My 3-day would be only like -10%

4-day- $53.9M

woops your right, I meant to type in 9% I don't know how I messed up

your being a pansy, you know damn well the film will easily clear 45m over the 4-Day

45m - 3day and 55m - 4day.

nice

sure, I give you all till MLK monday, before the film can start to sprout its Titanic level legs and get stragglers instead of predictors.

Time to talk $750M people.

only 8 of the first round predictors made it in without having to update in the 2nd round, congrats

don't forget to get your predictions in, especially if you're past prediction was in the red. Those wit a strike through there name have predicted in round 2




Predict Avatanic's Domestic Total: round 3 update #1


Chip Munkington - 601m
Soagg - 602m
Revatar - 612.5m
Mesjarch - 620m
Mark66 - 625m
DIB2 - 720m
Jmovies - 750m
Lotan - 770m
BJ - 811m
EnKi - 1.025b


Average Domestic Total Prediction: 713.65m

newly submitted are in bold, have fun all.

Two rounds in and still over half the pack under predict avatanics potential. This time 10 people make it to the next round , those in red if you wish submit another prediction, you have till the coming monday.

nice predict

Predict Avatanic's 5th Wknd


3-Day:

Mark66 - 50.575m +1%
BJs Prediction: 50.4m NC
Jmovies - 45.7m -9%
Keyser Soze - 45.0m -10%
Mesjarch - 40.0m -20%


Average: 46.33m -7%


4-Day:

BJ - 63.55m +26%
Mark66 - 61.925m +23%
Keyser Soze - 55m +9%
Jmovies - 53.96m +7%
Mesjarch - 50.0m NC
Revatar - 45.3m -16%
Mandeep - 41m -19%


Average: 52.96m +5%

you have until Friday, 10pm eastern, get em in eh

Predict Avatanic's Monday


BJs Prediction: 5.80m -63%
Mark66 - 5.75m -63%
Eventine - 5.68m -63%
Revatar - 5.36m -66%


Average: 5.65m -64%

you have until 10pm eastern, post your prediction for a chance at one day of predicting glory.

2hours

5.5m.

Time for my daily humiliation $5.51m.

Yeah & you thought it was going to do over 60m last wknd.

I was off only 4m & you were off 10m.

How Did I Get Sunday So Wrong?

Theater/Screen Sampling

Avatar has lost on avg about one showing from last Sunday at the theaters I have been monitoring. At one theater it's last showing was at 6:00 p.m. and the Shitmunks was playing at 7:30. Avatar had only three showings and Daybreakers had five!?! Some theaters that had sell-outs last Sunday had no sell-outs for any format of Avatar today. At the stronger theaters for Avatar, there were some non sell-outs for IMAX which was not the case compared to the same times last Sunday. The same thing for 3D screens, the sell-outs ended between 6:00-8:00 pm this week at the better theaters, when compared to last week when they ended from 8:00-10:00 pm.

I sensed the pattern of less sell-outs when I made my prediction and was fully prepared to backtrack before 10:00 pm if the pattern did not continue.

This may not mean as much as it appears, because a movie might not register a sell out, but that showing might be at 90-95% capacity, which is not much of a drop. A lost show may not mean that much overall, because the previous week's show may have been poorly attended, hence the reason it was dropped. However, the overall pattern of less shows along with less sell-outs for the remaining shows across the spectrum of my theater sample leads me to believe the drops were stronger than last Sunday. Again my sample may not be representative of the nation as whole.

I don't think my area was a good match with the rest of the country since an area team the Baltimore Ravens played on Sunday. I based way too much of my estimate on this sample and it was an outlier.

1st Sunday in January Compared to 2nd Sunday

Theoretically, this Sunday should have increased drops compared to last Sunday, because some people took Monday off for a long weekend last week or kids were out of school. For 1998 and 1999, the comparable avg. Sunday drops were 10-15% worse for non kid/family movies compared to the previous Sunday. The last two years that pattern has not shown itself, as most movies have shown small increases or drops compared to the previous Sunday. The NFL play-offs schedule has changed over that time. In 1998 the Championship games were this weekend. In 1999 until 2009, the Divisional games were this weekend, and this year the Wild-card games were this weekend. Either that pattern has disappeared, the NFL play-off schedule had an impact, or perhaps weather had an impact as the weather seemed mild the last two years compared to 1998, 1999, and this year. The drops could just be random and there is no real discernable pattern.

