What can I expect when Christmas falls in the first half of the week?

Christmas weekend is one of the most difficult times of the year to predict opening adjusts well, especially for new traders who aren't familiar with box office patterns.  The day of the week on which Christmas falls is of crucial importance.  One reason for this is because movie audiences are way down on Christmas Eve, and very high between Christmas and New Year's Day.  If Christmas Eve falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, it will have more effect on the adjust.

This column and its sequel will examine historical box office data from Christmas-time releases by release day since 1998 to help you plan for the annual Christmas openers.  This column deals with Monday through Tuesday and the second column covers Friday through Sunday and gives an overview of Christmas legs.

Monday

Christmas fell on Monday in 2000 and 2006.  In 2006, HSX used different multipliers to calculate the adjust, but if Christmas fell on a Monday this year, the adjust formula would be:

(Friday to Sunday box office) * adjust multiplier of 2.7

Here are the movies that opened over Christmas in both those years.

Movie	Release Date	Release Day	Fri Dec 22 ($M)	Sat Dec 23 ($M)	Sun Dec 24 ($M)	3-Day Total ($M)	3-Day IM	DM
Castaway	22/12/2000	Fri	11.8	12.1	5.8	29.7	2.5	5.64
Dracula 2000	22/12/2000	Fri	2.7	2.5	1.3	6.5	2.4	4.78
Family Man	22/12/2000	Fri	4.0	4.6	1.9	10.6	2.6	6.18
Miss Congeniality 1	22/12/2000	Fri	4.2	4.3	1.8	10.3	2.5	7.71
Good Shepherd	22/12/2006	Fri	3.5	4.3	2.1	9.9	2.8	5.52
We Are Marshall	22/12/2006	Fri	2.7	2.5	0.9	6.1	2.3	6.41
Night at the Museum 1	22/12/2006	Fri	12.1	12.6	5.7	30.4	2.5	6.11
Rocky Balboa	22/12/2006	Fri	5.0	5.2	2.0	12.2	2.4	4.60

With the exception of The Good Shepherd, none of these movies achieved a particularly strong IM over the 3-day weekend.  Even movies that went on to have great box office success and long legs like Cast Away, Miss Congeniality and the first Night at the Museum, had only a marginal increase on Saturday and all of them suffered Sunday drops in the range of 48% to 62%.

But have a look at those seriously long legs.  Four of the eight movies had delist multipliers of over 6. Miss Congeniality has the highest delist multiplier of any movie that opened wide in its first week of release ever.  Even terrible movies like Dracula 2000 achieved a 4.78 multiplier.

Those long legs are caused by that low box office day December 24 falling on the weekend.  It deflates the weekend, but as moviegoers simply defer seeing the movie until Christmas Day or later, there is no effect on the movie's total box office take.

Tuesday

Christmas fell on Tuesday in 2001 and in 2007, and there will be another Tuesday Christmas in 2012.  Christmas Day is a popular day to release movies, and when it falls on a Tuesday the relevant openers will not adjust until Sunday, by the following formula:

Tuesday + Wednesday + Thursday + (Friday to Sunday box office) * adjust multiplier of 2.7

Here are how the 2001 and 2007 releases performed over the six-day period.  2007 featured two expansions of limited release movies - Dreamgirls and Juno.

Movie	Release Date	Release Day	Tue Dec 25 ($M)	Wed Dec 26 ($M)	Th Dec 27 ($M)	Fri Dec 28 ($M)	Sat Dec 29 ($M)	Sun Dec 30 ($M)
Ali	25/12/2001	Tue	10.2	5.8	4.0	5.0	5.5	4.2
Kate & Leopold	25/12/2001	Tue	2.6	2.6	2.5	3.3	3.7	2.9
Alien v Predator 2	25/12/2007	Tue	9.5	4.4	2.9	3.4	3.6	3.1
Great Debaters	25/12/2007	Tue	3.6	2.0	1.6	2.0	2.3	1.7
Dreamgirls	25/12/2007	Tue	5.8	4.0	3.6	4.8	5.7	3.5
Juno	25/12/2007	Tue	2.8	2.9	2.7	3.3	3.7	3.6
Water Horse	25/12/2007	Tue	2.4	2.5	2.7	3.2	3.3	2.7

There's too much data to fit into one table, so here's the rest of it:

Movie	6-Day Total ($M)	6-Day IM	Fri-Sun Total ($M)	Fri-Sun IM	DM
Ali	34.7	3.4	14.7	3.0	2.53
Kate & Leopold	17.4	6.8	9.8	3.0	3.59
Alien v Predator 2	26.9	2.8	10.1	3.0	2.34
Great Debaters	13.3	3.6	6.0	3.0	3.49
Dreamgirls	27.5	4.7	14.1	2.9	3.13
Juno	19.0	6.7	10.6	3.2	6.74
Water Horse	16.8	7.0	9.2	2.9	3.37

It's tough to draw firm conclusions from such a limited data set, but the Boxing Day drop is crucial to predicting the six-day period.  Water Horse the family movie, Kate & Leopold the rom-com and the hard-to-pigeonhole Juno had the best 6-day IMs and had better Fridays than they did opening days.  Ali and the Great Debaters had heavy drops on Boxing day and did not have strong IMs. The appallingly-timed Aliens vs Predator sequel did worst of all on Boxing Day, and had a miserable a six-day IM of 2.6.

