Twisters gets stronger with now a 3-day $74.6M opening after a $32.2M Friday. What’s to stop this movie from getting $80M? Yesterday’s Friday/previews number approached Oppenheimer seismic levels, that pic doing $33M a year ago. Yes, last year was Barbenheimer when Barbie and Oppenheimer fueled the marketplace to a $311M take. This year, minus one femme appealing tentpole, will do $141.8M, still +12% over the same July weekend in 2022 when Nope opened and +55% from 2021 when the box office was trying to rebound in the first summer of business post Covid.
Audiences, a massive amount of them from the middle of the country, love Twisters which gets an A- CinemaScore and 4 1/2 stars on PostTrak. The first Michael Crichton created, co-written, produced movie received an A- CinemaScore.
How did this beautiful storm start and what’s kept it going? Mark L. Smith’s screenplay for the Amblin reboot got Universal and Warner Bros excited. Pair that with 2x Oscar nominated Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, who was the right guy to be paired with this material: He’s from Arkansas, knows these characters well, and it’s not shocking to see the flyover states thundering to cinemas; Twisters highest grossing cinema to date is the Regal Warren in Moore, OK with more than $130K (when does that happen?).
“They sold fun” beamed one motion picture marketing maven about Universal’s campaign, that’s clearly underscored by the audience exits which cited that the No. 1 reason for buying a ticket to Twisters was that it looked fun and exciting (48%). However, there’s another halo effect that Universal is benefitting from now, one which will certainly seep into next weekend’s overdrive of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, and that is people at home are seeking escapism, particularly in the aftermath of last weekend’s tragedy with Donald Trump. And escapism is what people want right now.
Also helping this movie’s play to red states: Twisters isn’t political. Not one word about climate change and the multitude of tornados that strike during its 2 hours and 2 minutes running time. That will keep this underserved part of the country when it comes to movie product coming back. That said, PostTrak shows that of those attending Twisters, 16% were registered Democrats while 7% were registered Republicans.
Let’s not forget the newfound star power of Powell. He began dropping into theaters with Sydney Sweeney to spike the ticket sales of Anyone But You back December-January, and that’s not only paying in dividends here to Universal with Twisters, but he’s still working it this weekend to stoke the pic’s potential fanbase. Powell, Anthony Ramos and Daisy Edgar-Jones showed up at last night’s Luke Combs at Jets stadium. Combs has a single in the movie “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.” Per PostTrak last night, 24% went to Twisters because of Powell.
Also a good job here by Universal in creating interest for this IP among the 18-34 set, some of whom weren’t born when the first movie came out. They showed up at 46% . Of the four quads, men and women over 25 bought tickets at 38% apiece. Best grades for the movie were from the under 25 female set at 94%, however, they were the minority show at 11%. Big turnout here by couples at 41% and groups of people (2-5+) at close to a third.
Diversity demos for Twisters were 51% Caucasian, a very good 26% Latino and Hispanic, 10% Black and 9% Asian-American. PLFs and Imax tickets are repping around 43% of Twisters‘ till.
In terms of Twisters heading to $80M, we’ll see how that goes down tonight, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
NEON’s Longlegsis keeping up an impressive strut with an estimated second weekend of $11.7M, down only 48%, a hold that any R-rated horror film prays for. Still on the mind is how NEON achieved a $22M opening off a reported under $10M spend. NEON has pulled off a feat that other studios such as Lionsgate haven’t been able to pull off. Whenever we hear stories about studios with low P&A spends, quite often they don’t translate into these mega box office levels.
In fact, this column has taken studios to task for underspending on movies that could have achieved greater box office heights; typically the notion is to get a small movie out on the big screen which serves as advertisement for a better, and more immediate downstream. As one rival studio marketing boss praised about Longlegs, “In regards to the box office ratio to awareness level, it’s amazing what Longlegs did on so little.” The pic had a 10 awareness the Monday before opening, up from a 6 the week prior. As happens many times with the overperformance of these movies in a given weekend, tracking misses the measurement on the picture’s true core audience (read, no one saw Sound of Freedom coming last year with a $19.6M 3-day, $184.1M final domestic). The takeaway lesson here with Longlegs: If you have a strong sticky message and you target that message to the audience that’s receptive to it, then you don’t have to spend your brains out. Total cume for Longlegs by Sunday is $44.6M.
Unfortunately, the hopeful hold for Apple’s star-studded Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum Fly Me to the Moon isn’t posting that rom-com hold, down 66% in weekend 2 with $3.2M in 6th place. Let’s face it, it’s an oddball rom-com, largely because it’s period. And not Jane Austen period, but Moon-landing era period. Also, the movie’s running time at 2 hours and 12 minutes can be a bear for anyone expecting a feature that’s breezy, roughly a half hour longer than post Covid rom-coms, Ticket to Paradise and Anyone But You. Two-words to Apple’s feature development department if they look to stick around big screen distribution: Quality control.
