The 12 Days of Box Office: Day 12 and Wrap-Up
By David Mumpower
January 4, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Here’s the empirical data to support this assertion. The number one film in North America yesterday was once again Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – and my greatest triumph over the Christmas holiday was that I didn’t once accidentally call it Rogue Nation, confusing it with the latest Mission: Impossible film of a similar name. Anyway, the point is that Rogue One won the box office battle literally every day of release before and during the Twelve Days of Box Office…but what a difference a day makes.
Yesterday, Rogue One’s earnings were slightly less than $6.3 million. It didn’t just fall 61% from Monday’s $15.9 million. No, it totally collapsed. That $6.3 million tally signifies the first time that the latest Star Wars offering failed to earn at least $14.6 million in a day. So, it wasn’t just $3.7 million short of a double digits box office day.
On the first day after the Twelve Days of Box Office, Rogue One grossed less than half of its previous “worst” day. And this is the moment in the conversation where I point out that Rogue One didn’t do anything wrong. Yes, it had the highest percentage decline in the top ten, but that’s reflective of its status as easily the best performer this holiday season. The BEST percentage decline yesterday was 41%. That’s how quickly the gravy train just ended for Hollywood’s major December theatrical releases.
You’ll understand the full picture as we quickly run through the top 10. Sing, which has a real chance to unseat Rogue One today, narrowly missed its chance yesterday. The animated comedy grossed $6.1 million and if we take away rounding issues, the difference is less than $125,000. That sounds terrific across the board, but it hides something gruesome. Sing had earned $14.4 million January 2nd, the official government holiday. While it almost usurped the box office throne from the vaunted Star Wars franchise yesterday, Sing still lost 57% of its daily revenue.
The rest of the top ten is even uglier. We’ve suddenly crossed the threshold from the best time on the box office calendar to the gray period between now and the start of summer. Only four films grossed more than $2 million yesterday. That’s half the total from Monday, which was only two days ago but might as well have been two months ago. The other two $2+ million films yesterday were Passengers, which dropped 47% from $4.9 million Monday to $2.6 million on Tuesday, and Moana.
Let’s give Moana its own space since it reflects something else. By finishing in fourth place yesterday, the latest Disney animated winner beat every other film released since Thanksgiving. The movie is six weeks old, yet it’s outperforming titles as new as going wide last weekend. That’s remarkable in and of itself, but it also speaks to the overriding (lack of) quality of December’s non-Star Wars/Minions releases. With $2.1 million yesterday, a straight 50% drop from Monday’s $4.2 million, Moana is closer to fifth than to third, but I still wouldn’t be surprised if it caught Passengers over the next couple of days. It’s earned a LOT more customer loyalty.
The rest of the top ten is a horror show and the reason why BOP has rarely done daily box office articles outside of major holidays and the summer. We struggle to muster enthusiasm for titles earning one million a day. Yesterday’s fifth place entry, Why Him? is actually the success story of the top ten in terms of post-Twelve Days survival. It “only” fell 41% from $3.1 million to $1.8 million. La La Land was in a photo finish with it on Monday, but the awards contender fell from $3.1 million to $1.6 million, a still respectable 46% drop.
In fact, mid-40s to low-50s is about the expected range for post-Twelve Days box office. Assassin’s Creed, for all its many faults, falls tidily into this curve. It dropped 45% from $2.7 million on Monday to less than $1.5 million yesterday. Fences, on the other hand, felt the sting much worse. It dropped from $3 million on the official holiday to less than $1.4 million yesterday, a 55% fall. The other two titles in the top ten, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Collateral Beauty, behaved as expected. The Harry Potter prequel (of sorts) declined 52% from $1.5 million to $718,000, while the failed awards season contender dropped 46% from a little over $1.2 million to $672,000.
When you look over these numbers, the most important thing to keep in mind is how much a “holiday” elevates box office. Even though government officials received January 2nd as their New Year’s Day vacation day, it still enjoyed inflated box office. That’s in spite of the fact that it fell on a Monday. The instant the holiday ended and people went back to work on Tuesday, the bottom fell out.
We can demonstrate this from a quick calculation about the top ten, one that aptly demonstrates the holiday skew. The combined box office revenue for the top ten on Sunday – and remember that January 1st and 2nd are still technically estimates – was $56.7 million. On Monday, that tally held relatively stable at $54 million. That’s a drop of less than 5% from Sunday to Monday, which isn’t supposed to happen. On Tuesday, the holiday inflation vanished, and the ultimate outcome of the clock striking midnight is that the ten plummeted to a combined total of $24.8 million. That’s a 54% drop in a single day. What we’re seeing now is the actual demand for these films rather than the elevated box office due to the holidays.
On a final note, the anti-holiday box office statistic is easily understandable given the paragraph above. On Saturday, New Year’s Eve, the combined top ten earned only $48.5 million. Due to the rare calendar configuration and how much a holiday falling on Saturday negatively impacts its box office, a Monday beat a Saturday in terms of top ten box office. That shouldn’t be possible, but it’s a prime example of how much the Twelve Days of Box Office behavior fluctuates based on calendar configuration. Next year, January 2nd will fall on a Tuesday, which means that its box office total will be the same as January 3rd’s in 2017. That’s when the clock strikes midnight next time.