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EXCLUSIVE: Showing just how fiercely competitive the slumping box office is right now, Warner Bros is griping to me about how rival movie studios are reporting their North American numbers this holiday week. These kind of controversies don’t develop often in Hollywood, but when they do, they can be ugly. The Warner Bros complaint is over both Paramount and Sony reporting Tuesday’s eveing grosses as part of Wednesday’s midnight take for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo respectively. Nobody is disputing the accuracy of the figures. Just where and when the money is accounted. That’s because there is a certain code of honor among these Hollywood thieves — a tacit agreement that every studio will try to report box office numbers as accurately as possible. But there’s also a significant PR advantage to artificially moving a disappointing film up a slot in the Top 10 by inflating numbers. Warner Bros is especially touchy because its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows was supposed to be the big Christmas-New Years movie and instead opened to disappointing domestic grosses last weekend. Since then it’s been holding well. But Warner Bros points out that Sherlock should have been #2 for Wednesday if the two rival studios hadn’t combined Tuesday evening’s numbers with Wednesday’s numbers. That’s not considered fair play, as this WB exec’s email to me shows:
The real news Wednesday night was how well Sherlock is holding. MI4 opened wide on Tuesday at 5PM and included the entire day ($2M) into Wednesday’s gross of $8.5M. Tattoo opened wide at 7PM on Tuesday and included the entire day ($1.6M) into Wednewsday’s gross of $5M. Since this creative reporting has never be done before, you should note that both films grosses Wednesday night were intentionally inflated from $6.5M and $3.4M respectively. Sherlock’s 6th day actually finished in 2nd place Wednesday. Let’s all compete on a level playing field. Just watch the drop off Thursday of both M:I4 and Tattoo vs Sherlock.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Should be a fun weekend when all’s said and done. I hope We Bought A Zoo finds an audience. It has some significant weaknesses, but is still far more moving and sincere than Crowe’s Elizabethtown.
SHERLOCK sucked. Big disappointment. And weak box office.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was really fun. That’s why it’s doing better.
DRAGON TATTOO is solid. Surprised it’s not bigger.
TINTIN wasn’t great. Felt way too long for a short movie.
I wonder how much Apple paid for MI4. Ridiculous product placement.
Taco Bell ads are more moving and sincere than Crowe’s Elizabethtown.
If anyone can impose order upon this chaos, it’s you, Nikki. Why not just decree that you will report grosses on an equal scheduling basis? Either that or tell them to get out a ruler and drop trou, which is what this chicanery is really all about anyway.
WB is in the right on this one. 5PM and 7PM are not 12:01AM. Paramount and Sony are deceptively inflating their grosses.
Maybe if whiney little WB made better films they wouldn’t have to cry foul like this.
Paramount is 100 years-old? MOOOOOOOOOOOOON RIVER!
But she doesn’t look a day over 80.
Warner’s can get as annoyed as they want, but at the end of the day Sherlock 2 just isn’t going to do as much as the first one did when all is said and done.
It started way down and won’t be able to make up the difference.
Correcting the figues just so they can get some small comfort from a number 2 placing ultimately will not change that.
when you’re fighting for your life, you take what you can get.
All I know is, of the movies mentioned, I was most interested in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Saw it last night and was not disappointed. Never read the book, but became very interested in the movie. With it’s large fan base, I’d not be surprised if the film wins the overall holiday weekend. Very cool movie!
They can argue all they want over inflated grosses, but the bottom line is ALL OF THESE MOVIES SUCK!!!
When’s Titanic in 3D coming out again?!
And here. we. go.
Imagine if they put this much time and energy into getting a quality script. Then they wouldn’t need to inflate the box office numbers…
You want Distribution/Sales to pick scripts?
I’m pretty sure they already are.
WB definitely is in the right here. …and you need to consider WB’s B.O. history in the past three years. They have rocked the B.O., and have the largest and most successful franchises, Nolan’s BATMAN trilogy and HARRY POTTER.
Well Warner bros did the same thing with Harry potter, adding the thurs grosses into Fridays. It’s a common practice. Like this really matters anyways, do people really care if a movie is number2? Mission impossible is amazing
Today, those reports come from the exhibitors…since they’re the ones who are actually ‘selling’ the tickets. Now, if the studio’s distribution reflected how business is done today, not 50 years ago, they would know INSTANTLY how many tickets were sold and who bought them!