Also, note that the delist multipliers are generally much lower than they were for the Monday Christmas movies.  Only Juno - which continued to expand over January - had an especially high one.  This is partly because December 24 fell on a weekday this year, and low demand on that day did not affect the weekend box office.

Two movies - Ali and the Aliens vs Predator sequel - were even post-adjust shorts, which is supposed to be unheard of over Christmas.  Both those movies had big opening days on December 25 and December 26 drops of 43% and 54% respectively.  So be careful with the automatic Christmas legs post-adjust long.

Wednesday

Christmas last fell on Wednesday on 2002.  If Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year, the adjust formula would be:

Wednesday + Thursday + (Friday to Sunday box office) * adjust multiplier of 2.7

If you thought Monday and Tuesday were small sample sizes, check out the list of movies opening the week Christmas falls on a Wednesday:

Movie

Release Date

Release Day

Wed Dec 25 ($M)

Th Dec 26 ($M)

Fri Dec 27 ($M)

Sat Dec 28 ($M)

Sun Dec 29 ($M)

5-Day Total ($M)

5-Day IM

Fri-Sun Total ($M)

Fri-Sun IM

DM

Catch Me If You Can

25/12/2002

Wed

9.9

8.7

10.1

11.2

8.7

48.6

4.9

30.1

3.0

3.92

Obviously there aren't many general conclusions to draw.  Catch Me If You Can did well over the five-day period with a better Friday an opening day and had a healthy delist multiplier, but it was also a well received movie. Fortunately we only have to wait for Christmas 2013 to get new data about Christmas Wednesday openers.

Thursday

Most recently, Christmas has fallen on a Thursday in 2003 and 2008, and the next Christmas Thursday will be in 2013.  The adjust formula for Thursday Christmas openers is:

Thursday + (Friday to Sunday box office) * 2.7 adjust multiplier

2008 also featured an expansion of a limited release movie - Doubt.

Movie	Release Date	Release Day	Th Dec 25 ($M)	Fri Dec 26 ($M)	Sat Dec 27 ($M)	Sun Dec 28 ($M)	4-Day Total ($M)	4-Day IM	DM
Cheaper by the Dozen 1	25/12/2003	Thursday	7.8	9.9	9.8	7.8	35.4	4.5	3.89
Cold Mountain	25/12/2003	Thursday	4.5	5.2	5.3	4.1	19.1	4.2	4.22
Paycheck	25/12/2003	Thursday	5.2	4.9	4.8	3.7	18.6	3.6	3.40
Peter Pan	25/12/2003	Thursday	3.5	4.0	3.9	3.2	14.6	4.2	3.63
Curious Life of Benjamin Button	25/12/2008	Thursday	11.9	10.1	9.3	7.4	38.7	3.3	3.42
Bedtime Stories	25/12/2008	Thursday	10.6	10.1	9.9	7.4	38.0	3.6	3.44
Doubt	25/12/2008	Thursday	1.4	1.8	2.0	1.5	6.8	4.8	4.42
Marley and Me	25/12/2008	Thursday	14.4	14.0	12.7	9.7	50.7	3.5	3.29
Spirit	25/12/2008	Thursday	3.8	2.6	2.2	1.7	10.3	2.7	2.47
Valkyrie	25/12/2008	Thursday	8.5	8.2	7.4	5.4	29.5	3.5	3.32

Oscar-bait movies like Cold Mountain and Doubt and family movies like Peter Pan and the first Cheaper By The Dozen movie had the biggest Thursday-to-Friday increases.  These four also recorded the highest delist multipliers in the sample.

Other movies in the same two categories - Benjamin Button and Valkyrie, Marley and Me and Bedtime Stories also performed well, but never exceeded their opening day box office.

The Spirit also stands out by being a post-adjust short.  But truly awful movies aside, a delist multiplier of 3.3 seems to be the floor.

That covers Monday to Thursday.  For similar information and analysis on what happens when Christmas falls over the last half of the week, and some extra information on Christmas legs, you can check out this column.