Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Thor Doing Well In Early Box Office But Can't Beat Fast Five, 3D To Blame?

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Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 05-08-2011, 02:09 PM:

Thor Doing Well In Early Box Office But Can't Beat Fast Five, 3D To Blame?

Source: cinemablend.com

quote:
Thor opened in midnight screenings around the United States last night and it’s currently printing out tickets at a rapid rate around the country as people get off work and pile into movie theaters. It’s doing well too, the movie made $3.3 million in those midnight showings and is expected to do around $25 million in business by end of day Friday. That’s a nice number except, well, it’s not as good as Fast Five.

While the Fast franchise has always done well at the box office, in the past it would never have been in the same weight class as Thor or any other superhero movie. Yet Fast Five earned $3.8 million in its midnight screenings when it opened a week ago, and on its first Friday earned $34 million. The superior box office totals of Fast Five become even more significant when you consider that Fast Five wasn’t in 3D, while Thor is. That means Thor is charging much higher prices for its tickets than Fast Five was, and yet Fast Five still made significantly more money.

So why isn’t Thor outperforming Fast Five? Both movies are well reviewed extensions of an established brand, in the case of Fast Five it’s the fifth entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise and Thor is an extension of the Marvel franchise. Fast Five probably had a little more name recognition, because even though Thor is an extension of the now familiar Marvel brand, the character is new to most people. But Thor has the advantage of being the first, official movie of the summer while Fast Five opened a week before the traditional, summer box office season. When I look at these two movies, the big difference I see between them 3D.

Fast Five is the biggest movie of 2011 and it’s hard not to notice that it’s also one of the only big, blockbuster releases to hit theaters this year in 2D. That’s right, Fast Five wasn’t released in 3D at all. On the other hand, Thor is not only being released in 3D, in many places it’s only being released in 3D. We’ve heard numerous reports from Cinema Blend readers around the country indicating that 2D screenings of Thor are simply unavailable in many areas. Some of those people are as a result skipping it, or waiting and hoping that after it's out a few weeks Thor will show up in cheaper, more palatable 2D screenings. Fast Five, on the other hand, was instantly accessible to all audiences of all types, and at a much cheaper ticket price.

Coincidence? Maybe, but it’s a trend worth keeping an eye on as summer box office receipts keep rolling in. I’ll be watching closely on Sunday when our full Box Office report goes up, to see if Thor can beat Fast Five’s $86 million weekend.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-08-2011, 03:16 PM:

Another dumb-headed article. 3D has nothing to do with this horse race. You can't compare a pre-sold sequel (following up one of the most popular films in the series) with a movie whose only pre-pedigree is that it's a Marvel product.

Around here, I've got people left and right asking when Fast Five is coming but have had almost no inquiries on Thor yet.

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 05-08-2011, 06:38 PM:

Fast Five has a much broader appeal, it's an aspirational action film wrapped up in an established franchise. Thor appeals to a comic book audience and being more grounded in fantasy will not capture as much of the mainstream as say Iron Man. Despite this, Thor performed at the high end of studio expectations and has held reasonably well in the second week here in the UK.

'Hop' and 'Rio' would have been better films to use when making this argument. Lazy journalism.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-08-2011, 08:53 PM:

Thor is up to 66 million and Fast Five 32 million for this weekend according to Variety!

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 05-09-2011, 06:36 AM:

I don't even know where to start, I guess I need to get a job posting stupid blogs on some movie website. If this joker and half the other ones that we quote on here can do it so can I. 3D had nothing to do with it, it made more then the studio was expecting. Will be number 1 this coming weekend again.

Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 05-09-2011, 04:19 PM:

Agreed that this was a lazy article: but, FWIW, I have heard of local LA theaters that sold out their midnight shows in 2D and had way under capacity 3D screens. Maybe I hang out with weird people, but I have a lot of friends all seeking out the 2D showings of Thor. And it's not so much to save the upcharge, it's because they simply don't want to see it in 3D.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-11-2011, 09:55 PM:

I saw THOR at Regal's Pearl Highland Theatre #12 this Past weekend in Real D. The theatre was also showing the movie in 2-D but I preferred to see it in 3-D and got more than my money worth. Because THOR was not shot in native 3-D, the illusion of depth was not as good as films shot with two lenses but it was still satisfactory. House #12 is a Sony 4K house and although the movie was not shown that way, the picture was nice and bright and the sound was awesome. I do not ever recall a time when I could feel the LFE sound effect since Sensurround, but I did when I saw THOR. As most of you know, I love 3-D but I am very selective what I see in 3-D because of the extra cost to see them and so far I have seen less than half of the films released so far in the format because the bulk of them were animated. The last animated film I saw in 3-D was TANGLED and it was excellent.

-Claude

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 05-15-2011, 05:10 PM:

Thor did well this weekend. Looks like it will finish around $200 million. Add in the $150 from overseas and you have a new franchise on your hands.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 05-23-2011, 01:01 PM:

We had three prints, one 3D and 2 in 2D. Figures for the first week showed that the 2D slightly outgrossed the 3D. Attendance wise, the 2D beat the 3D by nearly 2-1.

Don't think Fast Five is to blame, but perhaps folks are choosing 2D over 3D by wider margins. At least that is what we are experiencing.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 05-23-2011, 01:44 PM:

quote: John T. Hendrickson, Jr
We had three prints, one 3D and 2 in 2D. Figures for the first week showed that the 2D slightly outgrossed the 3D. Attendance wise, the 2D beat the 3D by nearly 2-1.

Don't think Fast Five is to blame, but perhaps folks are choosing 2D over 3D by wider margins. At least that is what we are experiencing.

Huh? If the ratio is 2-to-1 and you have twice as many shows in 2D, doesn't that imply that there isn't some wide margin of people seeking out 2D shows and that the people are instead just watching whichever showtime is available regardless of it being 2D or 3D?

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 05-23-2011, 03:58 PM:

Wrong assumption Chris.

The 3 D had the best times. We are finding more and more that our patrons are increasingly attending 2D in favor of 3D right down the line.

Confidentiality issues preclude me from giving exact numbers.