Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Hangover...an all-too rarity at the box office.

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-22-2009, 02:53 AM:

In these modern times where all the business is pretty much confined to weeks one and two of a release, it sure is nice to see how The Hangover is performing. It looks to truly have legs like the business used to see regularly.

For example, here in Australia it has dropped a measley 7% in week two on the same amount of screens as week one. That's jaw dropping stuff...especially considering the genre of movie it is.

Good stuff and so refreshing to see.

[thumbsup]

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 06-23-2009, 12:07 PM:

Same thing for "Up". Very good legs.

Even Star Trek had pretty good legs.

It's amazing that when a good movie is released that the majority of people who watch it enjoy it will hold up. This rule can't hold true for things like Dark Knight that have ridiculously huge openings because there's only so many people to see the thing. But good movies that open in the $40M - $80M can still have good legs. The key is it needs to actually be a good movie that the audience enjoys and wants to see again. It's an amazing concept!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-23-2009, 01:16 PM:

Night at the Museum/Smithsonian had good legs for us too.

"The Hangover" is a frustration for us - we definitely want to play it, but Tech won't send us onesheets until we have a "confirmed booking," but since we tend to book pretty close, we won't a booking until sometime during our run of Harry Potter ...how stupid is that? We want to advertise your movie, you idjits!

quote: Lyle Romer
The key is it needs to actually be a good movie that the audience enjoys and wants to see again.

I think "Hangover" is an example of a movie that most people weren't interested in seeing, but then they heard it was good and now want to see it. That's how long legs develop.

The same thing happened with "Up" and "Star Trek." I read several magazine articles that were saying "'Up' might finally be the movie that breaks Pixar's winning streak...who wants to see a cartoon where the main character is a 70-plus year old man?" But the movie WAS good so people talked it up, and presto....legs.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 06-23-2009, 04:20 PM:

quote:
"The Hangover" is a frustration for us - we definitely want to play it, but Tech won't send us onesheets until we have a "confirmed booking," but since we tend to book pretty close, we won't a booking until sometime during our run of Harry Potter ...how stupid is that? We want to advertise your movie, you idjits!

Mike, we have an extra one sheet if you want it. Just PM me where you'd like me to send it.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-23-2009, 04:27 PM:

Films with legs have been something of a rarity in recent years, but we've already seen a number of films with good legs this year. All of these have played 4-5 weeks when most movies don't go more than 2-3.

Gran Torino
Slumdog Millionaire
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Taken
Star Trek
Up
The Hangover

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 06-24-2009, 03:32 PM:

Weekend 3 at the drive-in on a combo with Ghost of Girlfriends Past was just as good as the opening weekend.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 06-27-2009, 09:56 AM:

I don't have time to go start calculating now but the "official" measure of legs is total gross divided by opening weekend gross. The scale they tend to use on boxofficemojo is.

<2, horrible legs extremely frontloaded
2< >3, not great legs, pretty frontloaded
3< >4, good legs
4< , very good legs
5< , great legs

A couple of examples:

Star Trek currently at 3.2 will probably end up between 3.5 and 4

Up currently at 3.5 will probably end up over 4

Hangover currently at 4.5 and will almost definitely end up over 5 which is extremely rare in modern (post DVD) times

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 06-28-2009, 06:10 PM:

The other good thing about The Hangover is it has legs and is a popcorn movie. We're doing great with it still, think it's the third or fourth week of release here.

Posted by John B. Keathley (Member # 5205) on 06-28-2009, 08:36 PM:

Our theatre is a dine-in movie theatre experence, and we do extremely well with "The Hangover." The only down side is that the auditorium reeks of beer after the movie. [Cool]

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 08-03-2009, 07:20 PM:

Now it has spent nine consecutive weeks in the top ten.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-03-2009, 08:51 PM:

Week nine here starts Thursday. I think the only thing that'll get rid of it soon is lack of space to fit it in.

BTW, we play our 255th pass of this print tonight. It still looks brand new thanks to Filmguard. [thumbsup]

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 08-04-2009, 11:31 PM:

Same here, going on 10th week. Still quite a few people showing up for it. Even though back to school sales have started, and even newer shows have now started to have empty auditoriums, we still have yet to have less than 20 people a show for that one.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 08-05-2009, 10:31 AM:

I don't know which is more surprising - that The Hangover came out of nowhere to become the highest grossing R rated comedy of all time, or that the previous champ was the 25 year old Beverly Hills Cop.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-05-2009, 04:44 PM:

Of course, inflation must be taken into account.

BHC took $234,760 domestically in 85/86. That same amount is the equivalent of $463,735 today.

As good as The Hangover is doing, it ain't no Beverly Hills Cop. I remember...I was there.

Awfully nice to see a movie not roll over and die in week 2. [Eek!]

