UPDATE: The screen math just got worse for Doomsday. AMC says Dune 3 ticket traffic was triple Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s, on premium formats alone.
Avengers: Doomsday is four months from theaters and already selling tickets like a movie that opens next Friday.
There are now claims that Doomsday could open to a record $400 million opening weekend domestically, beating Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s record opening of $360 million.
Both don’t have IMAX.
However, one had basically zero competition and all the screens. The other? Dune 3.
How is Avengers: Doomsday supposed to get to $400 million when it’s sharing theaters with Dune 3? That’s my question.
Furthermore, are there even enough screens for Avengers: Doomsday to get to $400M in the opening weekend when it is sharing theaters with Dune 3???
Doomsday Tickets Have Been On Sale Longer Than Spider-Man
Disney put Doomsday tickets on sale in two waves.
The first was July 20 for premium screens only, no IMAX, which belongs to Dune 3.
The second wave opened this past weekend at D23, for all theaters.
Sources told The Wrap that after two days, Doomsday was running about 65% ahead of the first two days of Spider-Man: Brand New Day presales.
However, Doomsday had tickets on sale for a lot longer than just the two days Sony had for Spider-Man, right?
Presales Are Not Previews
Presales are also tickets people buy in advance, for any showtime, weeks or months ahead.
Previews are the actual money a movie collects on Thursday night before opening day, including any day before the first Friday.
World of Reel, citing Box Office Theory, reports Doomsday PRESALES have hit 92% of what The Fantastic Four: First Steps earned in PREVIEWS, roughly $22 million in tickets sold.
That comparison is the problem.
Doomsday‘s $22 million is a running total of EVERY ticket sold since July 20, across EVERY showtime on the calendar. Fantastic Four‘s number was for a single Thursday night.
From there comes the leap. IF Doomsday “maintains this pace,” it clears $100 million in previews, and $100 million in previews means a $400 million opening weekend. IF.
What it’s not taking into account is that it’s likely the presales saw huge demand initially.
Presales don’t maintain a steady pace. They spike the day tickets go live, go quiet for weeks, and jump again in the last week before release.
The Wrap said exactly this in its own report. Nothing has ever gone on sale this early, so comparisons are, in their words, very inexact.
And again, Doomsday had premium tickets on sale for nearly a month before the wide launch.
The Wrap doesn’t say whether that 65% figure counts those July sales or just the two days of wide sales.
If it’s cumulative, Doomsday had a four-week head start on a two-day Spider-Man comparison. Talking about spinning webs.
Dune 3 Has IMAX, Premium, and Regular Screens, Too
The assumption by some fans online behind the hype has been: Dune 3 gets IMAX, Doomsday gets everything else.
That’s plain wrong.
Warner Bros. confirmed this week that Dune: Part Three is playing in IMAX 70mm, digital IMAX, premium large formats, and of course, regular screens. Tickets are now on sale.
Marvel’s answer to losing IMAX is “Infinity Vision,” a “certification” for premium screens like Dolby, XD, and RPX.
But a certification is not exclusivity.
It’s just a Disney marketing gimmick because they don’t have IMAX.
Dune 3 still has those “Infinity Vision” screens, too!
Spider-Man Opened With Almost No Competition
Brand New Day opened against nothing but holdovers, and it had every premium screen except IMAX and brought in $360M.
So, Avengers: Doomsday, with not as many screens, is going to beat Spidey, as it goes against Dune 3?
Does the math add up?
Doomsday Has A $400 Million Screen Problem
Here is where the $400 million prediction starts running into a real problem: screen capacity.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened to $360 million with virtually no competition. It had basically every major premium format outside of IMAX to itself.
Nolan’s The Odyssey, in its third weekend versus Spidey, brought in $51M and was still in IMAX. However, you can’t make the argument that the $51M will end up with Doomsday (crossing that $400M mark) because some of that was from IMAX, which Doomsday won’t have. And, once again, Dune 3 has the premium and regular screens, too.
If we do some math, around 24% of Spider-Man‘s opening weekend came from premium formats, or roughly $86 million.
That leaves about $274 million from regular screens.
Even if Doomsday somehow matched Spider-Man‘s $86 million from premium formats, it would still need another $314 million from regular screens to reach $400 million.
That’s about $40 million more it needs to make than Spider-Man made from regular screens.
But yet again, remember that Dune 3 is also playing on Dolby, XD, RPX, and other premium screens, and it’s on regular screens. So Doomsday isn’t getting that same premium-screen advantage Spider-Man had.
And again, Spider-Man did it with basically the entire marketplace to itself.
Doomsday has Dune 3 sitting right next to it.
If Doomsday makes less than Spider-Man‘s $86 million from premium screens — which seems possible considering it has to SHARE them with Dune 3 — the amount it needs from regular screens goes even higher. Yet it is SHARING them with Dune 3, too.
That’s the problem with the $400 million prediction.
It’s not only asking Doomsday to beat Spider-Man‘s record.
It’s asking Doomsday to beat Spider-Man‘s record while working with FEWER premium AND regular screens AND facing substantially MORE competition from Dune 3.
What Doomsday’s Opening Actually Looks Like
Doomsday is going to open huge. No doubt.
But $400 million? That might be off the table.
I’ll also throw it out there that even topping Spidey’s $360 million is an uphill climb.
How is Avengers: Doomsday going to top Spider-Man: Brand New Day when it has FEWER SCREENS???
To be fair, we don’t know the number of screens, but again, with Dune 3 opening the same day, it seems logical that Doomsday won’t have as many screens as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, right?
Follow every update at our Avengers: Doomsday hub and our Dune: Part Three hub.
