‘I Feel Pretty’ Takes In $1M, ‘Super Troopers 2’ Tickets Strong $1.35M, ‘Traffik’ With $225K In Thursday Previews
April 20, 2018
‘I Feel Pretty’ Takes In $1M, ‘Super Troopers 2’ Tickets Strong $1.35M, ‘Traffik’ With $225K In Thursday Previews
WRITE-THRU, 7:51 AM: The preview numbers are all in this morning for three new films debuting this weekend: the Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty,Super Troopers 2, and the drama/thriller Traffik about human traffiking.
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The Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty from STXfilms danced to a Thursday night preview take of $1M after releasing into roughly 2,600 theaters last night at 7 PM. For comps, the Schumer starring comedy Snatched grabbed $650K in previews last year and went onto a three-day of $19.5M. The comedy, financed by Voltage Pictures and produced by them with Wonderland Sound and Vision, is still on track to open around $15M this weekend and rolls out to 3,440 locations this weekend.
Grosses came in earlier this AM for the guy-driven comedy SuperTroopers 2, whichnabbed a big $1.35M in tickets last night as the sequel to the 2001 comedy cult film enjoyed double features in 925 of its 1,850 theaters.
The film is off to a bang up start; its comp is Blockers which also grossed $1.5M in previews and that grossed around $20M. Super Troopers 2 is now expected to do much better than the $6M that was estimated.
Those previews started at 4:20 PM for the Broken Lizard fans as the crowdfunded film was written by (and stars) the comedy team’s Jay Chandrasekhar (who helmed), Brian Cox, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Leme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske.
The first film chased in $18.4M all in domestically after a February opening weekend of $6.2M. SuperTroopers 2 is a Fox Searchlight film distributed by Fox. It goes wide in 2,037 locations today.
There are a whopping 43 producers on this film — about the same as the population of Fenwick, CT and close to the number of presidents of marketing currently at Fox — and the producing titles are of varying types: exec producers, co-exec producers, associate producers, co-associate producers, producers, co-producers and even co-associate producers. Hello, crowdfunders.
In 900 locations, Lionsgate and Codeblack Films’ Traffik previews started at 7PM last night to bring in $225K. It will be headed into 1,046 locations today. Lionsgate expects the R-rated thriller to grab about $3M to $4M thru Sunday, or a per screen comparable to the launch of Lionsgate/Codeblack’s The Perfect Match, which opened to $4.3M in March of 2016.
That would put the Traffik debut comps similarly to Deon Taylor’s Meet the Blacks, which picked up $200K in Thursday previews in April of 2016 and went on to gross a three-day of $4M. Traffik was acquired by Codeblack last September.
As a rule of thumb usually previews signal about 9% of a picture’s three-day take. However, that errors when the movies are smaller and it varies from picture to picture. But at the studios, distribution experts usually look at the preview numbers as about 9% of what the picture will ultimately accomplish for the debut weekend.
How important are Thursday night previews? Well, it mattered last weekend in the race to No. 1 with the $2.4M New Line/Warner Bros. pulled in last Thursday night in previews which helped Rampage at least for a night against A Quiet Place.
We’re hearing now that A Quiet Place could win the No. 1 spot this weekend. Through the week, A Quiet Place grabbed $8M thru Wednesday night and Rampage grossed $7.9M so it is very close.
In terms of social media, I Feel Pretty has a strong Social Media Universe of 141.6M, according to RelishMix. This Amy Schumer comedy’s SMU is composed of 11M Facebook fans, over 39M FB views, 7.1M Twitter followers, more than 52.5M YouTube views and 32M Instagram followers.
The real social star of I Feel Pretty is Emily Ratajkowski who many fans know mostly from Robin Thicke’s music video; she has 24.5M fans/followers. Schumer is also all in and very engaged in the promotion of the film. From social posts to re-posting of her many recent interviews from the film, Schumer is working it to raise awareness through her fan base of 14.1M. Finally, Busy Philipps is also promoting the movie well to her 1.2M followers/fans.
There are positive and negative sentiments in the conversation surrounding this film from glad that Schumer is taking on body type issues and at the same time saying that there is a tone deafness to the film in this current environment and there is a preachiness to it.
Super Troopers 2 has a good SMU of 83.4 heading into opening weekend. This R-rated comedy’s total Social Media Universe is a combination of 5.2M Facebook fans, 31M Facebook views, 6.1M Twitter followers, 38.5M YouTube views and 2.6M Instagram followers.
This sequel to the 2001 sleeper hit, most of its money was made in the home video market of its day, has a mixed score for key social measures. Starting with EOR (viral rate), Super Troopers 2 scores a 7:1, which is behind the usual rated R comedy’s 12:1 earned/owned ratio. Also, its SMU of 83.4M falls short of the genre’s average 123M, but Troopers 2 is earning 2.2K daily Facebook fans, which bests the typical 1.4K. And, leading into opening week, the movie’s daily average YouTube views are coming in at 78K, which far exceeds the standard 23K.
The film’s social star is Rob Lowe with 2.4M fans/followers.
Traffik has a light Social Media Universe heading into opening weekend of 28.5M. The drama/thriller has 7.5M Facebook fans, 250K FB views, 4.1M Twitter followers, 14.4M YouTube views and 2.3M Instagram followers.
This thriller starring Paula Patton and Omar Epps is moderate when looking at key social metrics, starting with the movie’s EOR. A standard film in the genre has a 24:1 ratio, but Traffik is scoring well below with a 4:1. Also, this film’s daily FB fans are about 200, but the standard is 1.8K. Finally, Traffik’s daily average YT views are a little over 4K, not the typical 27K.
Omar Epps is the social star of this drama thriller with a social media universe of 3.5M fans/followers and he is a marketer’s dream, consistently posting Traffik materials and has even plastered the film’s poster across his official headers.
Roselyn Sanchez is also very socially active, posting from the press tour and even alerting her 3.1M fans/followers to pop star Joelle James’ song for the soundtrack. Even star Paula Patton (with an SMU of 1.2M) is getting into the act, sharing her press tour experience and new blonde look.
Kudos to the cast and the marketers for being able to pinpoint the film’s target audience who are engaged. The downside to that is that the commenters are saying they’ve seen this movie when it was called Get Out, The Strangers and even The Purge series.
Others are really turned off by the violence, and feel like the complex issue of human trafficking is given a disservice with such a campy looking Hollywood thriller. Still, others are saying that they feel like the movie’s materials conjure up anti-white sentiment, as the bad guys in the film seem racist and violent – much like Get Out.