Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is projected to post a strong, but possibly not strong enough opening weekend (between $100m-$140m) when it debuts in three weeks, but that information is coming from the same tracking agencies who were absolutely wrong about Deadpool. So why are we paying attention to this?
Before you answer that, let’s take a moment to look back at how often the projections have led us astray in recent years. The following is a list of some of the more notorious projections vs. actual opening weekends for big movies since 2013. In the interest of fairness I included some instances where the projections were fairly spot-on. After the list, I’ve included an explanation of where exactly these estimates come from in the first place, and why there have been so many big misses recently.
2013
Iron Man 3
Actual Opening: $174.1 million
Man of Steel
Actual Opening: $116.6 million
World War Z
Actual Opening: $66.4m
Pacific Rim
Actual Opening: $37.2m
The Wolverine
Actual Opening: $53.1 million
Gravity
Actual Opening: $55.7 million
Thor: The Dark World
Actual Opening: $85.7 million
2014
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Actual Opening: $95 million
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Actual Opening: $91.6 million
Actual Opening: $93.1m
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Actual Opening: $90.8 million for the 3-day weekend, $110.5m for the 4-day Holiday
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Actual Opening: $100m
Lucy
Actual Opening: $43.8m
Guardians of the Galaxy
Actual Opening: $94.3 million
Interstellar
Actual Opening for Interstellar: $47.5 million
To be fair, they were pretty much spot-on for Big Hero 6, which debuted to $56.2m.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1
Actual Opening: $121.8m
2015
American Sniper
Actual Opening: $89m
Cinderella
Actual Opening: $67m
Furious 7
Actual Opening: $147.1 million
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Jurassic World
Actual Opening: $208.8 million
Pitch Perfect 2
Actual Opening for Pitch Perfect 2: $69m
They were right about Mad Max, though. It opened with $45m.
Ant-Man
Fantastic Four
Actual Opening: $25.6 million
Pan
Actual Opening: $15.3 million
Spectre
Actual Opening: $70.4 million
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2
Actual Opening: $102.6 million
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Actual Opening: $247.9 million
2016
Deadpool
Actual Opening: $132.4m for the 3-Day weekend; $152.2m for the 4-Day President’s Day Holiday
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Actual Opening (UPDATED 7/15/16): $166m
The Explanation
Here’s how this works: Prior to the release of every big movie, the film studios contract out to one of the leading tracking agencies (e.g., New Research Group, Box Office Analyst, MarketCast) to conduct surveys measuring how aware audiences are of the film in question and how likely they are to see it. The agencies compare the survey results to historical data from similar movies, and report their initial projections to the studio several weeks prior to the film’s release. Those projections are repeatedly updated right up to opening day.
For example, when projecting Jurassic World last summer the agencies used Man of Steel as their historical comparison because the two movies shared a similar release date (6/12 for Steel, 6/14 for World) and were both regarded as nostalgia-tinged franchise reboots. Comparing the two theoretically gave them a good idea of where Jurassic World seemed to be heading. I say “theoretically” because Jurassic World’s opening weekend ended up soaring $85m over pre-release projections. Was it really that stunning? Two years earlier, Man of Steel‘s opening weekend came in $40m above expectations.
There is another level to consider here. The studios usually devise their own internal projection, always airing on the more conservative side of what the tracking agencies are telling them. This intentionally feeds into a familiar narrative where the press tells us that the studio is expecting a relatively modest opening whereas the tracking suggests a much better opening. If the film’s actual opening ends up dwarfing both estimates it makes the studio’s success look all the more impressive.
That’s the game the studios have to play now, but once upon the time the tracking agency projections were completely secret, a mere tool used by the studio to determine where they might need to allocate more ad dollars. Let’s say a movie is not tracking well with women of a certain. The studio can try to address that through more TV ads during Shondaland on ABC.
