Allow me to out myself here - in addition to being a bit of a movie geek, I'm also a box office numbers nerd. I track how much films make. I like to estimate opening weekend takes. I take some delight when great, little-known films do well and get positively giddy when paint-by-numbers, big-budget crap takes a financial bath. Now I'm sure you've all heard by now about The Avengers big opening weekend. $207 million. Absolutely astounding, if you stop to think about it. But frankly what I found even more incredible than the opening weekend take was the fact that the *second* weekend take was $103.1 million. Allow me to explain to you (if you at all care) why that is so insane - with movies that open so huge, they inevitably have huge fanboy-rush fervor, leading to everybody who *needs* to see it doing so on their opening weekend. As such, the week-to-week percentage drop (or the reverse, as box office nerds call it, the 'hold') is positively massive. Think of it this way - the more people who see a film in its opening weekend, the fewer people who feel the need to see it in the second (and third, fourth, etc) weekends.
To help illusrate what I'm talking about, let's use the film that Avengers bitch-slapped dethroned as the opening weekend champ - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2. That film opened to $169.2 million. Its second weekend, however, was $47.4 million. That, my friends, represents a massive 72% drop from week-to-week (though you should really take 'midnight showings' out of the equation, but that's getting too technical for now - don't get me started). Let's not forget that Potter was a legitimately *good* film. Another point of reference are the fangirl-friendly Twilight sequels. New Moon opened to $143 million ... and slid off a cliff to $42.8 million in its second weekend. Breaking Dawn was almost identical - $139 opening, $42 second weekend. In general terms, the bigger the opening, the harder the fall. Films simply cannot maintain that sort of fan interest week-to-week anymore. We are a society that demands instant gratification before moving on to the next shiny.
So, that being said, The Avengers' second weekend becomes even more remarkable. Obviously, it was the highest opener of all-time, so even if it duplicated Potter's 72% drop, we'd be looking at around $60 million (or just below Thor's opening weekend). I didn't expect that to happen (for various reasons, including but not limited to - rapturous critical praise and an equally-positive fan reaction, the difference in numbers between the two film's midnight sneak numbers and more), but I was still thinking about a 60-65% drop was in the cards. A hold of 35% to 40% of the audience would put them in striking distance of another record (for those who care, Avatar held the record for the biggest second weekend at $75 million) and in good shape to cross half-a-billion by the time it was all said and done. A few people (including the brilliant folks at Box-Office Prophets) predicted it would top 90-million, but I didn't see it. So when the numbers came in on Sunday morning that they were estimating it over $100 for the weekend, I was positively floored. To think that a film could open that big and then hold almost 50% of its audience week-to-week is positively mind-boggling to me. Right now, Avengers has summarily chewed-up and spit-out almost every box-office record known to man.
So where does the film go from here? Well, here's where it gets fun (and also where I start using arithmetic and extrapolation, so feel free to hit 'snooze' if you need to). For the moment, let's take Avengers first seven days completely out of the equation and pretend, instead, that we are looking at this shiny new film that opened to (a still *very* impressive) $103.1 million. So, as of now, there are 21 films that have crossed the $100 million plateau in their opening weekends since Spider-Man did it a decade ago. Of those 21, their overall box-office range from $234 million (the positively dreadful X-Men: The Last Stand - screw you, Brett Ratner! etc.) to $533 million (the positively superlative The Dark Knight) with the average being $356 million. Now let's take say, for argument's sake, that Avengers makes that average amount from its second weekend on (which, frankly, seems like a sure thing, given the film's critical reception and rapturous word-of-mouth). Now we take the $270 million (!!!) the film made in its opening week and tack that on and we get ... ta-da! $626 million. A number within spitting distance of Titanic for second-place all-time (and would have been *ahead* of said film were it not for the 3D re-release earlier this year).
This gets me to the crux of my argument here - Avengers has an even-money-or-better chance to topple Titanic to become the second highest-grossing film of all-time and an outside shot of taking down the big dog, Avatar (as an aside - how absolutely ludicrous is it that James Cameron has the top *two* highest-grossing films of all-time? You may not like the guy, but his directing style clearly appeals to a number of people). Frankly, I'd love to see that happen. As you read, I positively loved the film and am eagerly promoting it to anyone who'll listen. Plus, for the longest time, pre-Titanic, nerds held the box office crown (a little ditty called Star Wars - perhaps you may have heard of it?) and gorramnit, it's time we took it back. So if you haven't seen it yet - what the hell are you waiting for? And if you *have* seen it and find yourself with 2.5 hours to kill - honestly, with May sweeps over now, there's not a lot of TV on, right? - why not go see it again?
This weekend will be fun. As I mentioned way back at the beginning of this tale (If there's anyone still reading by this point, anyway), the bigger the opening, the harder the drop - but after that big drop, things tend to level out substantially, so the film's multiplier (opening weekend divided by total gross ... /nerd) stretches its legs a bit. Basically, if Avengers can hold 60% or more of its audience in week 3, it'll have a real shot at the record. If it drops to 'only' 50-million (I can't see it dropping lower than that), then it'll probably have to set course for the iceberg and aim for number two all-time.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.
What I'm Playing: - Diablo III, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3 (I'm sensing a theme here...)
What I'm Reading: - Green Lantern (new 52).
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