$7,503,000 for Tuesday

[Quadinaros]

Seems kinda crappy to me, but I'm sure Jonathan will be here any minute to put a positive spin on it. :lol

[JMK]

That seems like an ok number to me because tuesday is quite often the cheap night, so tickets were half price. Today should be much the same I would think.

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by Quadinaros
Seems kinda crappy to me, but I'm sure Jonathan will be here any minute to put a positive spin on it. :lol

Hehehe... yeah, Jonathan's very defensive. :)

Anyway, that's a 29.6% drop from Monday. TPM dropped 24.8% on the same time frame. Again, AOTC is doin' slightly less than TPM, but it's still too early too draw conclusions as for its staying power.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Spiderman had a big drop on Tuesday too I think it made almost 12 on Monday and made 9 on Tuesday so the drop is similar.

[Dutchy]

According to The-Numbers.com (http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2002/SPIDR.html) Spider-Man's drop was just 9.7%. It dropped from $11.04M to $9.96M.

According to Boxoffice Guru (http://www.boxofficeguru.com/052202b.htm) it dropped 25%, though.

What ever happened to accuracy?

[Jedi Master Carr]

Box Office guru is probably right but who knows, Spiderman had a huge drop today though it droped about 50% from yesterday down 2.7 million, I am guessing that this past Tuesday a lot of people didn't go to the movies, I am betting people are waiting till the weekend. I think some records will fall this memorial day.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Since when is 7.5 million on a Tuesday crappy?

[Quadinaros]

Originally posted by Marcus Q'Dunn
Since when is 7.5 million on a Tuesday crappy?

It isn't. I'm simply comparing it to TPM's numbers. TPM made $8.18 million its first Tuesday. Since AOTC was outpacing TPM through the weekend, I was hoping that would continue during the week, but it hasn't.

[JonathanLB]

Different movies, different times. I was expecting a number more in the $8 million range, but $7.5 million is no BAD number. Everything that was said here already covers what I was going to say. Look at Spider-Man. $4.31 million Monday to $2.7 million Tuesday. That's horrible compared to AOTC's drop, so obviously the entire day, Tuesday, was simply a bad day at the box office. You have to consider relative grosses here because Spidey made very nearly half of what AOTC did on Monday, yet on Tuesday it made about 1/3 as much.

I don't understand your comment about "putting a positive spin on it." I just call it as I see it, and nobody with a brain would call $10.66 million on a Monday a bad gross. Even Dutchy said that was quite impressive, though sure I would have thought it would be a bit higher, but weekends are the most important so just see how it does this weekend.

Tuesday was bad because I didn't see AOTC on that day, hehe. I went today, though, and the 11:00 a.m. sold out, the 1:10 that I was at was 85% full. I'm really not sure what the hell is wrong with the theaters in the rest of the nation, but if they were all as full as Evergreen, this film would be making $15 million per weekday without any problems. I guess there are just many places where people simply do not see movies on weekdays.

Our unemployment rate here in Oregon is like 8.5%, though, one of the highest in the nation :) lol.

I also had hoped that AOTC could run ahead of TPM's pace as it had during the weekend, so that's too bad it is not doing that, but as long as it can do very well on the weekends, that is what counts most as long as the weekdays are still pretty strong, as they seem to be.

[Darth23]

If AOTC drops every day that won't be too good a sign - even though TPM dropped every day during it's first week.

A slight increase for Wednesday or Thursday would be nice to see.

Still AOTC dropped less than Spiderman yesterday.

[Jedieb]

Anybody else running spreadsheets? I'm not putting too many formulas in, I'm using totals from www.the-numbers.com and occasionally guru. I've got all 3, TPM., Spidey and AOTC up and runninng. Because all 3 were released on different days of the week a day to day comparison is misleading. It takes some work to figure out comparative DOTW, but it's doable. Anyway, here's what I have so far;

TPM
$28542349 W
$12307918 Th -56.88
$18467513 F +50.05
$24414123 S +32.2
$21929334 S -10.18
$10881272 M -50.38
$8181275 T -24.81

AOTC
$30141417 Th
$24404757 F -18.17
$31253618 S +28.1
$24369439 S -22.0
$10660000 M -56.26
$75030000 T -29.62

Spidey
$39406872 F
$43622264 S +10.7
$31814980 S -27.07
$11035000 M -65.32
$9962000 T -9.72

[JonathanLB]

$6.5 million Wednesday.

I do not like that at all. It's not a good sign that it's deteriorating to such an extreme degree throughout the week. As I said, I call them as I see them. Monday was great, Tuesday was not that great, and Wednesday is scary.

I hope to see this movie hold on very well during Memorial Day weekend and I still very much feel that it could enjoy a great decline, although it just doesn't seem to be a very encouraging sign when a film falls from $10.66 million Monday to $6.5 million Wednesday.