That’s how we release movies!
Fighting over the last life jacket on a sinking ship. The studios are failing the movie industry. It is time for some new blood, some new ideas, and a return to quality movie making. Characters and stories over special effects. And lets have some proper movie stars! Channing Tatum, Chris Pine, Garrett Hedlund and their ilk may look pretty, but they lack the magic that keeps people coming back to see them. People went to see Jack Nicholson, Bob Redford, and Paul Newman because they exuded that magical quality that made them engaging to watch. They were off beat and different, not straightlaced hunks cut from the same cloth. It’s almost as if the studios have forgotten how to make decent movies and are trying to rely on the size of their budgets and the amount of explosions and visual effects in the hope that audiences won’t notice. Well, guess what? Audiences have noticed and they are staying away. The studios stranglehold over distribution prevents quality independent movies from having a proper crack at the box office, and their continued insistence in producing the same old recycled dreck is turning people off going to the movies. Once you’ve lost a customer, it’s hard to get them to come back. People are losing the movie-going habit. And before all the nebbish comments that ‘theatrical only accounts for 20% of a movie’s gross receipts’, without theatrical movies are just television. Theatrical makes movies special and acts as a totem for all ancillary media and markets. Allow theatrical to die and the industry is in big trouble. But maybe the studios don’t give a shit – they’ve all got TV businesses.
I agree Fan! Although I would like to see Chris Pine rock Captain Kirk 1 more time. Many movie chains are adding bars and resturants to get people in. I guess that’s they’re way of issuing an apology for the crappy movies that are out now!
I hope the studios get their acts together soon, because I don’t want to see theater movie going die in my lifetime.
Amen college! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
This kind of Box-office reporting “silliness” would end if all the media and box-office reporting sites would set a policy that ANY showings before Midnight would become the official opening day of a movie and will be reported as such. In this case…both Sony and Paramount would be classified as opening on Tuesday December 20th. All sites should report that the 7-day total for these Studios will run Tuesday thru Monday. Otherwise…where does it end? I can see it now..this coming summer some Studio will have a Wednesday opening but will allow shows at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday and will “roll” that entire days gross into Wednesday’s reports. Think that won’t happen? Over the last couple of years Studios have “played” with opening the “day before” at 10:00 p.m…than it became 9:00 p.m…than 8:00 p.m. And now this..5:00 p.m! And each time; exhibitors are asked to “roll” those grosses into the “official’ opening day. That is just absurd. The truth is…”Dragon Tattoo” and “Mission Impossible 4″ both opened on a Tuesday. Maybe the Studio corporate accounting departments are trained by the government.
FYI, the “official” opening day of a movie is an accounting practice, since film rental decreases as the run holds. The media does not control the financial picture, this is determined between the distributors and exhibitors. In the movie business, the accounting week begins on Friday, even Wednesday openings can be problematic. Just sayin’
Only partly correct. Most common terms now are gone on an aggregate (ag) basis, and this ag is more and more based upon the final domestic theatrical tally. Yeah, intermediate and discount runs tend to be on a smaller %, but this is a very small % of the total. Of course, the largest players have the clout to negotiate other film rental deals based on that particular circuit’s total box office and who knows what other variables. The old days of reciprocal sliding scale deals from 25 to 50% are long long gone…does anyone out there even remember those deals?
Not sure where “Anon” gets his information but the information in his reply is very outdated. The reply by “Anonymousis” exactly correct. The vast majority of movies are sold to exhibitors on a aggregate deal. Exhibitors now pay one set (negotiated) percentage for the full-run of the movie in a theatre. The days of film rental percentage decreasing each week ended for the vast majority of movies about 2-3 years ago. And the “accounting week” for a movie is whenever that week begins…whether that is Friday, Wednesday, Tuesday…it doesn’t matter…7-days is 7-days..regardless of the opening day.
Does it really matter that much. Come Monday we will see that the actual numbers are either lower or higher.
But yes reporting numbers so early is a low blow. I for one am not interested in SH2.. it looked terrible in the trailer and RDJ has gotten on my nerves as the character. NOT what I want Holmes to be. Dirty and smelly was never Sexy to me. Holmes was well a Man of distinction. RDJ/Richie’s take is a turn off.
