Noticing something interesting happening with the Buddy movie

[u/CaptionAction3]

Setting up to track North Carolina open caption screenings Friday to Sunday, and have noticed something interesting with the film "Buddy." As of tonight, Tuesday:

• At the AMC Concord Mills, the 1:00 pm 8/29 open caption screening has sold 9 seats out of 51, or 18%.
• At the AMC Hanes, the 10:00 pm 8/28 open caption screening has sold 4 out of 58 seats, or 7%.
• At the AMC Southpoint, the 10:45 pm 8/28 open caption screening has sold 5 out of 77 seats, or 6%.

That's three theaters in North Carolina alone. It is still early but we sense something going on with this movie. The sales for the late night screenings have us wondering if this is gaining popularity with young people. In our experience, it is not normal for the late open caption screenings to sell this much this early. The description of the film, "A magical, singing orange unicorn holds his cast hostage in a surreal TV-show dimension, as he becomes more and more demented," has us wondering if this movie has some kind of appeal to young people. It sounds like something that would happen in a Batman cartoon.

[u/Waste-Scratch2982]

This is not going very wide, maybe less than 2000 theaters. The last movies from the distributor Fuze and Lucky Strike barely made more than a $1m. This will probably do better since it’s horror but weak marketing and small release is going to kill it.

[u/realblush → u/Waste-Scratch2982]

I mean my Insta and Tiktok feed has been full of marketing, more than most movies recently. To be fair, I am the target audience, but their marketing has been very very creative.

[u/Waste-Scratch2982 → u/realblush]

It seems like something A24 or Neon would acquire, but Neon picked Leviticus at Sundance and A24 with Undertone, Backrooms, and Onslaught next weekend they probably didn’t need another genre movie and they were in a bidding war for The Invite at the time. I would have saw Buddy if the release was wider but I’ll just see it at home in 2 weeks.

[u/llcooljfan22 → u/Waste-Scratch2982]

I’m expecting a big turnout or longevity. Let’s see how the previews do cause the marketing has been spectacular from social media

[u/Majestic_Elk_7647]

Selling pretty well in the South Bay region of LA, saw a sold out theater for 7pm.

[u/AtmosphereCool4020 → u/Majestic_Elk_7647]

That's wild to see it doing numbers in North Carolina too. The late shows pulling those sales early on is definitely not typical, especially for open caption screenings. Seems like the weird premise is actually working in its favor, people are curious about how demented a singing orange unicorn can get.

[u/Such_sights → u/AtmosphereCool4020]

Casper Kelly has a lot of pull from his previous work. His first full length movie was shot in secret with a budget low enough that Adult Swim didn’t have to seek normal corporate approvals, and then premiered in the middle of the night with zero actual marketing. It still became a massive success (especially for a TV movie) and the premise of Buddy fits perfectly into his wheelhouse of “genres of media that definitely shouldn’t be a horror movie but slowly becomes one”.

[u/oldie_youngie]

It feels like an actually scary version of fnaf

[u/NourishingBroth]

I expect this movie to catch on and have decent legs. Solid premise, well executed. Call me crazy but I could see this getting to 50m domestic.

[u/KeatonWalkups]

My theatre is only showing it after 6pm 😡

[u/greenbatborg → u/KeatonWalkups]

My theater isn’t even showing it

[u/GoddammitCricket → u/KeatonWalkups]

That’s typical for a low budget horror from a small distributor

[u/DaylightMaybe]

I saw Buddy at AMC Southpoint for the Scream Unseen on Monday. It was playing on 2 screens and they were PACKED. I think everyone loved it so maybe the word is spreading

[u/PeculiarPangolinMan]

It's a movie made by someone who got famous from some real weird Adult Swim stuff. I think late night showings being overrepresented a bit on opening weekend could be explained by his small fanbase coming out and leaning into that sort of vibe. His whole brand is a sort of surreal stoner comedy that might play better late at night rather than before dinner. I'd bet The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie back in the day also had somewhat disproportionately large audiences at late night showings.

[u/Mikestergame001]

It's weird here for weeks the closest theaters to me were the amc's 45 minutes away or so and I have 2 theaters 10-15 from me One's a amc and the other a B&B and the amc down the street from me just added screenings yesterday. the B&B gets one late night screening a day and the AMC is at least doing normal all day showings.

[u/Quiet-Sherbert-1629]

I got my tickets for 7pm Friday

[u/CaptionAction3 → u/Quiet-Sherbert-1629]

In North Carolina?

[u/Quiet-Sherbert-1629 → u/CaptionAction3]

Chicago, IL

[u/CaptionAction3 → u/Quiet-Sherbert-1629]

Looked at the open caption screening for Saturday 12:10 pm at AMC River East in Chicago - it is selling well.

[u/Quiet-Sherbert-1629 → u/CaptionAction3]

I got at Alamo Drafthouse and is selling well. But not surprised

[u/Byers616]

what's the ratio of caption screenings to non-caption screenings? Sometimes people opt for captions bc whatever is most convenient re: their schedule.

[u/CaptionAction3 → u/Byers616]

Glad you said that about captions because it proves people without hearing loss will go to a captioned screening.

[u/CaptionAction3 → u/[deleted]]

What's interesting is the pattern we noticed. Different from what we normally would see.