ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET opening | SISU opening | BIG GEORGE FOREMAN opening | April and YTD 2023 moviegoing | April 28 to 30, 2023 weekend

Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary

The current weekend: April 28 to 30, 2023

1) Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret opening

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

- This is a fair opening for a coming-of-age comedy drama. The weekend figure is roughly average for the genre. Reviews and audience scores are sensational. There are relatively few movies about growing up during these specific years, and they are not big performers at the box office. Coming-of-age stories draw bigger audiences when they start to deal with direct romance in the teens years (Juno, Lady Bird):

• Thus far, the audience’s largest segment is women over 45, who know the book. This is a film about a girl’s pre-teen experience, but so far girls are not attending in large numbers.

2) Sisu opening

Sisu

- Sisu is an outlier, a foreign film featuring European characters and period settings, getting a wide release. The language here is violence. Reviews are outstanding. While the opening is below average for an R-rated action adventure, this is good business on only 1,006 screens, and on a budget under $7m. This movie is connecting with its specialized audience:

3) Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Champion of the World opening

Big George Foreman

- This is a weak opening. George Foreman was a champion athlete who led a very interesting life, but the theatrical standard for sports biographies is, did they change the world, the way Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson did. Critics are not enthusiastic. Sports biographies are limited overseas, you can see it below. Each country has its own sports culture:

4) April and YTD 2023 moviegoing

- In April, the domestic box office was up +11.5% compared with April’s 2019/2018/2017 average.  Until now, no month has surpassed its pre-pandemic average. This is a breakthrough, and it cuts the 2023 year-to-date box office deficit to -21.8% compared with pre-pandemic levels.

• Super Mario and the rush of families drove business, but there were also healthy ticket sales for Dungeons & Dragons ($37.2m opening), Evil Dead Rise ($24.5m opening), and Air ($14.5m opening), plus solid holdovers John Wick, Scream and Creed.

  

  Air

• April had another good mix of genres, which is a healthy sign for the industry — there was strong animation, action adventure, drama, horror, and hard action:

  

- The April wide release count was 12 (on 1,000 screens or more) — that's a good number.  By the end of the year, we still see a solid 130 wide releases, including 54 franchise titles, which is approaching normal (2019 had 58 franchise films, 2018 had 62).

• Family moviegoing has been inconsistent during the last three years.  Every other genre has settled into a pattern and range. Families remain the key. If families attend in big numbers — juggernaut numbers — then the 2023 box office will continue to improve and moviegoing will finish down in the mid-teens versus pre-pandemic levels. The 2023 family lineup is strong…

  • We'll get another look when Little Mermaid opens on May 26, then Spider-Verse 2 on June 2, then Elemental/Pixar on June 16 (the complete family lineup is here).

    

    Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, June 2

• Next month will be tougher. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 opens in one week and then Fast & Furious on May 19, but May 2019 had Avengers: Endgame, the #2 movie all-time ($2.8b worldwide) and the #1 domestic opener ($357m), and May 2018 had Avengers Infinity War and Deadpool 2.

- Ticket inflation.  In 2022, the average domestic ticket price hit $10.53, which is a 17.4% increase during the last five years.  That compares favorably with broad U.S. economic inflation of 20.5%.  Moviegoing is still an excellent value compared with other out-of-home entertainment like a live show, a concert, or a sports event:

• The current box office is benefiting from the increase in ticket prices.  That means that compared with pre-pandemic levels, foot-traffic is lighter.  But this is no time to rain on any parade.  The movie business is re-building.  As noted from the start, this process is going to take years, not months. April was a great month — moviegoing is picking up steam.

[Methodology note: April 2023 started on a Saturday, so it has five Saturdays/Sundays, while April 2019 had four — a significant difference. For our box office comparisons, we start with the first full week of the year (each week runs Friday to Thursday), and we line up the same weeks across the years, so the comparisons cover the same # of weeks, # of days and day mix. This is the most accurate approach for these comparisons.]