‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Tracking $60M Bow; Strong Ticket Sales In The South & Midwest

Nine days before the bow of Universal’s Fifty Shades Of Grey, insiders are predicting that the film is on track to open to $60M over four days, with a huge bounce on Valentine’s Day.

Given how the studio specifically positioned the film over the holiday to capitalize on the mega date night, the question among insiders is whether Fifty Shades is a couples’ film or a girls night (a la when Warner Bros released Sex And The City to $57M in late May 2008). One rival distribution chief believes that young women will hook their boyfriends into seeing Fifty Shades Of Grey, while older women will go in groups.

According to RelishMix, which measures movie social media, the Fifty Shades Of Grey trailer pulled more than 600,000 views on Monday with a total accumulation of 193M views on YouTube alone. The film’s Ellie Goulding Vevo music video “Love Me Like You Do” grabbed 2.3M views in a day and is up to 23M views in a week.

Since tickets went on sale on January 11, the film has fueled boom times for advance ticket sale operators like MovieTickets.com and Fandango. MovieTickets.com reported a 37% surge in January sales versus a year ago thanks to American Sniper and Fifty Shades Of Grey. In Tuesday sales alone, the film repped 42% of all tickets sold for MovieTickets.com on Monday, while the film made up 60% of Fandango’s daily business on Tuesday. 

Fandango is reporting remarkable advance sales for Fifty Shades in many Southern and Midwest states. It’s a remarkable feat for a risque hard-R film in this region, as exhibitors in this area of the country have refused to book NC-17 films. The ticket sales agency is reporting hundreds of sold-out showtimes for the Sam Taylor-Johnson film from the first 8 PM showtimes on Thursday, February 12, throughout Valentine’s Day weekend, in cities ranging from Tupelo, MS, Florence, KY and Chattanooga, TN, to San Diego, Houston, Las Vegas Los Angeles and New York.

Fandango’s analysis of state-by-state presales data shows that the top five performers are Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama. According to Fandango, the top 10 states where Fifty Shades Oof Grey pre-sales are much larger than expected, are ranked below. The company compared the presales performance of Fifty Shades against the average and found surprisingly high numbers in the states listed above:

1. Mississippi: 3.9x
2. Arkansas: 2.8x
3. West Virginia: 2.7x
4. Kentucky: 2.1x
5. Alabama: 2.0x
6. Louisiana: 2.0x
7. North Dakota: 1.9x
8. South Carolina: 1.8x
9. Iowa: 1.7x
10.   Tennessee: 1.6x