Weekend Box Office Update (Apr 27-29, 2018)--Avengers Rule

Good evening Disney friends, 

Let's get straight into the records. First, Disney broke its own record for the fastest company to get to $1 billion for the domestic market (117 days,) which beats the previous record of 126 days. Disney has now broken the $1 billion mark faster than other film companies for the past 3 years. Also, with Avengers breaking the domestic opening weekend record, Disney films hold 9 of the 10 top grossing weekend films. 

Now for Avengers: Infinity War and the estimated $250 million premiere weekend for the domestic market. That beats Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the largest opening weekend by approximately $2 million. What makes that even more impressive is that Avengers spotted Force almost $18 million on Thursday night previews. To make up for that, Avengers had to do great over the weekend and did so with the largest domestic Saturday of all time, by beating Jurassic World by over $13 million (Avengers Saturday was estimated at $83 million.) It is already the second highest grossing film of the year. The film has set the following records: highest opening weekend, highest Saturday, and highest Sunday. It was also the fastest film to $150, $200, and $250 mil. Now this is assuming that he estimates hold true, but some things to think about--Disney has underestimated their Sunday grosses for the last Black Panther and the 2 previous Avengers films.

In terms of the international box office--the filmed grossed $380 million, which is best for 2nd all time opening weekend. The first place film was Fate of the Furious. Avengers was probably not going to break the international box office record because it was not opening in China and Russia. When Fate opened to a total of $443 mil, it had the advantage of China where it opened to $185 mil. However, when the domestic and international receipts are added together, the Avengers grossed $630 mil which beat Fate by almost $90 mil ($541 mil.) 

All told, it was a great weekend for the House of Mouse. 

By the way, Black Panther did really good compared to all other films in the top 10. Black Panther is estimated to gross around $4.4 mil, which is good enough for number 5 for the weekend and saw only a drop of 11.2% compared to previous weekend, but most other films dropped around 50% or more. 

The next question for the Avengers: Infinity War is how far will it climb. It has 3 weeks until Deadpool 2 opens and 4 weeks until Solo: A Star Wars Story opens. 

Spoiler: a lot of things explode.

Have a great week and I thank you for spending time allowing me to share my love of Disney movies with you.

Brian

PS: If you need help booking a Disney vacation, please email me at brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.com.

Walt Disney World Free Dining Promo

Disney Free Dining Promotion for Fall 2018.

It has happened again, Disney has announced free dining for this fall. Here is the low down.

Dates are for stays that occur between: August 20 - September 29, 2018; November 24-27, 2018; and December 7-23, 2018.

If you are staying in a value or moderate resort then you get free Quick Service Dining Plan.

If you are staying at a deluxe resort then you get free Disney Dining Plan.

To qualify, you must purchase a minimum of 4 day park hopper park hopper plus ticket and stay on site for a 5 night stay.

If you would like to take advantage of this wonderful special, please contact me to see if your travel dates and resort choice qualifies. Let me know how many are in your group (and ages,) when you want to travel, how many days of tickets, and which resort you would like to stay.

Email me at brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.con.

Weekend Box Office Update (April 20-22)--Summer comes early preview

Good afternoon Disney friends, 

The final weekend before summer will soon be over and Disney still has Black Panther in the top 10. With a weekend gross of $4.6 mil, the film has remained in the top 10 for 10 weekends in a row. As of now, Black Panther's total gross accounts for over 25% of the domestic box office take of the $2.5+ bil that the 212 films of 2018 have grossed. That will change next weekend.

Now I know many people think simmer will never get here, but in terms of movies it will be here on Friday. The first weekend in May has traditionally been considered when it comes to movies, but when Disney announced earlier this year that it was moving up Avengers: Infinity War by a week, summer moved up too. Tracking for this movie had been following the same pattern as Black Panther. It has been continually increasing over the past few weeks. I do not know where this film will end up next weekend, but it is almost a foregone conclusion that it will be the highest April of all time. Now, here is where life gets interesting. Tracking for films such as this are difficult. There is nothing really to compare it to except for the other Avengers films. The 1st was the first film to top the $200 bil mark and only 4 films have done so since. This film is also basically not a sequel of Avengers: Age of Ultron but this films stands as the final of phase 3 of Marvell's plan. (Yes, I know Avengers 4 comes out next year, but all Marvell films have been building up to this.) The build up for this film has been incredible. Ticket presales have broken records and the film is currently outselling the previous 7 Marvell films combined. Fandango is reporting that over 1000 showings have already been sold out. 

Here are the top 5 opening films for the domestic market:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (BV) $248 mil

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (BV) $220 mil

Jurassic World (Uni) $209 mil

Marvel's The Avengers (BV) $207 mil

Black Panther (BV) $202 mil

Who knows where this film ends up, but there are a couple of things to watch for. 1. When The Force Awakens opened for Thursday night previews, it pulled in over $51 mil (which was added into Friday for a one day total of over $100 mil-the 1st and only film to do that.) 2. Jurassic World's top Saturday take of all time was over $69.9 mil. If this film comes out of the gate on Thursday over $51 mil and become the top Saturday of all time then we may be looking at the highest opening domestic film of all time.

Only time will tell. We will know more officially in 7 days.

If you need help booking a Disney vacation, please email me at brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.com.

Weekend Box Office Round Up (Apr 13-15)

Good afternoon Disney friends,

Another weekend of movies is about in the books, and Disney is still hanging around inside the top 10. Black Panther grossed another $5.3 mill this weekend. The film's total domestic gross now stands at $673 mil. Just to remind you, that is the third highest grossing domestic film of all-time behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.6 mil) and Avatar ($760.5 mil.) It is currently about $19 mil behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi for the number 9 spot on the all time world wide chart.

A Wrinkle in Time brought in an excess of $1 mil to place number 15 for the week.

With one more weekend left before the release of Avengers: Infinity War, people are beginning to look at how that movie will perform. It is probably a foregone conclusion that (barring some catastrophic event) this film will have the largest April opening weekend at the domestic box office (remember Disney/Marvel moved the film up one week from the traditional first weekend in May opening for these films.) Just how high it goes is still open for debate.

I hope you will have a magical week and thank you for spending time with me.

If you want to talk movies/Disney, you can email me at brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.com.

Brian

Weekend Box Office Update (April 6-8, 2018)

Good evening Disney friends,

Well another weekend has come and gone and Disney's/Marvell's Black Panther has broken another barrier. This weekend saw the film break into the top 3 for the all-time domestic box office ranks bypassing both Titanic and Jurassic World. Of the top 10 domestic films of all time, 6 of them belong to the House of Mouse. The film has also bypassed another Disney film (Frozen) to make it into the top 10 films based on worldwide grosses. That gives Buena Vista films 5 of the top 10 films from the worldwide box office. 

A Wrinkle in Time crossed the $90 mil dollar mark from the domestic box office. 

Lastly, projections are coming in for Avengers: Infinity War to break the April box office opening record with a 3-day weekend take of over $200 mil stateside.

Have a great week.

Thanks for allowing me to share Disney information with you.