-160M, but by Friday it has been lowered to $135M. Then Saturday comes around and it’s now at $115-125M, and on Sunday, the official estimate is $118M. Actuals on Monday bump it up to $120.9M, which is above TS3’s $110.3M and the highest in the franchise. But apparently this is seen as “underperforming” when taking into account the high tracking ($160-200M) and Disney’s “lowball” $140M. I think it was massively overhyped and people ignored vital things, such as:

A. Its final presales weren’t even close to that of Incredibles 2 (or even Finding Dory for that matter) so I’ve heard, and it was only record-breaking for one day. After the presales started falling behind, that’s when I would’ve brought it back down to the $115-125M range.

B. It wasn’t as hyped as Incredibles 2 or Finding Dory. In fact, it wasn’t one that hardly anyone wanted. So the OW was naturally going to be deflated with legs because this one was one that would need to rely on WOM. The final result: great legs.

C. Presales aren’t always a good indicator of how well a movie will perform in the long run. Some movies are presales-heavy while some don’t have big presales but end up being successful in the long run. Star Wars for example is a presales-heavy franchise.

D. I think Endgame overperforming might have also caused people to highball their predictions, such as Toy Story 4. However, I only bumped my prediction from $120M to $125M.


In the end, the result was $120.9M OW, $434M DOM, $640M OS, and $1.074B WW, which was the best in the franchise, and IMO it did well. The bar should’ve been can it pass TS3 instead of can it pass Finding Dory or Incredibles 2. $130M was about a reasonable ceiling. The $160-200M forecasts were just too damn high. Even Disney’s $140M forecast was too high too. It did really well IMO, considering the fact that before the high tracking, a lot of people had it at sub-$400M, and most people had it finishing in the $300M range.


So why was it so overhyped? Do you think Endgame’s overperformance threw people for a loop causing future movies to be highballed? Were the presales just a bunch of misinformation?

It was the Incredible over performance that made people believe it will do this insane numbers. Tracking isn't real science but it vaguely provides the interest of audience in a movie. Also TS movies being so good are so well liked that people always want them to break records. I remember when TS3 came out it was over predicted as well and this was at a time when these level of tracking numbers were unavailable.

Define overpredicted for TS3; what I heard is people wanted it to beat Shrek the Third ($121.6M) and Alice in Wonderland ($116.1M) on OW, but that’s about it. What were people predicting for it? I didn’t follow BO then since I was only like 7.

Here people predicted it to easily break record of Shrek 2's 5 day and Shrek 3's 4-day total in 3 days - - they burned off demand faster which TS3 can match - - . The numbers were around $$130m-140m mark in the forum. Then Disney came with $120m estimates a week before its release and last week tracking numbers were estimated from $110m-$130m (there might be slight difference in numbers, it's been too long)

The number differences weren't as big back then but then the animation movie record numbers weren't as big as well.

H

Are you ReptileDysfunction7?

Yeah I forgot my password (haven’t been on in weeks)

Yeah Forbes did bring up that TS3 didn’t open as high as some wanted it to, but it had great legs (3.76x) and finished with $415M. Although I heard it was considered a mild disappointment to some- well mainly those who wanted it to beat Shrek 3 OW and Shrek 2 domestic total.

Nice to see you around!

If you prefer the Reptile name I could change your password for you

Welcome back!