It's odd because honestly people are really enjoying this film, not just according to polls but you go check the forums and the fans love it too. There was a poll on TFN where people were asked to rate it, 1-10, and it got an 8.88 even with the bad votes in there!!!

I'm not quite sure what the situation is, perhaps Memorial Day weekend will be huge and maybe this film simply does not do as well during the week because it skews older...?

I will admit, I went to a Wednesday screening that was 85% sold out, yet I saw only a few kids. Maybe 10 kids out of 200 to 220 people. The rest were in their 20's or early 30's, plus me and my friend at 19.

[CMJ]

Perhaps Dutchy was right all along. We'll see....

[JonathanLB]

If I were a betting man, I'd take his prediction over mine in a second at this point.

Not to say I have lost faith in AOTC at the box office, but perhaps Lucas was right all along, actually. He knew that parts II and III would be very dark, maybe he was right not to expect them to do very well at the box office. Err, I don't mean "very well," I mean as well as TPM and the other films in terms of ticket sales, because of course AOTC will do "very well." It'll be a massive blockbuster for clearing $300 million, but it apparently will not make it a huge amount further, not at this rate anyhow.

[CMJ]

Yeah...I don't know either. I mean it's not devastating to me....I LOVED this film and since ESB is the lowest grossing of the films, perhaps I just enjoy the underperfomers the most. ;)

[JonathanLB]

At this point, I do not believe it has any chance at $500 million. $450 million is possible if this mid-week stuff was just a freak and it falls 25% this weekend, then continues to hold at 25-30% declines or whatever.

To reach $500 million, it had to go A to B, B to C, C to D, D to E, without breaking the chain anywhere.

That meant $86 million weekend as predicted, then record $12.5 million Monday, then solid $10.5 million Tuesday, $9.7 million Wednesday or so, etc. It had to follow that course that was tracking 15% to 25% ahead of TPM the entire way, then on weekends beat it by an even greater margin, like 18% fall on second weekend, etc.

I am not sure what to think now, but I'm anxious for the weekend grosses. I still think this is a STAR WARS movie, it will hold up well, but we'll see how well.

Well I wouldn't say it is "devastating" as much as it would be disappointing because I would love to see as many people enjoy this movie as possible. As stupid as it sounds, I actually really like seeing audiences happy at a new Star Wars movie. It's great talking about Star Wars with people who barely understand it and get so much more out of the conversation. It can be a lot of fun, like when relatives or casual friends or my parents' friends talk with me about it, etc.

Amazingly there are people who are totally clueless about the prequels. I talked to one guy at my dad's 60th birthday party Tuesday night and he had no idea there was an Episode I or II. Jesus, talk about living in a cave. I absolutely have no problem with someone who chooses not to see any movie, including the SW films, but if you didn't know about The Phantom Menace from that ENGULFING media coverage, the most EVER granted to a film, then you were living under a rock. Perhaps he just forgot, he was old.

EDIT: Oh, and although the box office dollars do not go to me, haha, I do want to see it hold well because the longer it stays in theaters, the more times I can see it, so yeah I do directly care about that...

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by JonathanLB
If I were a betting man, I'd take his prediction over mine in a second at this point.

Too late. :p

Oh, TPM's Tue-Wed drop was 2.86% where AOTC's drop is 12.90%. That was the largest drop of the Top 10 movies, by the way.

[JMK]

Scary really. I guess the darkness of it frightens people. Plus, TPM benefitted from 16 years of hype, and I think people forget or underestimate that. When TPM came out, there was no word on when the DVD was coming out, so maybe people were getting their fill of it in theaters. We know that the AotC DVD is coming, so people are going to sit back, see it less times on average than they did for TPM and wait to watch it at home.

[dbn]

(imo) I still think something is going to happen, and our success is going to be long term story rather than a short one. I think from last week when just about every one called in sick, we seen a boost in the numbers. Now that has happen the boost may only come during the weekend, more than the week days, or until most colleges or schoosl get out. This will give people the time to see it, other than this time of the month when finals are happening!

I also think for now FOX and Lucas is hoping for the word of mouth to push this film, rather than using TV spots. I hear about a lot of TV spots for AotC, but the only one's I have seen so far are the ones for Chips in the last week or so. So, may be in a week or so we will start seeing a bigger TV spots to get people in....

[JonathanLB]

IMO, the advertising for AOTC couldn't be any more pathetic. It was bad for TPM, but that movie really didn't need it, they were right not to advertise it much, though I would have poured money into promoting it after week 5 or so, to remind people it was still around.