Audiences, a massive amount of them from the middle of the country, love Twisters which gets an A- CinemaScore and 4 1/2 stars on PostTrak. The first Michael Crichton created, co-written, produced movie received an A- CinemaScore.
How did this beautiful storm start and what’s kept it going? Mark L. Smith’s screenplay for the Amblin reboot got Universal and Warner Bros excited. Pair that with 2x Oscar nominated Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, who was the right guy to be paired with this material: He’s from Arkansas, knows these characters well, and it’s not shocking to see the flyover states thundering to cinemas; Twisters highest grossing cinema to date is the Regal Warren in Moore, OK with more than $130K (when does that happen?).
“They sold fun” beamed one motion picture marketing maven about Universal’s campaign, that’s clearly underscored by the audience exits which cited that the No. 1 reason for buying a ticket to Twisters was that it looked fun and exciting (48%). However, there’s another halo effect that Universal is benefitting from now, one which will certainly seep into next weekend’s overdrive of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, and that is people at home are seeking escapism, particularly in the aftermath of last weekend’s tragedy with Donald Trump. And escapism is what people want right now.
Also helping this movie’s play to red states: Twisters isn’t political. Not one word about climate change and the multitude of tornados that strike during its 2 hours and 2 minutes running time. That will keep this underserved part of the country when it comes to movie product coming back. That said, PostTrak shows that of those attending Twisters, 16% were registered Democrats while 7% were registered Republicans.
Let’s not forget the newfound star power of Powell. He began dropping into theaters with Sydney Sweeney to spike the ticket sales of Anyone But You back December-January, and that’s not only paying in dividends here to Universal with Twisters, but he’s still working it this weekend to stoke the pic’s potential fanbase. Powell, Anthony Ramos and Daisy Edgar-Jones showed up at last night’s Luke Combs at Jets stadium. Combs has a single in the movie “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.” Per PostTrak last night, 24% went to Twisters because of Powell.
Also a good job here by Universal in creating interest for this IP among the 18-34 set, some of whom weren’t born when the first movie came out. They showed up at 46% . Of the four quads, men and women over 25 bought tickets at 38% apiece. Best grades for the movie were from the under 25 female set at 94%, however, they were the minority show at 11%. Big turnout here by couples at 41% and groups of people (2-5+) at close to a third.
Diversity demos for Twisters were 51% Caucasian, a very good 26% Latino and Hispanic, 10% Black and 9% Asian-American. PLFs and Imax tickets are repping around 43% of Twisters‘ till.
In terms of Twisters heading to $80M, we’ll see how that goes down tonight, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
NEON’s Longlegsis keeping up an impressive strut with an estimated second weekend of $11.7M, down only 48%, a hold that any R-rated horror film prays for. Still on the mind is how NEON achieved a $22M opening off a reported under $10M spend. NEON has pulled off a feat that other studios such as Lionsgate haven’t been able to pull off. Whenever we hear stories about studios with low P&A spends, quite often they don’t translate into these mega box office levels.
In fact, this column has taken studios to task for underspending on movies that could have achieved greater box office heights; typically the notion is to get a small movie out on the big screen which serves as advertisement for a better, and more immediate downstream. As one rival studio marketing boss praised about Longlegs, “In regards to the box office ratio to awareness level, it’s amazing what Longlegs did on so little.” The pic had a 10 awareness the Monday before opening, up from a 6 the week prior. As happens many times with the overperformance of these movies in a given weekend, tracking misses the measurement on the picture’s true core audience (read, no one saw Sound of Freedom coming last year with a $19.6M 3-day, $184.1M final domestic). The takeaway lesson here with Longlegs: If you have a strong sticky message and you target that message to the audience that’s receptive to it, then you don’t have to spend your brains out. Total cume for Longlegs by Sunday is $44.6M.
Unfortunately, the hopeful hold for Apple’s star-studded Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum Fly Me to the Moon isn’t posting that rom-com hold, down 66% in weekend 2 with $3.2M in 6th place. Let’s face it, it’s an oddball rom-com, largely because it’s period. And not Jane Austen period, but Moon-landing era period. Also, the movie’s running time at 2 hours and 12 minutes can be a bear for anyone expecting a feature that’s breezy, roughly a half hour longer than post Covid rom-coms, Ticket to Paradise and Anyone But You. Two-words to Apple’s feature development department if they look to stick around big screen distribution: Quality control.