Only Turistas is open for reviews right now. Just when I think Yahoo couldn't screw up any worse, they do. There will be no point in tracking Nativity & Van Wilder 2 if the reviews don't become active before this afternoon.

I've listed the movies with just a slight change from the usual format: written reviews (+increase since last update), regular ratings (+increase since last update), average user grade. Hopefully this helps track the Yahoo Reviews better, since they're off to a bad start again. Yahoo hasn't updated Nativity and Van Wilder yet, but it is accepting written reviews, so it increasingly looks more and more like tracking writtens is the way to go.


The Nativity Story: 3 (+3), 0 (+0), n/a
Turistas: 2 (+2), 3 (+3), B+
Van Wilder 2: TROJ: 3 (+3), 0 (+0), n/a

Double post removed.

I agree, and believe this new system should be given a trial run. I didn't realize they were still accepting written reviews, because it doesn't look that way when you bring up the movie page. It may reach a point where we just do away with the actual reviews altogether and just count written.

IMO, the written to overall ratios should be as follows:

The Nativity Story - 1:3
Turistas & Van Wilder 2 - 1:6

If Nativity isn't getting a ton of written reviews, the ratio will be closer to 1:4. It should be below 1:5 because one would expect a lot of commentary on this film.

Useless update 10 minutes later. I just wanted to check, to make sure Yahoo's working, and that it's not just a couple old reviews listed. It's fine, since it just updated Nativity and Turistas with one more written each. Also, the pages I linked go directly to the Yahoo User Reviews page. On the blue highlighted "User Reviews" heading portion, it lists the grade and writtens/ratings right there, so it's the only place you need to go to check.

The Nativity Story: 4 (+1), 0 (+0), n/a
Turistas: 3 (+1), 3 (+0), B+
Van Wilder 2: TROJ: 3 (+0), 0 (+0), n/a

Yeah, it's looking like that may be the way to go. Let's see how this weekend does.




I'm not a review guru, but those look pretty reasonable. Too bad we don't have data from the Passion, as it was released in early '04, and the Yahoo Review archives only go back to late '04.

So what would your "normal ratings" (rating-to-gross $) have looked like? Something like Nativity 180 and both Turistas/Van Wilder around 100, maybe a little less? If so, then with your written-to-rating ratios, the written-to-gross $ ratios would be Nativity 30.0 and Turistas/Van Wilder around 16.7. Divide the writtens by those figures, and you have your projected Friday gross.

I have all the ratios around 100 for today. Turistas & Van Wilder 2 due to their mediocre theater counts (plus Wilder 2 is a sequel), and Nativity because one would expect a lot of reviews, which would increase the ratio. Otherwise, with the theater count, it would have been closer to 70-80.

With the written-ratios, you'd be looking at about 33 for Nativity & 17 for the other two. I know many aren't going to like the idea of starting over with a new system, but we really have no choice. At least we can be happy that the written reviews are updated in real-time and are always accurate.

It's actually pretty much the same system. You just use writtens instead of ratings. So the "new ratios" for written-to-gross $ looks smaller, but it's the same principle, same source of data, and virtually same patterns, just lower ratio numbers now.

For the time being, you can even project your "normal ratings" (the ones that are usually around 100, from 50-150-ish), and just divide by the generic 1:5 ratio for written-to-rating, or use RT's or Xiayun's (assuming he posts it, but he and other gurus usually post good stuff in this thread) ratios for written-to-rating, such as your 1:3 or 1:6 for this week's openers.

Would you really have only gone 100 for Nativity though? Passion had a 250 ratio, and End of the Spear had a 260. Even Chronicles of Narnia (with a Christian influence and small addition to the usual expected fanbase) at 203 was higher than a normal comp might have been (Harry Potter was 150), perhaps due to the Christian increase. With the Yahoo frontpage modifications and other changes, all ratios have been lower lately, even before the massive clogging problems, so you might expect a 150-200 range. One Night with the King, which recently opened in October, had a 182 ratio, so perhaps Nativity would have been around there.

One Night With The King also had a theater count below 1,000 IIRC. It's possible we could see a ratio of 150, but I can't see it going higher than that with 3,000+ theaters, a PG rating, and the recent trending of lower ratios. The easiest way to expect a high ratio is with a ton of reviews. So far, we only have 8 written to go by.

The Nativity Story: 9 (+5), 0 (+0), n/a
Turistas: 4 (+1), 3 (+0), B+
Van Wilder 2: TROJ: 3 (+0), 0 (+0), n/a

I have started a spreadsheet that will track ratios for written reviews only. If we could note how many written we have at the end of every tracking day, that would be a tremendous help. It will take a couple of months before the data is reliable enough to use, but we have to start somewhere. It will be interesting to see how well this works for us in 3-6 months time.

As of 12:30, written totals were as follows:

Nativity - 11
Turistas - 5
Van Wilder 2 - 7

My inconsistent Forecaster projected 350-400 reviews for Nativity today, but I'm retiring it under the current system. I'll put it back into commission with the new system sometime in '07.

The Nativity Story - 15, +4
Turistas - 5, +0
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj - 9, +2

Not good for Turistas, getting only 1 written review in the last 2 hours.

The Nativity Story - 20, +5
Turistas - 6, +1
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj - 10, +1

The Native Story is on pace for about 100 written reviews, certainly not a breakout. Early projection would be $4m for the day.

Which would be precisely where tracking has it. It was hard to argue against both firms saying $12M. My theater is still stuck at 4 presales for Nativity for the entire weekend.

Xiayun (and any others gurus), what would your "normal ratios" have been for the movies, and what do you expect for the written-to-ratings ratios?

Has Yahoo completely given up updating the other review totals as only Turistas has any (and only 3 at that)?

Sunday should be bigger than usual though, right?

More than likely. If it follows the same IM pattern as Passion (no guarantee) they may only estimate a 15-20% Sunday drop.

With about 50 written reviews already, it should be well over 100 by the end of the day.

The Nativity Story - 52
Turistas - 17
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj - 14

Being on the frontpage contributed to the sudden increase of pace. The written ratio tends to be around 1:4 except for kid films, which could get to 1:6. Frontpage could push it to 1:3.

The Nativity Story - 61
Turistas - 22
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj - 17

Yeah? So? These numbers mean nothing to me without your commentary, Xia! Good? Bad? Or Ugly?

The lack of commentary probably means that it'll be one baaaaaad weekend.

Ah. I see.

Hey Zingy, do you know Volver's theatre count? Bad weekend for wide release = good weekend for limited ones!

The Nativity Story - 75
Turistas - 25
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj - 23

Yeah, from mediocre to bad.