As regular readers will know, one of the reasons I've been somewhat cautious about predicting record-smashing box office success for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is that I lived through the heavily anticipated and breathlessly-speculated about release of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. That film ended up with mixed-positive reviews, scored the second biggest weekend of all time ($64 million over Friday to Sunday during a record $105m Wednesday to Sunday debut) and ended up the second biggest "no re-releases" domestic grosser and the second biggest worldwide grosser of all time after Titanic. But for those expecting life, the universe, and everything, it wasn't enough. And one of the key factors in play back in 1999 with regards to the opening weekend record may prove to be a major factor next week as well.
To the extent that it matters, I sympathize with Walt Disney trying to temper expectations in terms of opening weekend and total gross. Hell, I've been on the frontlines for offering what I hope are reasonable and realistic expectations on why The Force Awakens might only be one of the biggest movies ever as opposed to the top grosser of all time. Maybe I'm wrong to be "pessimistic" and maybe J.J. Abrams's sci-fi sequel will break every record imaginable. But if The Force Awakens breaks the opening weekend record next weekend, it, like The Phantom Menace, will have to do it in a lot fewer theaters than expected. Walt Disney reported yesterday (according to the always trustworthy BoxOffice.com and Box Office Mojo) that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be opening next week on around 3,900 screens in America.
That's only the 11th biggest theater count in 2015 and nowhere close to the biggest theater count of all time. The biggest theatrical release in 2015 was the 4,301 screen release for Minions ($115 million debut weekend). The widest release of all time was for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse which debuted on July 4th weekend of 2010 in 4,468 theaters. There have been 62 releases debuting in more than 4,000 theaters. If you presume that the figure is closer to 3,900 versus 3,999 theaters next week, that puts the Walt Disney release at merely one of the 100 biggest releases ever, about on par with Spectre and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Point being, Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn't going to have anywhere closer to the widest theatrical release of all time.
Yes, it will play on multiple screens in many of those theaters, but that's the case for most blockbusters in the modern multiplex age. Anyone want to take a guess as to another would-be "biggest movie ever" that ended up playing on a lot fewer theaters than expected? Yup, back in May of 1999, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace opened on "just" 2,970 theaters for its opening weekend. In comparison, The Mummy opened two weeks prior in 3,200 theaters and four weekends later Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me would open in 3,312 theaters. Oh, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park opened two Memorial Days earlier (1997) in a then-record 3,281 theaters for a record $72 million Fri-Sun debut weekend over a $90m Friday to Monday Memorial Day weekend debut.
The Star Wars prequel and the Jurassic Park sequel almost tied in terms of per-screen-averages for their Friday to Sunday weekends ($21,825 vs. $21,985), but the differing screen count made it so that it was no contest. At the time, Lucasfilm claimed that it intentionally opened on slightly fewer theaters than expected under the notion of only playing the film in somewhat quality auditoriums. I won't presume that Walt Disney is necessarily acting out of the same "art before commerce" nobility, as opposed to merely the fact that Universal/Comcast Corp. is opening Sisters on 2,900+ screens and 20th Century Fox is opening Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip on at least 2,500 screens on the same day and all of the studios have copious product (Joy, Point Break, Concussion, The Big Short, Daddy's Home, etc.) being unloaded on Christmas. But the result could very well be the same.
The noticeably fewer screens for Star Wars could be the deciding factor in terms of whether or not we get a new opening weekend record next weekend, even if it in turn creates more sold out shows and thus the impression of greater demand. When Universal/Comcast Corp.'s Jurassic World and Marvel's The Avengers broke the opening weekend records respectively in 2012 and 2015, they also opened at near the top of the total theater count and the per-screen-average rankings for a wide release. The dino sequel snagged $48,855 p.s.a. on 4,291 screens, while the Marvel team-up adventure played in 4,349 theaters and earned a $47,698 p.s.a. In fact, we haven't had a new opening weekend record-breaker that didn't also break the p.s.a. number in 20 years.
In June of 1995, Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.'s Batman Forever made $53 million on 2,842 screens topping the $47m that Jurassic Park earned on 2,401 screens on that same mid-June weekend in 1993. Since then, every weekend record breaker (The Lost World, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Spider-Man 3, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, The Avengers, and Jurassic World) has also bested the "wide release per-screen-average" figure in the bargain regardless of which release was on more screens. So, in a case of either correlation or causation, it stands to reason that the new opening weekend record for Star Wars would also involve a new per-screen-average record. But in this case, it would have to be something of a leap.
As noted above, when Jurassic World broke the record this year, it did so with a $48,855 per-screen-average. A similar p.s.a. for The Force Awakens on 3,900 screens would give it a $191 million opening weekend. For Star Wars: The Force Awakens to open with $208.9 million (just over the $208.8m debut for Jurassic World), it would have to earn a whopping $53,565 per-screen-average next weekend. Now that's not impossible. Spider-Man leaped over the p.s.a. of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone back in 2002, earning $31.77k p.s.a. versus $24.5k p.s.a. for the 2001 release, but that was also a case of a film breaking the record by $24.5m in just 57 fewer theaters.
Also, it didn't have to contend with two new wide releases sucking up space and potential audience interest. The Dark Knight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon are still the only films to top $100 million on opening weekend with a second opener doing even $25m+. That was with Mama Mia! in 2008 and the $34m debut of The Blind Side in 2009. Just eight have pulled it off with a second opener doing even $10m+. Star Wars will have two major releases sucking up 2,500+ screens doing anywhere from $10m-$30m respectively (a high speculative guestimate) depending on the breaks.
The point of all of this is that for whatever reason Star Wars: The Force Awakens is opening on 500 fewer theaters than Twilight 3 and The Dark Knight Rises and 300-400 fewer theaters than Despicable Me 2, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World. And it will have to contend with two wide releases opening on the same day. With all due respect to Winnie the Pooh ($7.9 million versus Harry Potter 7.2's $169m), only The Dark Knight sits among $150m+ debuts has ever had to contend with an opening competitor of any significance.
If Star Wars: The Force Awakens breaks the opening weekend record next weekend, it will do so on far fewer screens than recent rivals, it will do so while shattering the wide-release per-screen-average record by at least 10%, and it will do so with two major releases that represent the strongest competition for this kind of mega movie since 2009. Oh, and it will do so while making about 2.5x more on opening weekend than any other December release in history. So yeah, if it pulls it off, I will be very, very impressed.
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