Daily Box Office Analysis
Harry Potter and the $100 Million Day
By David Mumpower
July 16, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
In terms of how Half-Blood Prince got to $58.2 million, that is a bit more complicated. The film shattered the previous record for midnight sneaks, previously held by another premier Warner Bros. property, The Dark Knight. Last year's 800-pound box office gorilla managed $18 million worth of obsessive fanboys. Potter smoked that number with $22.2 million, an improvement of 23% over the old record. When I got to the theater yesterday and saw a packed house at Regal's showcase 18-theater Cineplex here in their hometown, I thought the film had a legitimate shot at The Dark Knight's daily record of $67.2 million and possibly even its five-day total of $203.8 million.
$22.2 million from what amounts to six hours of showings is an atom bomb of a box office explosion. The fact that it "only" made $36 million the rest of the day is...well, I don't want to say troubling or even disappointing. Neither of those terms would accurately summarize this unusual phenomenon of midnight frontloading. What should have happened based on the models of The Dark Knight ($18 million in midnight sneaks vs. a $67.2 million total first day of revenue) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($16 million in midnight sneaks vs. a $62.0 million total first day of revenue) is for Half-Blood Prince to have a factor of 3.7-3.8 more than its midnight sneaks. The previous Potter film, Order of the Phoenix, perfectly fits this model at 3.7 from its $12 million of sneaks to a $44.2 million first day. Even if we downgrade that multiplier a bit to allow for a larger opening number (remember that it's more difficult to have a larger multiplier with a bigger number), even a 3.2 would mean a $71.0 million first day. Yesterday at this time, I would have guessed that to be a reasonable amount to expect from Potter 6. $58.6 million reflects a 2.6 multiplier, which is...new.
So, what is going on here? I think the reasonable assumption is that this is a fluke more than anything else. If we go back to the performance of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix two years ago this week, there is something interesting to compare. If we take out the $12 million in midnight sneaks, its $44.2 million first day reflects $32.2 million of non-sneaks revenue. Once we adjust for two years of ticket price inflation, its actual day one is around $34 million. So, what has happened here is that after midnight showings, the performances are relatively similar with just a bit of overall growth (about 6%). The $10 million bump in midnight sneaks is what is a bit harder to explain. We will get into it a bit more when we get to Monday Morning Quarterback in a few days, but we're less worried about explanations at the moment than we are about what happens next. Let's quickly consider this.
Transformers 2 earned $62.0 million on its first day on its way to a shaky – and let's be honest here – disingenuous $200 million over five days. The studio's story was that late Puerto Rican reports led to an initially inaccurate Wednesday/Thursday estimate. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But I digress. The point is that $200.1 million over five days is a 3.23 multiplier from a $62.0 million day one. Were Potter 6 to perform similarly, we would be talking about a five-day tally of $188.0 million. Let's call that Plan A.
For a more complex take on what should happen next, let's go back to Order of the Phoenix for a moment. The previous Potter film had a similar release trajectory, earning $139.7 million over five days after its $44.2 million debut. That's a multiplier of 3.16 we won't be using. Stay with me for a moment here. What we know is that after $12 million in immediate demand revenue from midnight sneaks, this title brought in another $32.2 million on the rest of its first Wednesday. If we take the $12 million off of the five-day as well, it's a $127.7 million result, a multiplier of almost exactly four against the $32.2 million. If Half-Blood Prince behaves similarly, we are talking about a factor of four more than its $36 million yesterday ($144 million) plus the $22.2 million in immediate demand met by midnight sneaks. That would be $166.2 million over five days, an improvement of just under 20% from the prior Potter title. We'll call that Plan B.
We should have a good feel for which plan is closer to the truth after Thursday numbers are posted. The key will be how big a decline we see. Revenge of the Fallen fell 53% in terms of Wednesday/Thursday but once we take out the midnight sneaks, its actual decline was 37%. The Dark Knight is even more impressive in this regard, stunning really. It fell 29% from Wednesday to Thursday but once we take out midnight sneaks, we are comparing a $47.7 million Thursday to a $49.2 million Wednesday, an absurd depreciation of only 3%. Order of the Phoenix, the best comparison here, fell 58% on Thursday. Once we take out midnight sneaks, the actual decline was 43%. That makes $20.5 million the line of demarcation for Half-Blood Prince. That's what a 43% drop from $36.0 million is. In reality, I would like to see it do a bit better than that to prove that it's not extraordinarily frontloaded, but as long as it makes $20 million or more, it's holding at least as well as its immediate predecessor in the franchise.
As an aside, that $10 million of additional midnight sneaks from the previous Potter film may prove to be crucial as it is the difference between a $290 million title and a much more celebrated $300 million title. People love their $100 million round numbers.