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Originally Posted by nearmint
I just meant the drive-in double feature thing. Not too many drive-ins left.
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Studios care about optics, and aren’t above manipulating box-office figures to maximize positive news. “Wrinkle,” with second-run dates largely behind it and initial home viewing venues already showing, looked like it would stop at about $98,300,000. And then this week — voila! It also became, not insignificantly, one of the rare female-directed titles to reach that level. How is that possible?
Two factors, neither of which are nefarious: “Incredibles 2,” and drive-in theaters. They might seem like a relic, but drive-in theaters still exist and they still play first-run films, mostly for famililes.
That made “Incredibles 2” a prime title for them. But drive-ins do things different in one big way, which gave Disney its opportunity. They always play a second feature — and that’s what gave “Wrinkle” its $100 million gold star.
Here’s how: Usually, the second drive-in feature is a film held over from another distributor, with both films receiving a percentage of film rental from the gross. Sometimes it’s an even split; sometimes the older film receives less. When the film comes from the same distributor, the theater pays a flat fee (say, $500) fee rather than the second film sharing in the gross. (A flat sometimes can come from another distributor as well).
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Summer and families it can make a few million difference.