Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/6/24

[Rob]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:22pm

Click below to access all the Broadway grosses from all the shows for the week ending 10/6/2024 in BroadwayWorld's grosses section.

Also, you will find information on each show's historical grosses, cumulative grosses and other statistics on how each show stacked up this week and in the past.

Click Here to Visit the Broadway Grosses...

Up for the week by attendance (% of capacity) was: & JULIET (11.7%), BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL (10%), WICKED (7.7%), CHICAGO (5.4%), HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (4.1%), ONCE UPON A MATTRESS (3.2%), THE BOOK OF MORMON (3.2%), JOB (3%), MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL (2.7%), SIX (2.1%), HAMILTON (2%), THE NOTEBOOK (1.8%), HADESTOWN (1.1%), THE GREAT GATSBY (0.1%),

Down for the week by attendance (% of capacity) was: THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA (-18.4%), LEFT ON TENTH (-9.9%), SUFFS (-7.7%), SUNSET BLVD. (-6.8%), THE ROOMMATE (-5.6%), CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB (-5%), OUR TOWN (-5%), THE LION KING (-2.7%), STEREOPHONIC (-2.1%), ALADDIN (-1.9%), ROMEO + JULIET (-1%), WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (-0.9%), YELLOW FACE (-0.8%), HELL'S KITCHEN (-0.7%), MJ THE MUSICAL (-0.5%),

Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses...

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:30pm

Solid week in which most boats were floated — but ouch, Suffs. 
I believe they’ll post their closing notice before Back to the Future does. 

Bit of a downfall for Cabaret too…

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 01:30 PM

[ElephantLoveMedley]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:39pm

Wicked out-grossed The Lion King this week. Has that been happening recently? Or are they increasing prices at the Gershwin now as demand for the show rises with the movie coming out next month?

[MayAudraBlessYou2]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:40pm

In all likelihood, both Back to the Future and Suffs will sadly not survive past January. Even when improving grosses by $100K+ over last week, BTTF is still a good $200K below breaking even. Christmas season will be kind to them, but it's clear that there are far too many weeks in the year with these low grosses to make money. Time to just focus on the tour, where it will have a much easier time.

As for Cabaret, this is what I always expected to happen. Not sure why the producers thought otherwise. Lambert and Cravalho have sizeable audiences, and are pulling in great gross numbers...if it were any other show. If memory serves, the weekly breakeven for this behemoth is about $1.1 million. It's an insane number that is simply not possible in the long term. At least not for a show like this, which NY theatergoers are already very familiar with thanks to the two stagings of the Mendes/Cumming version. A version nearly everyone considers vastly superior. This was simply never going to catch on the way it did in London. The costs and expectations are too high.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:44pm

EDSOSLO858 said: " but ouch,Suffs. I believe they’ll post their closing notice beforeBack to the Future does."

all depends on the next tenant for each theatre and the producers' agreements with Shubert.

In particular, the WG is a big house with a lot of seats to sell and I'm sure its next occupant would like to go on sale sooner than later, even if it doesn't make a huge difference in the long run.

I'm sure SUFFS would like to wait until after the election to post notice but that might not be possible.

[jkcohen626]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:46pm

A mixed bag week, which I feel is pretty standard for this time of year. Rosh Hashanah was last week, which significantly reduces the Jewish audience. I'd wager that that was the reason for drops among many of the Plays and Suffs. Even the straight plays that increased grosses probably would've done a lot better with the holiday. 

Great first longer week for Sunset. Obviously not $305k per performance anymore, but this would be consistent with a $1.4 million full week, which would be great. 

I'd put the following shows on closing watch in order of most to least likely:

• Suffs
• Back to the Future 
• (Gap)
• Cabaret
• (Big gap)
• &Juliet
• Harry Potter

I had thought that the bottom might fall out for Moulin. But, it seems the combo of Aaron and JoJo has brought them back into profit and they always do gangbusters during the holiday. That'll be enough to keep them going for a while. 

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:50pm

Anecdotally I've seen Hills of California get a lot of good word of mouth (and the reviews were quite good), but it seems that they may need to make a push to get more people into the theater.  Our Town too is probably not doing the kind of numbers they'd want with their celebrity casting (is Jim Parsons actually a box office draw?), though we'll have to see about reviews.  Left on Tenth seems to have a high ticket average as well for the number of seats they're filling--are they not discounting or is it just that their target demographic tends to not use discount codes?

