Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 9/15/24

The post-Labor Day drop wasn’t that precipitous at all for most!

Not that great of a start for Hills of California and Yellow Face, but let’s see if some positive buzz can translate into more sales.

Emphatic ending for Eddie + Gayle at Cabaret. I assume the numbers for the new leads will be even higher on a weekly basis!

We’re at a $1.63 billion pace this season right now in gross gross (behind just the 2018-19 and 17-18 all-time highs). Not bad at all.

fwiw Hills of California was also doing Broadway Week in their first week so the grosses may be higher next week. But it's also included in MTC's subscription so their numbers would probably be slightly off from that of a commercial run anyway.

scripps said: "EDSOSLO858 said: "The post-Labor Day drop wasn’t that precipitous at all for most!

Not that great of astart forHills of CaliforniaandYellow Face,but let’s see if some positive buzz can translate into more sales.

Emphatic ending for Eddie + Gayle atCabaret. I assume the numbers for the new leads willbe even higher on a weekly basis!

We’reat a $1.63 billion pace this season right now in gross gross(behind just the 2018-19 and 17-18 all-time highs). Not bad at all.

"

I don't know. Cabaret is up at TKTS right now for 40% off for tonight's performance and tomorrow's matinee. Sales are looking pretty soft if you glance at most seating charts in the weeks ahead so I am very curious to see where the grosses go from here."

They don't sell well on Wednesday matinees no matter who is in or out. I think that has to do with it being a much darker show, plus the nature of the production with the pre-show stuff itself. Don't know, maybe 7 shows a week would be better on balance? But yeah, the pricing is much cheaper across the board, and for all table seats is anywhere from 150-100 cheaper than what they were for Redmayne. They'll have to get the new cast to do a lot more promo, though only Cravalho has other projects with big interest attached that might help crossover here.

McNeal only had five performances last week since RDJ went to the Emmys and it still made almost a million

Anyone else think Back to the Future will be a thing of the past come 2025? These numbers have end of the year closing written all over it to me. Esp since it hasn't proven to be a holiday juggernaut to make up for losses that one may initially think given brand recognition. That said, I'm sure the Shuberts would prefer the house have a tenant, so they may cut a deal that extends. I can't think of any large scale musicals that would be eyeing the Winter Garden is there?

The one caveat for Back to the Future is that Universal is one of the producers (their theatrical arm) and there could be a world in which they want to pump money into it to keep it running if they feel it helps the overall brand they are trying to build (with tours and other sit down productions). But yes, the show is simply too expensive to run at these grosses. A Jan/Feb closing seems imminent.

I don't know anything off the top of my head that is looking to come in that would fill the Winter Garden. Smash is the only "big" musical without an announced theater...but I'm fairly certain they have the Imperial. Perhaps Florence Welsch's Gatsby? I don't know how big of a production Matt Doyle's Sinatra or Jonathan Groff's Bobby Darin project are, but on paper they don't seem right for the theater. In any case, even if no show wants the theater, BTTF would need a sizeable rent discount to keep going.

OhHiii said: "Anyone else think Back to the Future will be a thing of the past come 2025? These numbers have end of the year closing written all over it to me. Esp since it hasn't proven to be a holiday juggernaut to make up for lossesthat one may initially think given brand recognition. That said, I'm sure the Shuberts would prefer the house have a tenant, so they may cut a deal that extends. I can't think of any large scale musicals that would be eyeing the Winter Garden is there?"


Yes, I bet we'll see an announcement soon. Numbers in the 700s-900s are unsustainable for this show, and they haven't cracked a mil in more than a month. I don't see any reason why Universal Theatrical Group would pour money into BTTF when they're Lead-producing DEATH BECOMES HER and merely a co-producer/rightsholder on BTTF. BTTF has already been running more than a year, and the tour is where it can really clean up.

I have no doubt Shubert has a number of possible tenants for the Winter Garden.

I recall someone on here alleging that Good Night & Good Luck was interested in the WG. George Clooney might be the rare star who could fill 1500 seats. The last non-musical plays at the WG were Wolf Hall (2015) and Othello w JEJ & Christopher Plummer (1982), and a number of plays ran there in the 50s-70s, so it wouldn't be unprecedented.

CATS...?

Updated On: 9/17/24 at 04:23 PM

BTTF is behind Suffs and barely ahead of Water For Elephants and The Notebook. There's no way it's surviving past January.

Universal is not a producer on BTTF. Universal *Pictures* is the licensor of the film rights, that’s all. Collin Ingram is the lead producer as laid out on the title page. Universal *Theatrical* as an entity will be making its Broadway debut with Death Becomes Her. Even the involvement on Wicked is not through the Theatrical entity, but Universal Pictures above title because the theatrical arm didn’t exist when Wicked started. It’s weird but it’s how it is.

I should have qualified that Universal is not the *lead* producer and will be making its LEAD producing Broadway debut with DBH (and is financing it entirely). And often, the studios will get producer credits in the billing without investment (if they had significant investment in any of the shows you list, they would be much farther up on the title page billing block). In the case of BTTF, they’re on the same line as Zemeckis, so it’s quite likely these are a term of the license agreement. Helpful to remember that just because a name is above title doesn’t mean they gave anything monetarily. They can be co-producers for various contributions (people on this board think every celebrity announced as a co-producer is giving them money and going to keep a show open when all they did was commit to a social media post and to show up at opening night for a picture in hopes of winning a Tony). In any case, Universal isn’t shoveling any money into something that very clearly doesn’t have a successful trajectory. It’s not like film studios are consistently raking it in right now from theatrical releases and in the case of Universal specifically, Wicked’s success remains to be seen given recent movie musical box office.


TL;DR: The show will close soon, Universal isn’t going to pay to keep it running.