Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 3/3/24

Over $1 million for Circle in the Square for not even the full 8 performances?!? Enemy of the People is about to go off the next 16 weeks!

Plays are basically the only good news this week. PRAYER and APPROPRIATE both went out on highs, and ENEMY started incredibly strong.

An influx of tourists can't come soon enough for most of these shows. Even the stalwarts (Mormon, MJ, Moulin, Ham, Six, Juliet) could all stand to do better. I even wonder if BTTF's best days are behind it. I was always a little skeptical that the audience would remain consistent for that show.

There's zero data behind this and the difference is probably negligible, but any shows hoping for walkup or TKTS business this weekend were probably disappointed: Saturday (a two-show day) was miserably rainy, and Sunday was the first really beautiful day in months where everyone wanted to be outside.

Updated On: 3/5/24 at 01:55 PM

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I even wonder if BTTF's best days are behind it. I was always a little skeptical that the audience would remain consistent for that show."

The easy thing to overlook about BTTF is that it was on-sale from end of October 2022 until it opened (for previews) end of June 2023... a period that the show was pumping out a LOT of social content from London.

No one's advances are what they used to be, but if I remember correctly, BTTF still had a very healthy advance. Thinking of advances as a tail, it wouldn't be inconceivable that their recent grosses reflect their current sales and marketing efforts, with no lingering contribution from their initial advance.

Perhaps their recent grosses are what their "true" grosses are and that higher grosses from the summer/fall 2023 were a product of their investment in their advance.

They're certainly not putting out the amount of social content they were from London, that's for sure.

supersam1026 said: "Over $1 million for Circle in the Square for not even the full 8 performances?!? Enemy of the People is about to go off the next 16 weeks!"

I agree this is very strong! I do wonder if this will continue as more new shows start previews later this month.

I personally have not watched Succession so I'm not too familiar with Jeremy Strong but his name is selling tickets and that's great!

Wick3 said: "supersam1026 said: "Over $1 million for Circle in the Square for not even the full 8 performances?!? Enemy of the People is about to go off the next 16 weeks!"

I agree this is very strong! I do wonder if this will continue as more new shows start previews later this month.

I personally have not watched Succession so I'm not too familiar with Jeremy Strong but his name is selling tickets and that's great!"



Looks like the rock solid combination of Strong and Imperioli (especially with The Sopranos currently receiving all of the 25th Anniversary attention) is a winning strategy. Victoria Pedretti also has her own demographic (who may or may not be buying tickets yet). So glad to see this is more in the Sam Gold A Dolls House 2 & Fun Home wheelhouse than the Sam Gold Macbeth/King Lear wheelhouse.

I'm not ready to write off NOTEBOOK, even if it has dipped every week since its first. Note that it's still just doing 7-show preview weeks, reviews aren't out, the music isn't available, and it's not a huge expensive show. Still time to build.

I expect BTTF to continue to do middling business for the spring and then kick off big time once more in the summer. It has the potential to be a hot spot for families and tourists during the summer months. It'll then probably taper out in the fall and close up shop after another robust holiday season.

And A Beautiful Noise still won't release a discount code despite their pitiful grosses.

Idk if they will necessarily cancel each other out. Isn’t it always a lot of new musicals every season? I feel like we’re going to start to see more of the old hits coming back. Mamma Mia, Phantom, Les Mis, perhaps other remounts

Anybody know Hadestown’s weekly nut?

Back in 2019 a forum member suggested Hadestown weekly nut may be around $800k/week.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1119978

^ Except jukebox musicals and musicals based on movies aren’t selling out theaters either. At least, not when they’re mediocre, which they increasingly seem to be. Have we already forgotten about ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE, KING KONG, SUMMER, THE CHER SHOW, ALMOST FAMOUS, ONCE UPON A ONE MORE TIME, MRS. DOUBTFIRE, TOOTSIE, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and NEW YORK NEW YORK? Nearly all of them were rejected by audiences and closed within a few months. Audiences aren’t as dumb as people around here think. BACK TO THE FUTURE struggling is a sign of that, I think. There are just as many jukebox musicals and movie-turned-musicals that flop every year as there are original shows that flop every year. Sure, the ones with familiar titles might have better advance ticket sales, but once those dry up and word of mouth gets around, they tend to fold pretty quickly. I guess I say all of this to say that blaming all of Broadway’s problems on jukebox musicals and musicals based on movies is a bit naive in my opinion.