Sunset Boulevard doing over a million on 6 performances is pretty impressive (though to be fair the St. James is quite large), though I'm curious to see which way the wind will blow on this.  It could be people going early to see a heavily lauded performance but between the minimalism and abstraction this might be a hard sell to tourists and I'm curious to see how NYC critics view it.

Oh Mary really continues to astound

[carolinaguy]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:51pm

ElephantLoveMedley said: "Wicked out-grossed The Lion King this week. Has that been happening recently? Or are they increasing prices at the Gershwin now as demand for the show rises with the movie coming out next month?"

Wicked has been the top grosser several times over the past few months.

[Ensemble1696584123]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 1:55pm

Unless Sunset gets completely rapturous reviews and word of mouth hit, I don't know if it'll become a sellout hit. Just good reviews are not got going to be enough to sustain it.

And I don't know if Lambert and Cravalho are bringing in audiences. There's an understudy performance next week, and the difference between that and one with Lambert in is not much different. Could they convince Eddie Redmayne to come back in the New Year? Don't see how they swing any other replacements.

[Wick3]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 2:03pm

MayAudraBlessYou2 said: "In all likelihood, both Back to the Future and Suffs will sadly not survive past January. Even when improving grosses by $100K+ over last week, BTTF is still a good $200K below breaking even. Christmas season will be kind to them, but it's clear that there are far too many weeks in the year with these low grosses to make money. Time to just focus on the tour, where it will have a much easier time.

As for Cabaret, this is what I always expected to happen. Not sure why the producers thought otherwise. Lambert and Cravalho have sizeable audiences, and are pulling in great gross numbers...if it were any other show. If memory serves, the weekly breakeven for this behemoth is about $1.1 million. It's an insane number that is simply not possible in the long term. At least not for a show like this, which NY theatergoers are already very familiar with thanks to the two stagings of the Mendes/Cumming version. A version nearly everyone considers vastly superior.This was simply never going to catch on the way it did in London. The costs and expectations are too high."

I thought the $1.1 million break even or weekly nugget for Cabaret was when Eddie Redmayne was in the cast. Given he has left, perhaps Lambert/Cravalho have a lower salary and thus weekly nugget may be lower or may be based on ticket sales?

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 2:10pm

SUNSET is tricky to predict.

Even assuming it gets rapturous reviews over here as it did in London, it's going to be a test of Nicole's drawing power, especially once we get into the dark, cold months of Jan & Feb. (It's on sale through July as of now; I don't know how much longer she's contracted after that.)

If MERRILY is a valid comparison (and I don't know if it is), the St. James has almost double the number of seats as the Hudson, and one could argue that Radcliffe + Groff meant more than Scherzinger. MERRILY ticket prices were driven up by scarcity. But there's also a sexiness about this SUNSET that might attract more casual buyers.

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 02:10 PM

[Ensemble1696584123]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 2:22pm

Merrily could maybe become a good comparison if reviews are as glowing. But they will be so Nicole-focused, that I don't know they could be a Merrily where it sells out easily even with Radcliffe out (albeit with lower prices). And I think the production as a whole cost quite a bit more than Merrily, so they have to be able to stick around for longer than Merrily.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 2:37pm

I don't know about the SUNSET cap/running cost, but the cast has 6 more than Merrily (28 vs 22) and the orchestra has 5 more players (19 vs 14). Plus a number of actors being housed.

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 2:57pm

Sunset does not need to sell out the St. James in order to meet its weekly operating costs. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 3:28pm

QueenAlice said: "Sunset does not need to sell out the St. James in order to meet its weekly operating costs."

I should hope NO show has to sell out its theatre just to break even!!!!

[Ensemble1696584123]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 3:34pm

I was mostly using sell out to describe the kind or urgency to see show where people would be pretty willing to see the show even with the major draw star out. St James is massive and barring someone like Jackman, very difficult to sell it out every night.

[Kad]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 3:41pm

Wick3 said: "
I thought the $1.1 million break even or weekly nugget for Cabaret was when Eddie Redmayne was in the cast.Given he has left, perhaps Lambert/Cravalho have a lower salary and thus weekly nugget may be lower or may be based on ticket sales?"