Looking forward to seeing GWTDT on Christmas Day. Other than that will wait to see what else catches my eye.
“…there is a certain code of honor among these Hollywood thieves…” Only part of this statement is laughably incorrect.
These are no longer movie production companies – they’re all corporations. There is no honor. They don’t make movies/art anymore – they make money. They have to first pay the CEOs their ridiculous salaries, and show a profit for their stockholders, then they worry about the quality of their product afterward.
You must be confusing the Entertainment “Industry” with the National Endowment for the Arts.
@Anon
Are you serious? That wasn’t only way off base, it’s not funny.
“The real story is how well Sherlock is holding.” Sorry, guys. There is nothing remarkable or even good about the hold, just look at any box office site with day to days. Smacks of desperation, and they planted the same stuff this summer about Green Lantern.
Random thoughts to ponder:
1. Any theories as to why Sherlock did not open well? Unlike, say, New Year’s Eve, which was a ‘sequel” to a movie that was universally considered terrible and a fluke hit, thereby generating no good will towards the sequel, the first Sherlock was widely praised and generally enjoyed by most who saw it, so there’s no good reason that the sequel should not at least have opened, regardless of what it ultimately grossed. Or is the sole reason that everything is down? Also, does this kill the franchise?
2. Any theories on why all the outdoor ad campaigns for We Bought a Zoo did not not even mention that Matt Damon was in the movie? I can see where they decided to go with the artwork of the animals, so okay, no picture of the talent, but not even his name anywhere on the posters? Indeed, the only sales pitch was “From the director of ‘Jerry Maguire,’” which, however beloved, is still a 15 year-old film? Isn’t Damon still considered a star? Or did Green Zone and Adjustment Bureau suddenly render him meaningless in an ad campaign?
3. Best guess at this point: do the second and third Millenium movies get made?
As to your first question, the first ‘Holmes’ seemed like one of those movies that people liked but didn’t love. The praise was a product of the fact that it was slightly better than people were expecting it to be, but again nobody fell in love with it.
What you got was a film that, like ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and ‘Happy Feet’, got the job done but that nobody was really asking for a sequel to. I doubt it loses money though.
Warner is right here, but only because it suits their film. They have used night-before sneak previews themselves before. Snakes on a Plane comes to mind. If I recall correctly, those previews started at something like 10pm the night before release and they tried to count them as part of the release-day total. (It has been a while so I may be incorrect on some details, but I don’t think so.) This is just a trick that every studio plays in order to advance the standing of their films and when it happens, the other studios get mad, but it doesn’t stop them from doing the same when their film is the one that can benefit. And none of this changes the fact that Sherlock 2 is underperforming, anyway.
Haha, Mission Impossible still #1 = egg on Warner’s face.
Audiences ALL know by now that even the biggest blockbuster will be on demand, on DVD, on Netflix and streaming in about two to three months — for significantly less than the price of a movie ticket. So the only way $150-$700,000 film execs can justify their own salaries is by saying they forced a film to perform to (diminished) expectations by spending three times as much on marketing as the film collects on opening weekend — or more.
This business model cannot hold.
Something will be changing very soon in the film industry, because it is basing EVERYTHING on outmoded business models that can’t continue. You just can’t spend $180 million on production $200 million on marketing and expect a film that grosses $400 million worldwide to actually make a profit. The volume is not there — a business can’t be run on the model that not only shows 80% of its product has no consumer, the other 20% almost never turn a profit, and meanwhile the consumer cost keeps declining.
In a few years, the vast majority of distribution will be digital only. The cost of the product will remain the same (or rise), but the only post-theatrical consumer will be either large digital-distribution companies like Netflix and end consumers who pay $2-3 per capita for films. Of there are five (let’s say) major digital-distribution players by 2015 and they are negotiating rights packages of $25-30 million for multiple films, and if the retail price has to be split between several parties … how exactly does Hollywood expect to make money?
Something’s gotta give, fast. And this weekend’s dismal $40 million for “MI:4″ only underscores that Hollywood is so far off the taste of the American (and global) public, it isn’t funny. “MI 4″ didn’t even come close to doing what the third one did.
I suggest some finance people very quickly take a refresher course that includes heavy emphasis on that thing called “the law of diminishing returns.”
Disaster looms.