I think the change in the NFL schedule had a big impact on Sunday holds. The weather improving over Friday and Saturday, probably helped too.

Avatar's 4th Sunday Drop Compared to Titanic and ROTK

BOM has Avatar dropping only 34.7%, which is better than Titanic. I find that unlikely. Let's compare the two through the first three Sundays. On their first Sunday Avatar had the better drop, but Titanic had a sizable increase on Saturday while Avatar dropped on Saturday, so that impacted the comparison. On the second Sunday, Titanic had the better drop by 1.4%, and on the third Sunday, it had the better drop by 2.6%. Why would this pattern suddenly change? It is possible the effect of Christmas and New Year’s falling on different days has some impact, but I think it is more likely that this pattern continues for a few more weeks. Titanic and ROTK had a similar close Sunday drops and the pattern continued until the Super Bowl when ROTK freed from the tyrannical drag of the NFL routinely had better Sunday drops than Titanic.

Secondly, on their comparable fourth Friday and Saturday, Titanic had the better increases. It seems counter-intuitive (although not abnormal) that Avatar would have the better drop.

Lastly, Titanic dropped 5.4% more its fourth Sunday than its third Sunday, and ROTK dropped 2.8% more its fourth Sunday than its third Sunday. Again, I find it difficult to believe that Avatar will drop only 1.4% more than last Sunday.

Again I think the fact that Titanic had to deal with a Conference Championships on its comparable Sunday was a major factor in it having a much bigger drop than Avatar only having to deal with Wild Card games. I should have factored that into my estimate, and I ignored it to my detriment.

Sunday Gross Being Lower Than Friday Gross

2002-2009* Movies that Increased 50-75% on 2nd Saturday in January:
* Excluding 2006 & 2007 when MLK fell on the same weekend

FOTR 71.4% +450k
A Beautiful Mind 54%
Vanilla Sky 54.3%
Gosford Park 52.1%

Ali 57.1%
Joe Somebody 67.9%

Two Towers 70.4% +300k
About Schmidt 56.8%
Chicago 51.1%
Maid in Manhattan 55.4%

Drumline 64.4%
MBFGW 73.9%
Die Another Day
Star Trek Nemesis 61.1%
The Hours 50.1% (expansion)+33k

ROTK 75.1% +300k
Something’s Gotta Give 52.6%

House of Sand and Fog 54.4%
In America 71.6%
Lost In Translation 67.5% (expansion)+ $1k
Master and Commander 56.8%
Honey 52.9%
Mystic River 60.4%

The Aviator 51%
National Treasure 63.9%
Phantom of the Opera 53.3%

Finding Neverland 55.2%
Million Dollar Baby 60.4% (expansion) +35k
Sideways 64.5%
Hotel Rwanda 55.9% (expansion)+20k
Beyond the Sea 54.1%

National Treasure: Book of Secrets 58.2%
The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything 74.2% +70k

The Savages 73.2% +7k

Marley and Me 59.3%

Slumdog Millionaire 55.6%
The Reader 55.3%
Milk 54.8%
Frost/Nixon 53.8%

Movies in Bold had increase on Sunday over Friday gross

4 out of 16 for movies in the top ten and 9 out of 39 for movies that made at least 100k on Saturday had Sunday's larger than Friday.

The amount of sell-outs Avatar has may make comparison to the movies on this list invalid. It's not that I don't think Avatar can have a better Sunday than its Friday, and it certainly could with adjustments to Friday and Saturday's actuals. I just don't believe people realize how unlikely it is for a movie to do it when it's Saturday increase was so moderate.

These were not comparable movies, thus the list was invalid.

With all these factors, I don't think $15-16m Sunday predictions are very realistic even for Avatar.

Of course, Avatar will probably prove me wrong yet again, but at least I had some basis for my horrible estimate.

I know that there are a few minutes left again, otherwise it is like too late here, please consider

Monday - 5.6M

3-day Weekend - 48M
4-day Weekend - 59.5M

1st Weekend


http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2632&p=.htm

3rd Weekend


http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2634&p=.htm

4th Weekend




http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2636&p=.htm

3D% at the end of 1st weekend 71.4%
3D gross at the end of 3rd weekend $55,000,000

I still question if Brandon got an actual number from the studios for the 3rd weekend or if it is the correct %, but I will calculate the 3D gross with his reported figures.

