SPIN FACTOR®
The HSX Blog
Box office palooza, weekend update: Iron wasn’t platinum
Iron Man 2 [IRNM2] didn’t gleam as much as expected. Disney/Marvel/Paramount’s Iron Man 2 topped the weekend with $133.6 million of opening weekend receipts, and also fared better than the first Iron Man’s $98 million debut in 2008. But the movie failed to live up to talk that it could top Dark Knight’s opening weekend record of $158.4 million, and missed our $149 million estimate, prompting a trim to our outlook for the movie and box office for the second quarter.
Weekend rundown. Box office for the top 12 movies over the weekend rose 22% y/y to $174.0 million, according to preliminary data from boxofficemojo.com, $21.5 million below our estimate for a 36% rise, with the miss mainly attributable to Iron Man 2. Otherwise, Warner Bros.’ A Nightmare on Elm Street [NELMS] fell 72%, more than we expected, to finish second with $9.2 million in its second weekend, $5.6 million below our estimate. DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon was third, with $6.8 million in its seventh weekend, $1 million shy of our model.
Industry estimates trimmed. With the miss, we are cutting our Iron Man 2 domestic box estimate $38 million to $347 million, $19 million above the first Iron Man. This change, and others, are prompting a reduction in our 2Q10 industry box office estimate to 4.7% growth from 8.1% previously. In 3Q10 we see 11.1% growth, versus 10.9% previously, while we continue to model for a 6.6% decline in 4Q10 against tough Avatar comps. We cut our summer box office outlook 2.5 pctg. points to 10.5% growth.
Next weekend outlook. We forecast a 6.1% y/y rise in domestic box office for the top 12 movies next weekend to $138.8 million. We see Iron Man 2 No. 1 with $59.8 million in its second weekend. We have Universal’s Robin Hood [RBNHD], starring Russell Crowe, second with $39.3 million in its opening weekend. We place Summit’s Letters to Juliet [LJULT] third with $11.4 million in its opening weekend. Last year’s top movie, Angels and Demons, pulled in $46 million in its opening weekend.
FCC talk interesting. News broke heading into the weekend that the FCC had approved a request by studios via the MPAA to copy-protect HD movies shown during a new early release window. Blog reaction was that this is bad for theaters, potentially hurting box office. However, we expect such content to be premium priced to limit risk of cannibalization of DVDs and movie tickets, and so to have limited usage and impact on box office, at least for the near term.
Peer inside for more movie palooza. Please look inside this note for bottoms-up box office estimates for the year, including predictions of top 20 movies for 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 year.
Tag(s): IRNM2, NELMS, RBNHD, LJULT
View more articles »
By Barton Crockett on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 @ 04:07 PM
977 views
Recent Comments
Notice: The information provided in Analyst's Corner is submitted by third-party independent contributors that are not affiliated with Hollywood Stock Exchange, LLC ("HSX"). The information contained herein reflects the third-party independent contributor's opinion and are not necessarily the opinion of HSX. These materials are provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. HSX, in its best effort, obtained this information from sources it believes are reliable. HSX does not guarantee that the information provided is accurate, complete or timely, nor does HSX make any warranties in its use. Except as expressly permitted in the HSX Terms and Conditions of Use, you may not modify, copy, publish, display, transmit, adapt or in any way exploit the content of this web site.
