Harry Potter On Track To Surpass Twilight With Presales
|
|
By Dave Gonzales on
July 13, 2009
|
|
|
I'm unsure when Fandango pre-sale statistics became of interest. I'm fairly sure back in my day (and I'm comparatively young, so my day wasn't so far back), what made headlines were opening day grosses or lines around the block. Predicting how a movie would do before it came out was a game for the agents and studio execs who had nothing better to do but count their money. For us, the movie going public, it was a human interest story.
Like when I lined up for the re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy. Myself and other Colorado-area fans had never gotten the chance to line up for the original trilogy, so in line I went, totally oblivious to George Lucas who was holed up at Skywalker Ranch, looking to see if the returns would get him psyched enough to do the prequel trilogy.
Whatever the numbers were, they were inconsequential to me at the time. I just wanted to see a movie.
What we're seeing here is the same thing, but with Harry Potter fans. Let's look at some statistics provided by Fandango. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince represents:
- One of the fastest-selling titles in Fandango's nine year history, on track to replace Twilight as the company's third top-selling advance ticketer (following Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith and The Dark Knight, occupying the #1 and #2 spots, respectively).
- A higher number of advance tickets sold for Harry Potter 6 than sold for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Iron Man or Sex and the City at the same point in the sales cycle on Fandango.
- 96% of daily ticket sales on Fandango.
In an even creepier use of data, I was also provided with some "Fun Facts" about these advanced ticket purchasers:
63% are female.
62% planning to see it at midnight say they will go with a group of friends.
45% claim they're also fans of the Twilight saga.
36% picked Order of the Phoenix as their favorite Potter movie, followed by Goblet of Fire (26%) and Azkaban (21%).
23% picked Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) as the supporting character they would most like to see on the screen, while 17% picked Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright).
22% picked Alnwick Castle (Hogwarts exterior) as the Potter series location they would most like to visit, while 20% chose Oxford's Christ Church College Dining Room (Hogwarts Great Hall) and 17% chose King’s Cross Train Station (site of Platform 9 3/4).
"But, Dave," you might be saying, "why are you so non-plussed about this staggering statistic from a company that is ever so slowly trying to erase your memory of ticket services not owned by Comcast, a company that doesn't represent every theater, a company that seems to be inventing these ratings to get you to write the very post you are writing now?"
My answer is this:
That's a picture I took outside the Union Square Barnes & Noble in New York the night Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the final book in the series, was released. And there is no doubt in my mind that scenes like this occurred at more bookstores than I can count. Not only that, but I suspect that all the people pictured will see the Harry Potter film adaptations at least once. I don't see why pre-sales for a Harry Potter movie being huge is news.
But I am happy that a superior series of books is ready to demolish Twilight on every front.
|
|
|
|
|
Tags: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, News |
|
|
|
|
