EARLY TRACKING REPORT: Seinfeld's 'Bee Movie' Tracking Stronger than 'Ratatouille;' Possible Opening Weekend of $38M to $44M for Dreamworks Animated Pic!
by Steve Mason
Coming off a monumentally disappointing weekend, featuring a slightly disappointing 30 Days of Night (Sony), a decently performing Gone Baby Gone, and a fleet of bombs including The Comebacks (Fox), Rendition (New Line), Things We Lost in the Fire (Dreamworks/Paramount), Sarah Landon & the Paranormal Hour (Freestyle Releasing) and The Ten Commandments (Rocky Mountain Pictures), Hollywood is hoping for a November box office boom.
As I reported Saturday, the estimated combined weekend gross of the top 12 movies this weekend (Oct. 19-21) was only $78.44 million. That's the fourth-weakest October three-day since 2002. The dismal overall performance comes on the heels of Oct. 5-7, which was the worst October weekend since 1999. Year-over-year, the first three weekends of October 2007 are down 20 percent from the same period a year ago. If it weren't for Hollywood outsider Tyler Perry, who lives in Atlanta, the month's movie recession would be even more dramatic.
Box office prospects are looking much, much better starting Nov. 2. That's when Bee Movie (Dreamworks/Paramount) will roll out from coast-to-coast. I can compare the tracking (acquired from one of my sources) for Bee Movie to the tracking for June's Ratatouille (Buena Vista). (I'm using tracking data from two weeks prior to release for both movies.) As a benchmark, Ratatouille opened with $16.45 million on its opening Friday and a $47 million opening weekend. That's good news for Dreamworks, because Bee Movie has marginally better tracking than Ratatouille had at two weeks out.
Bee Movie has better Un-Aided Awareness 7 percent-2 percent. That's a pretty good measure of buzz and anticipation. The Total Awareness is a wash with 77 percent of moviegoers aware of Bee Movie, compared to 72 percent for Ratatouille. Moms seem to be in the know about this movie, because with Females 25 Plus Bee Movie holds an 82 percent-69 percent advantage. The two movies have identical 32 percent Definite Interest scores, but the Seinfeld animated comedy is doing slightly better in the First Choice ratings:
FIRST CHOICE
Bee Movie — 6 percent (Males Under 25, 4 percent; Males 25 Plus, 7 percent; Females Under 25, 4 percent; Females 25 Plus, 9 percent)
Ratatouille — 4 percent (Males Under 25, 2 percent; Males 25 Plus, 2 percent; Females Under 25, 6 percent; Females 25 Plus, 4 percent)
It's not summertime, so $16.5 million on a Friday is probably impossible, but Bee Movie looks like it could do $11 million-$13 million on its opening day (Nov. 2), followed by $16 million-$18 million on Saturday (Nov. 3) and $11 million-$13 million on Sunday (Nov. 4). I say that Bee Movie will score an opening weekend in the $38 million-$44 million range. That's shy of Ratatouille's $47 million opening, but on a par, or even slightly better than Happy Feet's $41.5 million opening weekend last November.
So you're saying that Bee movie has pretty good buzz?
Posted by: Chad | October 23, 2007 at 07:51 AM
what's the tracking for gangster looking like, mase??
Posted by: ashkul | October 23, 2007 at 11:34 AM
Hollywood Elsewhere reported American Ganster's tracking numbers, and they are stunning. They said it should open to $40 million, so November 2-4 will be a really big weekend.
Posted by: J.I. | October 23, 2007 at 02:02 PM
'Bee Movie.' Buzz. I get it!
"How's that workin' out for you?" "What's that?" "Being clever."
I remain, as always...
Nico.
Posted by: Nicodemus the Wise | October 23, 2007 at 09:28 PM
Two different films opening to 40 mil each? Is this possible?
And Nico.... ZING!
Posted by: numbersix_99 | October 24, 2007 at 04:26 AM
It is possible for two movies to open to over $40 mil (Longest Yard, Madagascar), but it's rare (probably never been done before) for it to happen outside of summer.
Posted by: leo | October 24, 2007 at 01:31 PM
It's not rare to happen outside of summer. The quality just has to be right. "Happy Feet" and "Casino Royale" both opened to over $40 million on the same weekend last November.
Posted by: Stephen | October 25, 2007 at 02:33 PM