Avatar: The Way of Water Opening Weekend; Giants of Premium Formats

On this week’s episode of The Boxoffice Podcast, hosts Russ Fischer, Daniel Loria, Rebecca Pahle discuss the opening weekend–and second weekend holdover potential–of Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as Christmas releases providing counterprogramming potential. In the feature segment, representatives from data firm Omdia, exhibitors National Amusements and Marcus Theatres, and premium cinema provider ICE Theaters discuss the role premium formats have played in exhibition in 2022.

This episode is sponsored by ICE Theaters.

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Episode Resources:

• Omdia
• ICE Theaters

What to Listen For

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:41 Opening weekend of Avatar
• 03:47 Premium format stats domestically
• 06:25 Audience demographics
• 08:30 Batman vs. Avatar
• 10:36 Premium format stats internationally
• 12:41 Christmas effect on movie weekends
• 13:44 Strange World vs. Sing 2
• 14:50 Babylon
• 16:13 Whitney Houston biopic
• 17:26 Crucial weeks for Avatar
• 19:19 What premium large format is today?
• 24:50 What does the future of premium screens look like?
• 27:02 Growth of premium screens in 2022
• 27:39 Films that worked the best under premium large format
• 30:02 Trends that worked best
• 34:00 Financial performance of PLF
• 36:46 Marketing higher ticket prices
• 39:38 Marketing outside of the film itself
• 43:14 Earned media
• 46:56 Mistakes to avoid when installing PLF auditoriums
• 49:53 Paying for the PLF experience
• 52:06 Effect of inflation in the PLF space
• 57:28 PLF in 2023