This Week’s Long Lead Tracking Grid: KUNG FU PANDA 4 Looks To Leverage The Lack Of Family Films.

As we look at 2024, there’s a chance that several family and animated films will land among the year-end top 10 thanks to several returning franchises. Illumination brings back its flagship property with DISPICABLE ME 4. Pixar looks to right the ship with INSIDE OUT 2, and Paramount plans on delivering SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 next Christmas.

First up, however, is KUNG FU PANDA 4, arriving in theaters on March 8th. The original PANDA was the 6th highest grossing film of 2008 with a $215M haul. However, it’s been diminishing returns since then. The most recent one, KUNG FU PANDA 3, took in only $144M in 2016.

Combine declining ticket sales with an eight-year gap, and the KUNG FU PANDA 4 has some headwinds to contend with. On the plus side, when it opens in March, it will be the first new family film in theaters since MIGRATION. There should be a sizable appetite for something new for the kids.

The good news is that tracking for PANDA 4 is on the rise. This week, the film rises from the “Average’ to the “Strong” bucket. Could this one reverse the franchise’s box office fortunes? Maybe.

SEE THE FULL REPORT HERE

The Long Lead Tracking Report looks at films more than six weeks from release. Each film is given anywhere from 1 to 5 diamonds based on how the film is perforn The Quorum’s main tracking metrics: Awareness, Interest, In A Theater, and Pay To See.

Diamonds are assigned based on how well the film is tracking compared to other films in the same group at the same distance from release.

Films are then sorted into one of five buckets, from “High End” to “Low End,” based on the total number of stars across the four metrics as follows: 

Diamond (“Low End”). 7-8 Diamonds (“Below Average”), 9-14 Diamond (“Average”), 15-18 Diamonds (“Strong”), 19-20 Diamonds (“High End”)

You’ll notice a column with numbers in red. This represents the average opening weekend for the film’s group. Titles that sit at the highest buckets (“High End” and “Strong”) are well positioned to open higher than that number in red. Conversely, titles at the lower buckets (“Below Average” and “Low End”) are tracking to open below the number in red.