However, thanks to The Hollywood Reporter the tracking agency projections never stay a secret anymore, leading people from the agencies to remind the press, “We’re not paid to predict box office, rather identify pockets of strength, threats and opportunities in the marketplace for the studio. … It’s a five-week journey with daily phone calls.”
Those phone calls aren’t nearly enough anymore. As I previously covered in more detail (here and here), pre-release ticket tracking continually struggles to contend with the fickle whims of the youth market. Plus, the historical models are all breaking down in this age where big movies are coming out in increasingly non-traditional release windows and routinely breaking box office records in the process. For example, R-rated comic book movies aren’t supposed to perform like summer blockbusters in February, and movies released the week before Christmas aren’t supposed to set all-time box office records. It’s hard to properly predict that type of performance when there’s nothing remotely close to a historical precedent.
Conclusion
As we get closer to March 25, 2016, the tracking agencies will gradually narrow down their Batman v Superman projections from the current, almost comically wide $100m-$140m range. Whatever they end up settling on could be somewhat accurate, give or take $5m-$8m either direction. After all, they weren’t too far off with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Cinderella, Mad Max: Fury Road and Ant-Man. However, as of late when the pre-release tracking misses it misses big.
We Minored in Film 
I thought the pre-ticket sales of BvS are higher than for Age of Ultron but lower than for Force Awakens (which is not really a surprise)? Oh, well, we have to wait and see. A lot hinges on the question, if the movie is actually good. Shouldn’t press screening start soon?
The actual pre-ticket sales are similar to, but different than what I’m talking about. Fandango.com and MovieTickets.com are sources more people are looking to for predictive qualities since the traditional polling services offered by the tracking agencies don’t seem to work that well anymore. However, just like anything else I’ve seen examples of movies where the pre-ticket sales anticipated a bigger-than-expected opening, and movies where the pre-ticket sales were completely misleading.
Right now, the tradtional tacking agencies have Batman v Superman making somewhere between $100m and $140m. Anything Batman v Superman does is going to be compared to Deadpool, fair or not, and as of right now Deadpool and its $132m opening could end up embarassing old Affleck and Cavill. Of course, that depends on how much faith you actually put into the tracking agencies, and though they are actually right from time to time the more advisable reaction is skepticism.
As for the press screenings, I just did a quick Google search and I came up with nothing. So at this point I don’t know when it will screen for critics. I’m assuming it’ll be just like any big movie, and we can expect an embargo on reviews until a week or a couple of days before the release.
Yeah, I know, but I somehow assumed that if pre-ticket sales are high, the awareness of a movie should be, too.
I am ready to bet that at least Civil war won’t have much of an embargo. After the first rumours of the positive test screenings hit the web, Marvel suddenly moved the release date in my country. It will now be out over here one week before the US release (and I tell you, I will ensure that I am for once one of the first who gets to see it). Marvel usually does this, when they are confident in their property and want to create some early buzz, and it would be pretty useless to tell critics to stay quiet when people all over the web will already share their opinion about it.
I guess it depends on how positive the reaction to BvS. The better the press react, the earlier they will lift the embargo.
Wow what a shakedown. I’ll never trust a tracking report from THR again!
Yeah. There’s a fair bit of creative accounting going on here as well as underhanded moves by rival studios. If one studio knows it has a hit they can fuck with the press by letting them find out both what the tracking agencies think the movie will make and what the studio itself thinks will happen. The studio always airs on the conservative side, and when the movie inevitably beats all projections it makes them look all the better. However, if a studio knows it has a lemon they’ll try to guard their secrets. That’s when rival studios will try to get a hold of the tracking numbers and release it to the press to further a movie’s bad word-of-mouth.
Or at least that’s been my understanding for how this plays out sometimes. I think that’s all normal, but when the tracking agencies keep missing so big on so many movies everyone gets mad because so much of what they do with marketing in the home stretch is keyed off the tracking. If those numbers are off $5-10m, that’s workable, but when they’re off $40-$90m everyone’s left asking, “WTF!?!”