3D% at the end of 3rd weekend 75%
3D gross at the end of 3rd weekend $264,086,174

3D% at the end of 4th weekend 78%
3D gross at the end of 3rd weekend $335,400,000

3D gross for days 18-24 $71,313,827
2D gross for days 18-24 $7,417,789
Total gross for days 18-24 $78,731,616

If the 2D weekend to week ratio was the same % as the overall gross weekend to week ratio (which it may not have been), then 2D screens accounted for approx $4.74m over the weekend. I was very glad to see Brandon had an estimate # breakdown for the 3D gross so far. I hope he continues to provide # estimates for the coming weeks. Now if we could get breakdowns for 2D and 3D screen counts that would really be outstanding for projecting drops forward.

Avatar can have very low drops forward due to the finite # of 3D screens, and it has a monopoly until Alice in Wonderland (I believe this is the next 3D movie) opens in March. It should also be able to hold onto a sizable portion of screens if it has a good PSA, which it should with small weekly drops.

I hope you have a tasty shoe. The problem is the Saturday increase could be larger and Sunday could be flat or a very small decrease. Which could lead to a small increase for the weekend. Luckily for you Avatar already had such a small drop this past Sunday, it won't make up much with a 15% drop.

5th weekend predictions:
-------------------------
Friday : $12.1 million
Saturday: $19.3 million
Sunday: $14.4 million
-------------------------
MLK: $10.1 million
-------------------------
3-Day total = $45.8 million
4-Day total = $55.9 million

Box Office Mojo's write up gives us some very good statistics as to why this is going to make it so far past Titanic.

Firstly, let's remember one thing. Titanic adjusts to 943 million in 2010.
Avatar would simply need about 7/10ths of the same audience going to it to make it to 700 million in 2010. And that is before factoring in the ticket premium.

Here's another great statistic.
As of this Sunday, 335 million or 78% of it's total is from 3D screens.

Let's factor that into the stat above, and with more than 2/3rds of Avatar's gross coming from tickets that are as much as 30% higher, that 7/10ths of the same audience as Titanic needed is now only about 5/10ths of the same audience needed when factoring in the higher ticket prices for 78% of it's grosses.

One other very important stat from this past weekend. 14%
That is how much the Imax shows in North America fell this weekend (and can pretty much soley be accounted for from the Holiday Friday last weekend). It's weekend IMAX gross was 7.5 million.

As we know, the IMAX shows are still continuing to sell out like mad, with most of them already sold out for this upcoming holiday weekend. To the same extent, most of the 3D showings are holding up quite well too. This is why Avatar will continue to defy gravity and have very low drops from here on out. People are waiting to see it in the theatres charging premium prices. those theatres still have not been able to meet the demand, as evidenced by the numerous sold out showings this past weekend after 4 weeks of release.

Of course, there are other factors that will only help Avatar in the next few months. One of them being that it has Imax and 3D screens locked up until Alice in Wonderland in March. Thats almost two more months for it to play well. (though that might also hinder it's post Oscar grosses. However, a late Feb. "see it before it's gone from 3D campaign could work wonders for it!)

Other factors helping out will be the awards nominations and wins themselves, as well as the general buzz still surrounding it thanks to it's large grosses and endless sell outs. Furthermore, the media circus that will surround it once more when it passes Titanic will just be more free press for it.

This is why I believe it will reach 750 million or more total. It only needs less than 2/3rds of Titanic's audience to do so.

Okay, my overall domestic guess is gonna be shattered. Geez.

$710 million. Final answer.

I agree with your comments, but I'd go further to say that Avatar will match the full Titanic's adjusted box office, grossing over $950 million domestic. On top of the circumstances that you mention are helping Avatar's box office, I'd add the biggest contributing factor: This movie is AWESOME!

That's what they tend to forget in their analyses.

Yes definitely true. Initially I thought that this will just narrowly pass Titanic's gross, but now it looks like it will breeze past through it. If the next weekend also marks 50M I wonder if it could gross 800M as well

3D or not the only factor that I see here is that the movie is effing ..... (well Enki already said that eh )

BJ you forgot to put my 3-day weekend prediction of $38.4m on your list