Redmayne was undoubtedly getting a sizable paycheck but he wasn't making enough to drive up the weekly cost so much. Between the extensive renovations, the pre-show ensemble, and the expanded food and beverage options and front of house and hospitality staff, the production has taken on additional expenses that other shows simply don't have despite the production itself not being huge.

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 03:41 PM

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 3:42pm

Ensemble1696584123 said: "I was mostly using sell out to describe the kind or urgency to see show where people would be pretty willing to see the show even with the major draw star out. St James is massive and barring someone like Jackman, very difficult to sell it out every night."

Scarcity can drive interest. It shouldn't be the end of the world if they average 90% seats sold per week, but no producer wants to lower prices if they're having trouble moving them at full-price (and it means you can't raise them based on demand). Regularly being up at the TKTS booth is better than being on TDF or giving out orchestra lotto/rush seats, but it doesn't get you that coveted $200+ average price (not that they need that price point to be successful).

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 3:49pm

Kad said: "Redmayne was undoubtedly getting a sizable paycheck but he wasn't making enough to drive up the weekly cost so much. Between the extensive renovations, the pre-show ensemble, and the expanded food and beverage options and front of house and hospitality staff, the production has taken on additional expenses that other shows simply don't have despite the production itself not being huge."

I reckon the salary line for the two stars is nearly identical to what it was for Red & Rank. It may even be that Auli'i's getting more than Gayle but Adam a little less than Eddie. Who knows. In the eyes of agents, these people are close to equal, and we know Lambert has turned down a number of Broadway roles over the years.

[Feidlimid]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:09pm

If they pay Lambert similar to Redmayne, despite him not having much of (or any? Don't know how his albums sell) track record of selling things, let alone Broadway tickets, they have only themselves to blame.

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:19pm

I believe both Suffs and BTTF will close in Jan. But I don't think Suffs will announce until post election whereas I think it could be anytime for BTTF. And anyone who thinks Suffs is in worse shape than BTTF is kidding themselves.  Yes the gross is a bit lower this week but relative to running cost, BTTF is losing way more money each week

Sunset is doing well so far but I don't think it'll be a massive smash.

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 04:19 PM

[binau]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:19pm

I would ALMOST feel sorry for the producers of Cabaret but as soon as that 1.1 million figure was leaked and they only had Redmayne for the time they did the writing was on the wall and performances hadn't even started. Those costs just aren't a good business model - and if in 2014 Michelle Williams, Emma Stone and Alan Cumming could not ignite a box office alight more than respectable I don't know how they thought just 10 years later things would be different with a 2nd revival. New York theatre is honestly brutal. 

I'm afraid that Operation Mincemeat could be the next West End victim. I am praying for Sunset - it's quite exciting because besides the first preview they had basically no advance and last week a significant number of those seats were sold last minute. I don't believe that Nicole will ever be a draw in her own right - it's going to take the full army of word of mouth buzz and reviews to carry this show. I think the 'product' is so good that it's going to work but it really is too early to tell right now if this show will have legs or not. 

 

[Kad]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:28pm

I think Sunset has significant advantages here - aside from being a much less expensive production, it's also a property that isn't as legendary and beloved in NYC as Cabaret which gives it a lot of wiggle room for expectations. It's also specifically a star vehicle for Nicole- there seems to be no illusion here that this will continue without her, unlike Cabaret which was from the get-go obviously positioned as a long runner that stars could be thrown into.

Sunset also has already gotten quite a following, very positive word of mouth, and has gone viral for all the right reasons. Nicole coming out of the stage door has already been made into memes and copied by drag queens. By contrast, Cabaret went viral for the wrong reasons.

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 04:28 PM

[ACL2006]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:38pm

How much longer can HADESTOWN hold on grossing $700-$600k? They still come close to filling the theater with their somewhat low average ticket prices.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/8/24 at 4:46pm

CAB has a lot of self-inflicted problems and I wonder if they're regretting the preshow stuff & some of what they did to renovate the space. I wonder if it even gets to the point where they'd consider scrapping that stuff to trim the running costs?

For SUNSET, Scherzinger seems to have a level of goodwill among women & gays in their 30s-40s even if she's not quite as famous as some of her contemporaries. This being a camp event that overlaps as a piece of prestige entertainment doesn't guarantee it sells out, but it doesn't hurt and may help its accessibility.

Updated On: 10/8/24 at 04:46 PM