Following a strong Thanksgiving, last week’s US box office take was the second softest of any this year. Online interest in new releases is tracking with their offline performance and traffic to Fandango is closely trending with the overall box office gross. The correlation between box office performance and Fandango’s market share suggests that traffic to the movie information and ticketing site can be an early indicator of movies’ sales numbers.

*Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com
The holiday season had a strong start, with Fandango’s market share of visits up 5% for the week of Thanksgiving 2011 over the week of Thanksgiving 2010; this performance is in line with a 5% bump in total US box office sales for the top twelve grossing pictures for Thanksgiving 2011 vs. 2010. The post-Thanksgiving picture was less encouraging where both box office revenues and Fandango’s market share declined.

Though box office and online interest may have slackened, there’s potential for a rebound for additional holiday releases with films like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mission: Impossible, War Horse, The Adventures of Tintin and Sherlock Holmes gaining traction online ahead of their release dates.
Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst with the Strategic Services group for today’s analysis.