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 08-07-2009, 08:00 AM:

Still going strong for us. We have it for another week, although it will no longer run clean. (don't mean the print, but rather that it will share the auditorium with another booking)

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 08-09-2009, 10:06 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
I don't know which is more surprising - that The Hangover came out of nowhere to become the highest grossing R rated comedy of all time, or that the previous champ was the 25 year old Beverly Hills Cop.

I find it amazing that when it passed Beverly Hills Cop it moved up to #3 all time of all R rated films.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-01-2009, 09:45 PM:

Well, we still have it at least through the 8th. The 14th weekend is coming up! As of Friday, all the movies advertised in the original incarnation of trailers which we played (there were six) will have been released. [Smile]

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 09-01-2009, 10:07 PM:

We have it throught the 10th, but we still have UP (2D 35mm) and had Star Trek for 15 wks. Our recent record was Ratatouille at 16 wks. Great thing is UP and Hangover still look good as new.

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 09-01-2009, 10:10 PM:

Well, I spent a short while trying to find this thread, and didn't manage to find it until logging on a few hours later.

I am surprised to see that this has outlasted the previous number one movie for us to have in terms of time, Taken. Hangover sold 61 tickets for the 7:00 showing of it last Saturday! That beat every movie we have except for Inglourious Basterds!

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-01-2009, 10:22 PM:

Oddly, we sold 58 for each of our evening showtimes (6:15 & 9:10) Saturday night.

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 09-01-2009, 10:25 PM:

For some reason we generally only sell large amounts of tickets to the brand new movies. I have never really seen anything close to a full house during a 10:00 round showing for a film that has been out for more than a few weeks. I just sort of assumed most theaters were like that. Actually, the corporate theater typically sells out every showing of every movie on the weekend, so perhaps I should rethink that theory.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 09-01-2009, 10:47 PM:

Our last show of Hangover on friday did 2 and on saturday did 9. Almost too sad to be funny, almost.

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 09-01-2009, 10:50 PM:

Likewise, it seems as though Hangover is finally doomed to leave the theater with nearly empty theaters for every round, then the busiest time of day hits and it proves why it is still in theaters. Taken is the only film that has lasted this long in my theater, and every projectionist is ready for it to leave--causes too many problems!

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 09-01-2009, 11:18 PM:

We've had no issues at all with Hangover (knock on wood. But Harry Potter seems to hate me, seems to static wrap every time I'm here.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 09-02-2009, 07:23 PM:

quote: Jonathan Althaus
Our last show of Hangover on friday did 2 and on saturday did 9. Almost too sad to be funny, almost.

Oh yea, real sad the movies been out for 89 Days and has made $270.4 Mil and counting. [Roll Eyes]

We had to lose it here due to the flood of new movies, wish we still had it. College is back in session and it would probably still be selling out on the weekends. The last show we had of it 2 weeks ago did 109 people on Thursday night.

Posted by Dylan Houdeshell (Member # 5415) on 09-02-2009, 07:59 PM:

I still have the Hangover at my theater and is still doing fairly well here (print is still in perfect condition too). We had more people see the Hangover than we did of The Final Destination this last weekend

Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 09-03-2009, 04:52 AM:

quote: Kurt Zupin
Oh yea, real sad the movies been out for 89 Days and has made $270.4 Mil and counting.

It is sad, because like every other Hollywood release it was over screened and made a huge portion of that during the first few weeks. It cleared the $200 million mark in 5 weeks, then took 8 more weeks to make another $65 million.

Front loading of grosses benefits the studios, not the theaters...

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-03-2009, 07:11 AM:

I'm looking at the Comedy genres on BoxOfficeMojo and it looks like The Hangover may be the highest grossing comedy of all time - R rated or otherwise. It's only listed under Comedy - R-Rated Youth, but it's $270 million tops the highest in any other category.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-03-2009, 06:52 PM:

I would say Shrek 2 is a comedy - that's #4 of all time ... Other comedy/animation titles are above The Hangover too, but if you'd like to keep animation separate, Meet the Fockers or Home Alone are still ahead of The Hangover - among others that are comedy/(some other genre).

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 09-03-2009, 09:51 PM:

quote: Anslem Rayburn
It is sad, because like every other Hollywood release it was over screened and made a huge portion of that during the first few weeks. It cleared the $200 million mark in 5 weeks, then took 8 more weeks to make another $65 million.

Front loading of grosses benefits the studios, not the theaters...

Front loading is a necessity in today's cinema world due to the increased number of films released per year. The MPAA reports 610 films released in 2008. This is up from 471 in 1999. In other words, there has been about a 30% increase in movies released per year since Titanic came out. That's a significant amount. With so many more choices, if you don't get them early, they may choose something else the next week. Overall attendance has stayed about the same during that same period time, so it doesn't appear to hurt the exhibitor on attendance. With ticket prices steadily increasing, holding a steady annual attendance makes for a higher gross, so ultimately, until attendance drops, front loading grosses has not hurt theatres. The exception would be if the old 70/60/50/40 film rental is being used, but that is becoming more and more rare with booking agreements moving to a flat rate for the duration of the run.

Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 09-05-2009, 09:16 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
Front loading is a necessity in today's cinema world due to the increased number of films released per year.

So, studios have to front load because they over produce? Isn't that akin to flooding the market with oranges because you planted too many, but in our case we are not receiving a price break and have to try and sell the rotten ones, too?

quote: Chad Souder
This is up from 471 in 1999. In other words, there has been about a 30% increase in movies released per year since Titanic came out. That's a significant amount. With so many more choices, if you don't get them early, they may choose something else the next week. Overall attendance has stayed about the same during that same period time, so it doesn't appear to hurt the exhibitor on attendance.

What? Using your same years for comparison, according to boxofficemojo.com attendance is down. Significantly. Attendance is down 8.4% in 2008 compared to 1999, while population is up 11.4% in that period.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-06-2009, 07:45 PM:

quote: Anslem Rayburn
It is sad, because like every other Hollywood release it was over screened and made a huge portion of that during the first few weeks. It cleared the $200 million mark in 5 weeks, then took 8 more weeks to make another $65 million.

Ok, you complain about Hollywood releases, but out of curiosity, to which non-Hollywood release(s) are you referring that grossed what The Hangover has but not in a front-loaded way? Only 94 films have broken the $200m mark, and all are "Hollywood" in one way or another. (Sure My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Passion of the Christ aren't from major Hollywood studios - but Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson are major Hollywood players) Also, to nit-pick the details, it grossed $200m in 30 days, and $265m in 66 (so, 36 days - or 5 weeks and 1 day - after $200m ... not 8 weeks)

I don't think anybody disagrees with what you're saying that movie grosses are front loaded these days, but what this thread is pointing out is that The Hangover is still pulling reasonable audiences this long after its opening. It's in 709 theatres in its 14th week of release, and that (to refer back to the title of the thread) is a rarity these days.

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 09-17-2009, 03:19 PM:

After 15 weeks we let this go, Only because we closed the Drive-In for the season

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 09-17-2009, 05:22 PM:

Hi Timothy

I looked at the Starlite DI site...do you have any pictures?

15 weeks...well done. Warners must love you. [thumbsup]

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-17-2009, 06:01 PM:

We're keeping it for week 16, it's still not sharing the screen with anything else. We're a 10-plex, 16 weeks is mighty rare for us, quite possibly the longest we've played a single print.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 09-18-2009, 12:18 PM:

quote: Timothy Eiler
After 15 weeks we let this go, Only because we closed the Drive-In for the season

Yeah, but that's cheating because you've got like...what...52 screens now?

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 09-18-2009, 01:31 PM:

Just tore it down last night. Our 3rd film to last exactly 15 wks this summer. It had been sharing the past 2 wks. Now we have 17 diff films on 15 screens.

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 09-18-2009, 08:48 PM:

Just had this print leave my theater as well!

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 09-24-2009, 04:29 PM:

]

quote: John Wilson
I looked at the Starlite DI site...do you have any pictures?

I keep Thinking I should take some pictures But I think the only pictures I have are of of a Checker who got his Semi stuck in my entry after he was told to Leave

quote: Sam Graham
Yeah, but that's cheating because you've got like...what...52 screens now?

Still at 5 But i never did get the 6th one up that was approved I haven't needed Screen 6 .

I did run Night at the museum longer this season But that doesn't count as it did move to a second feature

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 09-24-2009, 05:32 PM:

quote:
I keep Thinking I should take some pictures But I think the only pictures I have are of of a Checker who got his Semi stuck in my entry after he was told to Leave

No time like the present. [thumbsup]

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 09-30-2009, 07:45 PM:

It still made the top 20 after 17 weekends ... we dropped it after it completed week 16 though.

Posted by Alex Edwards (Member # 5413) on 10-16-2009, 01:44 AM:

Ah, its finally left our theater after a good 19 week run. How sad.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 02-17-2010, 12:54 PM:

Well, The Blind Side is finishing up its thirteenth week of release, and we're holding it through week fourteen at least.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 02-17-2010, 07:36 PM:

Same here and we were told we'd keep it through the Oscars.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 10-04-2010, 10:57 PM:

We'll be running Toy Story 3 in 3D for its 17th straight week next week. This year's Hangover, in terms of legs anyways

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 11-04-2010, 04:08 PM:

Are we all set for the opening weekend of Due Date?

What are our predictions for opening weekend? (Hangover did $45 million in the US, £3.19m in the UK)

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 11-04-2010, 07:23 PM:

It will be in the $30 Mil range. It had great positive reaction last night at the screening we had.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 11-09-2010, 11:50 AM:

Due Date did just what I thought it would, it made a decent 32.7mil opening. Thats really good for an R-Rated comedy and to go up against a kids film in IMAX and 3D.