2022 market prediction: The Batman’s big opening ushers in a model change and an increase in our forecast for the year

March 16, 2022

When The Batman opened with $134 million over the weekend of March 4 it was cause not just for celebration among movie fans, but also for a reevaluation of our prediction model. Our predictions have held up fairly well throughout the last 18 months, but there’s growing evidence that some films are performing almost as if the pandemic never happened while others are continuing to feel the effects of audience reluctance to return to movie theaters. For this month’s prediction update, I’ve introduced an adjustment for that effect, which boosts the predictions for some tentpole films and increases our overall market prediction to $7.1 billion for the year, up from last month’s predicted $6.6 billion.

In order to adjust the model, I pulled out all the films released since the start of theater re-openings in late 2020 that have done better than our model would have predicted with no adjustment for the pandemic.

There are some familiar names on the list, obviously, particularly the big super hero films Spider-Man: No Way Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and The Batman, all of which had (rightly) celebrated debuts.

Some of the other films here, though, seem to me to have made the list at least partly because the model underestimated their potential. That’s not a criticism of the model in and of itself—in fact it’s exactly what should be expected from any prediction model! We’ve now predicted the opening weekend for about 100 films in total, so I’d expect something like three to five films to do much better than the model predicted and a roughly equal number to do much worse just through natural variations in outcome. (I hope to put some more precise parameters on this in the future… hopefully in next month’s prediction update.)

The problem is not so much that I can’t say which films are on the list due to natural variation, as that I can’t be sure what rules to use to identify the “predictable” breakout hits from the past few months, and how to apply those rules to predict what films will break out over the rest of 2022. There does seems to be a theme though: they tend to involve returning characters from well-established franchises, and follow previous hits in the franchise. I’m tentatively using that to identify the potential breakouts through the rest of the year. Here they are…

To be honest, there are a few films that I’ve included or excluded based purely on my own personal judgment (something I hate doing!). Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has to negotiate the very tricky task of filling the hole left by the untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman. Assuming Disney can do that without alienating fans, it seems likely to be a must-see movie for many fans, and I’ve included it in the list. Three films, however, are outside the list for now, even though they might be seen to technically fit the bill: Lightyear, Top Gun: Maverick, and Avatar 2. Lightyear feels more like a spin-off to me, while Top Gun and Avatar 2 are both being released long after the previous entries in their respective franchises. On the flip-flip-side Morbius makes my cut in large part because Sony’s Marvel Universe seems to be on a roll at the moment.

One prediction I’m fairly certain of: at least one of these films will make me look like a fool by the end of the year! Drop me a line if you think you know which one (and be prepared to look a fool yourself!).

I’ll be making adjustments to this list in each monthly update going forwards (or possibly dropping the concept altogether if it becomes apparent that the market has evolved in a way that I haven’t anticipated). In particular, I’ll be looking to see if something out in the world of social media (e.g., trailer views) can identify the films for me.

With all that said, here’s how our prediction for 2022 looks as of the March 16…

The good news from all of this is that assuming some of the big hits will be even bigger hits bumps up the model’s prediction for the year as a whole. An increase of $600 million is not to be sniffed at, and I think earning $7.1 billion overall would be a great result for the industry. That’s testament to the decision by studios to (mostly) release their major films in theaters again, although a few films have moved back into 2023 since the last monthly prediction and Shazam! Fury of the Gods is the only potential big hit to be added to the 2022 calendar.

Hopefully we’ll see some more movies in the green when I next do our monthly update. I also hope the trendlines for movie-going continue to move in the right direction. Late February and early March show some positive news on that front, helped by Uncharted, Dog and The Batman…

Our model’s estimate of current filmgoing has moved very close to the predicted trendline over the past few weeks, and Morning Consultant’s poll of the population has been lining up with our model quite closely again (click on the image to see full details of Morning Consult’s polling). That’s great news. What I’ll be looking at closely over the next few weeks is whether those trends flatten out again. My underlying assumption since the beginning of the theater re-openings has been that we’ll eventually get back to 70% of the pre-pandemic audience. We’re getting close to that now, so it’ll be very interesting to see if we can break through that key barrier. Fortunately for the model (oh, and for moviegoers too!), we’ll have a string of movies coming out over the next couple of months that could have very broad appeal. That will give us a much better picture of where everything is headed.

Methodology

Our market prediction is based on the same model as the weekend predictions that we’ve been running since theaters started reopening towards the end of 2020. We are now running the prediction model for every announced wide release on the release schedule and estimating the size of the market as a whole by assuming a relatively small amount of additional revenue from limited releases. The prediction for each movie is based on six factors:

The performance of similar films in recent years, and cast and crew Bankability. So far as possible, the model uses films in the same genre released by the same distributor as points of comparison. The predicted performance of franchise films is based on previous releases in the franchise. Cast and crew Bankability is weighted more heavily for non-franchise than for franchise films.

The current state of the theatrical market. We update our model after each weekend with a wide release to estimate what proportion of formerly-regular moviegoers are currently going to theaters. As of today, that figure is 65%. We also monitor Morning Consult’s weekly survey of moviegoers, and may make adjustments to our analysis if our number varies significantly from theirs.

Adjustments for specific genres. The pandemic has affected different segments of the audience in different ways. We are currently using four categories of movie in our model: “date night” films (which are doing worse than the general market), action movies (which are doing slightly better), family films, and “everything else” (which includes drama, comedy, and horror movies, among others). Family films seemed to be doing the best in the early stages of the recovery but are now performing much more like other genres.

Adjustments for day-and-date streaming releases. This was taken into account when films were being simultaneously released on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. Since that’s no longer happening, and we haven’t seen a measurable impact from films being released simultaneously on Peacock, no adjustment is currently being made. We are continuing to monitor this aspect of the industry.

Potential breakout hits. Films from major franchises that have the potential to break out beyond what the model otherwise predicts are identified and their predictions increased in line with the performance of other pandemic-era breakouts. These films are currently selected manually.

The expected recovery of the theatrical market as the pandemic is brought under control. The model assumes that the market will settle back to 70% of its pre-pandemic size at the end of the recovery. Growth will be slow at first, accelerate as more people become confident in going to theaters, and then slow down as more cautious moviegoers take time to return to attending. This is the classic ''S-shaped'' curve seen in economics textbooks (and in many cases in the real world). (For more on this see my previous article, How quickly can the box office recover?) The model assumes that this recovery started on April 1, 2021, plateaued in July due to the wave in COVID in infections caused by the Delta variant, and started again when cases waned at the beginning of October. The rise of the Omicron variant at the beginning of 2022 caused another slowdown, which the model assumes will drag down box office from January–April, 2022. Those parameters are likely to be adjusted as the market situation evolves.

- Current release schedule
- Recent release schedule changes
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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com

Filed under: Sony’s Marvel Universe, Chadwick Boseman