Thanksgiving box office showdown shows importance of premium screens

Three heavyweight Hollywood blockbusters will face off at the box office in November, each vying for audience attention, ticket sales and time on theaters’ biggest screens.

Universal’s “Wicked,” Paramount’s “Gladiator II” and Disney’s “Moana 2” arrive in cinemas within five days of each other, right around the Thanksgiving holiday. All three titles are expected to thrive at the box office, both during their openings and as they run through the rest of the year.

However, at a time when moviegoers are more discerning about how they spend their money and what films they are going to leave the couch to see, box office analysts wonder which blockbuster will benefit most from premium ticket sales.

Premium large format screens, often referred to as PLFs, are elevated viewing experiences — like IMAX, Dolby, Screen X and 4DX — that come with a higher ticket price. The physical screens are often bigger than traditional movie screens or have auditoriums that feature higher-quality sound systems or seating options.

“Audiences are gravitating toward the biggest, best and most immersive auditoriums,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics for Fandango’s movie division and founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “They are the first to sell out for high-demand movies, and opening day sales often slow down or spill into future days as those screens and their best seats fill up rather than carry over into non-premium, traditional auditoriums which are less attractive to most modern moviegoers.”

There are currently more than 950 theaters in North America that have these PLF screens, a 33.7% jump from just five years ago, according to data from Comscore. These screens account for 9.1% of the domestic box office, around $600 million in 2024.

“The importance of the growth of PLFs as a percentage of the annual box office over the past few years cannot be overstated,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Notably, coming out of the pandemic, moviegoers have been gravitating toward these higher-cost movie theater options.”

Currently, premium ticket prices average around $16.71 a piece, according to Steve Buck of movie data firm EntTelligence, an 8% increase since 2021, when the company first started reporting these figures. Standard tickets, meanwhile, are around $11.82 each, a 7.4% jump from 2021 prices.

“Premium format is a significant draw for a moviegoer seeking the best immersive experience possible often representing over one-third of the foot traffic on a tentpole’s opening weekend,” Buck said.

Recognizing the growing importance of these types of theaters, the National Association of Theatre Owners revealed in September that the eight largest theater chains in North America would invest more than $2.2 billion to modernize and upgrade cinema locations. This investment will be spread out among updates to laser projectors, immersive sound systems and seating updates, as well as enhancing concession offerings and adding family entertainment options like bowling and arcades.

PLF receipts still represent a small portion of the overall box office, with most audiences seeing films on traditional digital screens. However, it’s no small feat that PLF box office has grown 33% in just five years.

The films that benefit the most from PLF ticket sales have been Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.

Audiences want to see explosive action movies and dazzling spectacles in the most state-of-the-art locations. It’s why films like Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” and Warner Bros.’ “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” captured a significant portion of the PLF box office during their runs.

Those films were even shot with specialty cameras with the express purpose of being seen on premium large format screens. In fact, both “Oppenheimer” and “Dune: Part Two” saw fans waiting days and even weeks to watch the film in sold-out IMAX locations.

So studios are betting big on franchise films. Partially, this is because audiences have come out in droves for existing intellectual property in the wake of the pandemic — just look at “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Twisters,” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” capturing top box office receipts in 2024.

It’s one reason why next year will see between 50% and 70% of the movies from the six major studios — Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and Lionsgate — tied to existing IP.

It’s also why the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday could be tricky. “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” debut first on Nov. 22 and will likely split the available PLF locations evenly. The two films opted out of the Thanksgiving fray in the months after “Moana 2” set its Nov. 27 date.

However, as “Moana 2” enters, those premium screen divisions will change. Studios and movie theater operators strike deals when films are released designating how many theaters a movie will show in, how often and on what kinds of screens. As new movies debut, those arrangements shift. It’s unclear how the PLF screens will be split once all three movies are in theaters at the same time.

“There are periods on the calendar when a release slate is slower than others, allowing one or two films to dominate premium screen ownership, but successful or potentially successful movies can be cannibalized at the box office in times of heavy competition for those top-tier screens,” Robbins said. “That’s what occurred during the ‘Barbenheimer’ craze last year when Oppenheimer notably controlled IMAX screens for a contracted time frame before Barbie was eventually able to expand into that format weeks after its release.”

Many have wondered if “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” could have the potential to repeat the box office highs of 2023’s “Barbenheimer” — the dual release of Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” on the same weekend.

At present, box office analysts have a wide-ranging read on what “Wicked” could do during its domestic opening weekend. On the conservative end is an $85 million haul, predicted by leading entertainment and technology research firm NRG. Meanwhile, others speculate that the first film in a planned duology could top $100 million and capture as much as $150 million during its first three days in theaters.

The divergence of expectations comes as Hollywood has struggled to market and make a profit on movie musicals in recent years, but has also seen fan-favorite IP-driven titles overperform. With “Wicked” being based on one of Broadway’s most popular musicals, box office analysts are finding it tricky to predict where it will land.

Meanwhile, “Gladiator II” is expected to tally between $60 million and $80 million during the same weekend. “Moana 2,” which is already seeing record ticket pre-sales for an animated feature in 2024, is expected to snare more than $100 million for its full five-day domestic debut.

“Word of mouth on a movie itself can still ultimately be the driver in consumer choice to spend their money on movie tickets and popcorn, though,” Robbins said. “After an initial burst of strong reception and a premium screen footprint at release, certain movies transcend format preference and some casual audiences will be convinced to buy a ticket regardless of format.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Wicked,” “Oppenheimer,” “Despicable Me 4,” and “Twisters” and owns Fandango.