As for AOTC, I've watched several hockey games, a lot of SportsCenter, Cops, Wildest Police Chases, a few primetime television shows, two hours of The X-Files Season Finale, a lot of basketball games, and many other random shows that I stayed on for about 15 minutes and I have yet to see ONE, ONE SINGLE ad for AOTC. I've never seen one. I've seen at least 40 for Spider-Man, they are all over the place, now I'm seeing a lot for Insomnia, I've seen several for Enough, though not many, and I saw quite a few for About A Boy, then I saw a few for Bad Company already, The Bourne Identity, Minority Report, and other movies coming up in the future.

Fox is butchering the advertising. They just are sitting back and letting nothing happen.

[CMJ]

But doesn't a SW film really sell itself? I mean how much would advertising really help?! They'd probably spend more than they'd end up making back...because the people who wanna see it don't need to see an ad on TV.

[JonathanLB]

I am not so sure about that. I think you have to remind people that the movie is playing and you have to give them some idea that it is different from what they have already seen, so they don't think it's "Just another episode in that sci-fi saga." You have to show Anakin a bit, maybe emphasize the love story depending on the audience, and they really need to make the commercials more well viewed. It's just silly that you cannot even find the commercials after watching TV for hours and hours.

Let's just hope that AOTC does well this weekend, that's all I can say.

[CMJ]

Oh I'm sure it'll do very well this weekend...NEXT weekend is the one I am worried about.

[Jedieb]

The commercials are out there, you're just not watching the right shows. I saw the new Yoda commercial today, it looked great. Compuserve has a SW poll, which is advertising of sorts. Plus, we've all the typical late show appearaces, news reports, etc. Spidey has the benefit of partnerships with AT&T and a fast food tie in so you see those commercials pop up a lot. But like CMJ said, this is a SW movie. Everybody knows it's out there. The people who don't aren't movie people in the first place. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are OTHER forms of entertainment out there. Theater, concerts, TV, and those funny oblong things filled with paper... what are they called again?

[dbn]

If there is one thing I learn about campaigning, never assume your base is excited, and you don't have to say much to them to get time into the doors.
You want to excite your base, or fans in this case, and from that get other people in to see it as well.
It is one thing to show TV spots on characters in the movie, but it is different to show what is sooo interesting about Attack of the Clones, to draw people to see it.
This whole week, I only saw one chip spot for Attack of the Clones, and that is it. Nothing like: " COME SEE THE NUMBER ONE MOVIE IN AMERICA"... 5 out of 7 critics say Attack of the Clones KICKS ASS!! get off your own ass, and watch AotC's now!" I guess what I am saying more of anything is better than really nothing.
I would agree with Jon. Fox is doing a bad job getting the word out for people to see this movie, and should be doing a better job campinging for it...

[JonathanLB]

I agree with that...

EB, I am sure I am just watching "the wrong shows," but why should I have to watch specific shows just to see AOTC ads? I don't get it. I'm a guy. I'm their primary audience. I am a guy who is 19 years old, right in their prime viewing group, and I'm not seeing their ads. There is something wrong with that picture. Like most guys my age, I watch the NBA playoffs, I watch SportsCenter (and I did see Spidey ads there), and I watch Fox a fair amount.

That night I watched The TWO HOUR X-Files special I also saw The Simpsons. How about some sort of partnership between the film and TV divisions, as they are both News Corp., where you see a tiny 15 second ad about AOTC at the end of every hour or something. They did that all of the time with the X-Files season finale (series finale I mean), and I don't see why they couldn't have a bit of advertising on their own network promoting their own film. Maybe I am out of place suggesting that, but it is just an idea that I think would work to remind people of THEIR movie. I thought that was the point of synergy, or cross-media promotions. That is what I do with my own Websites. I use all of my resources to plug whatever new site I launch or whatever else I do. That's the power of having 5 sites and not just 1. It's the power of having many TV stations, newspapers, a film company, and whatever else News Corp. owns.

I realize, of course, that they only get a distribution fee for AOTC and that it's really Lucasfilm Ltd's movie, but I still think they'd have an interest in promoting it, or I think Lucas should have put more pressure on them to promote it in exchange for an extra $10 million or so.

[JonathanLB]

Also, I don't want to seem like I am complaining or making excuses or anything of that nature, because I don't think it's fair to make excuses, but I am just thinking that if I were in control, that is what I would do. I would ramp up the advertising a bit after seeing the mid-week numbers, which are not bad by any means, in fact they are very good, but that doesn't mean they're also not a bit disappointing. They are a bit disappointing. Wednesday especially so. When you see that, you don't have time to think about plan, you have to react. You have to push the film harder and in more markets than you were before and rethink your ad campaign.

[JMK]

I think with a SW film, at this point in the saga, you let "nature take it's course". Either it will do well, or it won't so as expected. People know it's better than TPM, so they'll see it. If you try to force it down their throats, they'll reject it.