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THE ENTERTAINMENT MARKET
There are a lot of variables, theatre owners/film buyers/etc often try to book films and get told no for various reasons.
A bit of a a digression...
I heard about a small mom and pop theatre that was told they couldn't book Five Nights At Freddys a few months ago, because Universal only planned 2000 theatres for it, Universal relented and now it's 3600+ for next weekend. WB had a lot of theatres that wanted to book Magic Mike's Last Dance and were told no opening wekend but allowed them to book 2nd weekend when it did better than they thought (ultimately by then it was too late).
Anyway, specifically on limited, typically studios do have set expansion plans and have those booked several weeks before a film even opens but that can all go out the window. Dumb Money was an unusual case because of all the last minute changes and also because it opened soft in its first weekend in LA/NYC
but Sony went MORE aggressive with its rollout because polling lead them to believe they were losing whatever heat/interest they had for the first weekend fast. They probably would have been better served either immediately going wide or at least just going full wide its 2nd weekend vs its 3rd, because by then whatever buzz it had was totally gone.
Though also a consideration, that without cast to promote, the only thing that could have pushed box office up was meme stocks having another run, but they had a brutal September.
What are the circumstances that lead to a film being released in limited, then expanding? Oct 20, 07:11
It's a real plan to build word of mouth, get good reviews and high per theater average. Oct 20, 07:19
So are there pre-existing agreements with theaters e.g. if we do x$ per theater, you will run this movie, or Oct 20, 07:27
Never heard of such. {nm} Oct 20, 07:48
Thank you {nm} Oct 20, 07:49
Some movies are booked way in advance for their expansion and some are based on week 1 performance {nm} Oct 20, 10:00
There are a lot of variables, theatre owners/film buyers/etc often try to book films and get told no for various reasons. Oct 20, 10:01