TDKR was probably the movie that got affected the most, because it was directly associated with the shooting. The buzz was very high, and suddenly, it is now regarded as "the movie during which people were killed". And the movie was marketed as pretty dark. I'm not sure people wanted to see a dark and midly violent movie this weekend.

And look at Ted. Let's say it had dropped 40% without the shooting, instead of 55%. Well it made about 75% of what it might have made if the shooting hadn't happened.

If we say that TDKR's $161.8M is 75% of what it could have made, we get $215.7M...

I think it might have reached $200M without the shooting.

Even if the shooting only hurt TDKR by 10%, that's still $16m -- i.e. $178m for the weekend and more tickets sold than The Avengers.

This isn't about whether it would/would not beat The Avengers, it's about box office as a whole. And if you don't think the shooting had an impact on attendance this weekend, when most films were falling 60%+, you're insane. There's no sane explanation to handle why Moonrise Kingdom had drops of 8% and 18%, followed by 52%.

I think Moonrise Kingdom's drop is the most pointed and clear demonstration that there was an effect. Totally agree with The Dark Shape. It makes no sense that it would drop over 50% after weeks and weeks of tiny dips every weekend, even with competition from TDKR, unless you take extenuating circumstances into account.

Indeed. Take the 10-15% loss number again and that'd give Moonrise a $2.05-$2.2 million weekend, which might not seem much higher but I think is a lot closer to what most people were predicting.

Even with the Olympics next weekend, it might make sense to take our normal predicted drops then add 10% to them in most cases.

Okay one fact is not being discussed here:

Every studio downplays its opening forecasts - we all know that. So when WB said pre-release they expect at least $170m, we certainly can add 10-25 % to those $170m - that's somewhere between $187m-$212.5m...

I didn't realize Batman wasn't a consistent franchise?They've stayed in a pretty solid range throughout, especially opening wise. The first 4 sold within 3 million tickets of each other opening weekend wise. Sure Potter has 5 films with 3 Day openings that sold within 1 million of each other, but Batman is still pretty dam consistent. Especially now that without the Shooting TDKR would have been almost identical to TDK opening adjusted.

I'm not saying there wasn't an effect. But the 10-15% doesn't just include TDKR, that took about half the hit, the rest is the other movies. As said earlier, kids movies would be effected quite a bit more in my opinion. Why would you go to the movies to films that have been out a number of weeks already? The only real reason to go to the movies was to see TDKR, everyone one else would stay in.

But in all honesty, when TDK came out the top 8 holdovers dropped 55.3% on average. This weekend the average drop was 56.6%. If the shootings never happened no one would even look twice at it. A big movie took a bite out of everything.

Potter has five films opening within one million of each other (in tickets sold), and I bet it would have been at least 7 if Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince opened on Friday, which is the only reason they're 4 million less. That only leaves out Deathly Hollows, Pt. 2, which is significantly higher, though BOM does not properly adjust for 3D grosses, obviously, so it's hard to say. But either way, being the final part, I'm sure it had the most opening weekend, and probably doesn't fall in that range. But that's REAL consistency.

Batman? Not really that consistent. ESPECIALLY in total. It's all over the place, ranging from 23 million tickets sold to 74. Opening-wise, anywhere from 7.6 million (Batman Begins, which opened Wednesday, so it's more like 10-11) all the way to 22 million for TDK. These aren't comparable franchises for "consistency."

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises ... r=1&p=.htm

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises ... r=1&p=.htm

$180m. And not a cent more.

Yep. But people keep ignoring that little fact, conveniently.

Top 4 aggregated weekends all did a wee bit over $250m, i believe. This weekend is the 6th biggest, with around $225m. This fits with my view that box office lost about 10% business due to the shootings.

Both of you are making points I was trying to state. I am on a lousy computer that keeps shutting me out at the worst possible time. According to NZ, Australia, UK, Netherlands, and South Korea, TDKR would have made $170m-230m in relation to the percentage comparison with TA and TDK in those countries. Well, in SK it would have made between $300m-$400m, it might have been an outlier.

Remember what WB was doing before the shooting became an impact. Nikki TDKR $27m+, then $28-29m+, then $30.64m. They were setting it up to be around $90m by the end of the estimate phase. Now would it have broken HP's record or something in the high 80s we will never know. Then, instead of internet and media reports on it breaking the record or almost breaking the record, positive puff pieces like HP and TA got, it was nothing but blood and mayhem, anything but positive. The whole positive buzz cycle was turned inside out, and it still got $130m after the punch to gut of Friday morning.

How much did TDK's weekend go above the previous record? If you are referring to the top 12 it was a little over 20%, so the weekend could have been closer to $300m than the $250m that you are arbitrarily committed, that is about 30-33%.

Yeah, what mdana said. Why would you assume that the weekend was going to max out at a wee bit over $250m?

mdana is schooling everyone.

But it's not a charter school.

Based on $30m at midnight, it was headed for $180-185m.

Michelle Rhee says Hhi.

According to mdana, TDKR could have lost up to 30%. That would be a $230m weekend had the shootings not happened. That's up there with Excel in term of crazy predictions.

That's less crazy than saying it lost just 1-2%

Who's saying that?

Moses.

I have also mentioned I am open to the possiblity TDKR lost as little as $5-10m. Nice cherry picking. You used an arbitrary limit of $250m, I compared the increase to TDK since you seem to be limited in your imagination and wanting to set an extemely low artificial OW. Something in the range of $260m+ seems just as if not more reasonable as your preference for $250m.

Only thing is that you cannot simply compare TA and TDK overseas and then correlate that here.


TA and TDK are the two biggest opening film ever in NA.

5-7% for TDKR and 5-10% for the rest of the movies seems more likely

Simple facts:

A 30 million midnight in July would never lead to anything higher than 82 million. And that's ROTS multiplier 7 years ago, July is much harder. 36% is extremely generous for the midnights to overall weekend numbers.

Family films, comedies, and non event films seem much more likely to be skipped then TDK, despite the shooting taking place during that film. Would you want to go laugh at a theater? Take a bunch of small kids to a family film (One with terrible WOM at that)? Go to an artsy theater where all kinds of weirdos can be in? Or see the number one film of the year to a beloved film that you've been dying to see all year? Other films got hit a little harder because there was no reason to go to the movies other than not to see Batman.

Even with that, films dropped 55% on average against TDK, this weekend 56%. And the drops are not that ridiculous. Everyone knew Spiderman would get killed. Madea films always have terrible holds; concert films same thing. Poorly received animated sequels have dropped 55% before. And let's not forget that Moonrise kingdom lost almost 3 quarters of it's marketing, and has stopped increasing theaters. Ted's drop is a little high, but in all honesty,anyone who saw Ted would see TDKR opening weekend for sure.

5-10% is still 30,000 people a state that chose not to see TDKR Double that for the other movies out there and 60,000 people a state. That's still a lot of people.

I think it's kind of silly that people are really arguing the effect on here. The movie should be able to make it up with a better than expected hold next weekend, as people come back to normal. If it doesn't then, Ledger and less hype factor should really be the more deciding factor for TDKR's disappointment (And it didn't at all)

Your increase is even more arbitrary. Who's to say how much the weekend record increases?

What you deem an extremely low artificial OW i do not, at all. $180m would be a new admissions record (or at the very least a tie with TA).

I think the 2d limited the film from going past 200 million.

Also we have one real number.

The 30 million Midnight and I do not see how that number gets over 200 million.