Lionsgate × AYMI

Tentpole theatrical launches are still mostly bought like it's 2015 — heavy reach, heavy waste, late-window panic spend. Lionsgate wanted to test whether a franchise release could be run with DTC-grade measurement on top of the cinematic muscle, without losing the event feel that fills theaters.

The brief: keep the spectacle, prove the math.

Five movements: Discovery, Strategy, Creative, Launch, Optimize. Each one feeds the next; the loop closes on Optimize and starts again on Discovery.

1. Step 01Discovery

   Franchise audience taxonomy — diehards, lapsed-fans, crossover, cold — mapped against historical box-office data and trailer-view-to-ticket conversion rates.

2. Step 02Strategy

   Three-phase media plan: pre-buzz seeding (8 weeks out) → week-of saturation → opening-weekend conversion. Different cohorts, different KPI per phase.

3. Step 03Creative

   Three trailer cut-downs (mood / character / action) tested against cohorts. The franchise hero set held; what shifted was which cut hit which cohort and when.

4. Step 04Launch

   Coordinated digital + theatrical paid + influencer + earned. Real-time pacing reviews opening weekend.

5. Step 05Optimize

   Daily cohort burn-rate reviews during the conversion phase; mid-week reallocation lifted opening weekend ticket conversion materially.

Trailer viewing grew well beyond the franchise's prior releases, and it grew in the cohorts most likely to buy opening-weekend tickets. Acquisition got cheaper as the phase-by-phase cohort model replaced flat-rate reach buying. Franchise awareness broadened, opening-weekend intent built earlier, and earned media picked up the story on its own.

The spectacle held. The math worked. Lionsgate's release blueprint has since been updated to absorb the phasing model.