As of Thursday, July 29, we have completed 30 film weeks in 2021. The $105M North American total for week 30 of 2021 compares to $245M for the same week in 2019, amounting to only 42% of two years ago. Grosses for the first four weeks of Q3 2021 are 46% of the amount from the first four weeks of Q3 2019. Our most recent four-week run rate has for the second week in a row maintained 46%. Our Year To Date after 30 weeks has now climbed to 25% of 2019.
VELOCITY- SPEED OF RECOVERY
We are now going to turn our attention to the speed of the recovery. A calculation that we will call “Velocity” measures the speed at which the industry is recovering. By calculating the difference between our most recent run rate of 46% versus our first run rate in January of 8% we see an improvement of 38% in our 2021 to 2019 weekly comparison through the first 30 weeks of this year, increasing from 8% to 46%.
To calculate the speed of this recovery we take the percentage point improvement of 38 and divide it by the number of weeks it took to generate that improvement (38/30). This gives us a “speed of recovery” equal to 1.27 percentage points per week. All things being equal, we can use this speed of recovery to project what week in the future our four-week run rate will have risen to reach 75% of the same week in 2019.
We maintain that a box office result of 75%, when compared with grosses from 2019, represents the point at which the best-run theatre circuits, both large and small, could begin to operate profitably. Of course, each new week will bring its results which may measure up more or less favorably to the same week in 2019, and these variations will change the velocity of the recovery and therefore the projected date when the 75% milestone would be attained. Just sit back and relax, because Screendollars will make all these calculations for you! Watch this space as the results continue to come in.