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Box office palooza, 2010 summer movie preview
Summer outlook; hot, up 12.9%, lead by Shrek Forever After. The traditional summer movie season opens this Friday, the first in May, and runs through Labor Day. So we thought it an opportune time to provide our outlook for the season — which should be HOT, up 12.9% y/y to $4.71 billion, lead by DreamWorks Animation's Shrek Forever After [SHRK4] Our expected five largest movies of the summer are: 1) Shrek, for which we see $405 million of domestic receipts; 2) Disney/Marvel/Paramount’s Iron Man II [IRNM2], with domestic box office of $385 million; 3) Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3 [TOYS3], with $340 million; 4) Summit Entertainment’s Twilight: New Moon [TWLI4], with $300 million, and 5)Warner Bros.’ sci-fi action movie Inception [INCPT], starring Leonardo DiCaprio, with $227 million. Two of our top five are 3-D releases; four of the five are sequels.
3-D outlook. We see seven meaningful 3-D films released over summer 2010, with six of those among the top 20 films for the season. We estimate that those seven 3-D films will gross approximately $1.13 billion of domestic receipts, or 24.2% of our total box office estimate, compared to $675 million of receipts from four releases in the 2009, or 16.2% of the summer box office.
Weekend rundown. Box office for the top 12 movies over the April 30 – May 2 weekend fell 39% y/y to $91.2 million, according to preliminary data from boxofficemojo.com, above our estimate for a 46.6% drop. Warners Bros.’ A Nightmare on Elm Street [NELMS] was first in its opening weekend with $32.2 million, $12.7 million above our estimate. DWA's How to Train Your Dragon was second with $10.8 million, in line. Summit Entertainment’s Furry Vengeance [FURYV] was third, with only $6.5 million in its opening weekend, $4.6 million below our model.
Next weekend outlook. We forecast a 36.9% y/y rise in domestic box office for the top 12 movies next weekend to $195.4 million. We see Iron Man II in first, with $148 million in its opening weekend. We see A Nightmare on Elm Street second with $14.7 million. We have DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon third with $7.8 million in its seventh weekend. Last year’s top movie, Star Trek, pulled in $75 million in its opening weekend.
2Q10, 3Q10, 4Q10 outlooks. Our bottom-up industry box office model has been updated but is still near our exhibitor models. 2Q10E has been tweaked down to 8.1% from 10.4% previously. 3Q10E has been trimmed to up 10.9% from up 11.9% previously. In 4Q10 we continue to expect a 6.6% decline against tough Avatar comps.
Peer inside for more movie palooza. Please look inside this note for bottom-up box office estimates for the year, including predictions of top 20 movies for the summer, the year and by quarter, top movies by week, top 10 movies by studio, and our take on the 3-D and animated slates for the year.
Tag(s): SHRK4, IRNM2, TOYS3, TWLI4, INCPT, NELMS, FURYV
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By Barton Crockett on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 @ 12:18 PM
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