Why Attendance Tells a Better Story Than Box Office

This episode is presented by AMC Network. A new chapter in Anne Rice's Immortal Universe begins with AMC's "The Vampire Listot." Get a backstage pass to the iconic frontman, who pace magazine calls a Bowie-inspired rocker that will have fans screaming. Don't miss the legendary vampire Listot Delian Corps in his own electrifying rock saga. Watch The Vampire Listot Sundays only on AMC and AMC+. Learn more at AMCplus.com. It is Thursday, July 2nd. We talk a lot in this show about box office, meaning the revenue that movie theaters take in from paying customers. Frankly, that's because box office is what the town obsesses over, especially right now because grosses are up about 15% over last year. Best performance since COVID and on a roll this summer, they're still down 18% from pre-pandemic levels. But maybe we should be talking more about admissions. That's the measure of how many people are going to theaters to see these movies. The butts and seats. As most people in town know, movie admissions peaked in 2002 and have been dropping since then. According to the researcher Matthew Ball, though there's some debate about the extent of the decline. The industry grew over that time, but it was thanks mostly due to ticket price hikes and premium formats like 3D and iMacs. Then COVID hit both admissions and box office fell off a cliff and the expectation is that neither will return to pre-COVID levels ever again. But some new data suggests not only rising box office, but a spike recently in admissions as well. According to intelligence, admissions hit 349.4 million from January 1st to June 28th of this year. That's up 10% over the first half of 2025. And since COVID, there have been some shifts in who is going to movies and more importantly, how often. Obviously the R-rated horror spike this year is juicing younger demos, women turned out for devilwears prior to two, but there's some more surprising data as well. So I asked Steve Buck, a co-founder of intelligence, to come on the show and discuss the numbers. Today, it's movie attendance, the age demos, and political affiliations of theater goers, and the kinds of movies drawing more butts to more seats. From the Ruger & Buck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town. Okay, we are here with Steve Buck, who is the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Intelligence and Analytics firm. Welcome to the show, Steve. Thanks for having me, Matt. All right, before we start in on this, I find your data super interesting. I love looking at the attendance numbers and how you break down who's going to movies, what demos, where, how much they're paying, etc., etc. Tell us why the attendance metric is important when you're looking at movies and why it may even be more important than box office. Yeah, one attendance is never going to replace box office as a unit of measurement. I'm going to be clear about that, but attendance has its own place. When you think about the entirety of the ecosystem, the actual historically was the only part of it that was never measuring impressions for eyeballs, whether it was DVD transactions, it was linear television, it's always measured in impressions or eyeballs. What we're doing in Intelligence is translating what's happening in the theater into attendance, and the reason that becomes so important is really for better understanding of the overall reach of the context, whether it's the film itself, understanding what is the franchise capabilities, whether or not it's the ads that are occurring before the theater. We want to understand how many people are actually seeing those ads. So attendance has a really important place in the ecosystem itself. Yeah, I find the numbers compelling, like when Adam Aaron, our friend at AMC, Hill sometimes Tweet, you know, four million people went and saw this movie in our theaters this week. And that's a pretty impressive stat that you're getting, like that many people, out of their house into a theater to see a particular title in a weekend. It'd be like if you were looking at the Nielsen charts and be like, oh yeah, Stranger Things was delivered two billion dollars in revenue to Netflix. Like you don't see those numbers. You see Stranger Things delivered X amount of millions of viewers. And it's worthwhile knowing that number and discussing it for movies. We want more people going to the theater, right? Of course we want more box office, box office translates to revenue revenue, you know, lines the pockets. We appreciate that. But the reality is in order to grow that we have to understand how many people are walking through the door. Yeah. And I think the reality is that Hollywood has focused on box office because that is more manipulable. You know, you can raise prices and the box office will go up. You are subject to inflation. And you can compare this year's grosses to grosses from 10 years ago without discussing the fact that inflation has given those prices a big boost and it's kind of not the same. So if you're comparing attendance to attendance from 10 years ago, maybe it's not going to be as flattering. That's right. And also the format too on top of that, right? Well, is there a 3D upcharge? Is there a premium format upcharge? Whatever that may be? How many people are actually going to the theater? That's going to vary the measuring the overall movie goes. One quick note though, you even note you share the decline of attendance since 2002. The reality is, well, we've seen intelligence, the data from the 15 years prior to the pandemic. Attendance was actually rather stable. So I often refuse that. Okay. And average is all because you see all these charts that people put out that are like, oh, you know, everything peaked in 2002. Spider-Man was the last year that everybody went to the movies and then per capita, the number of movies people see per year has declined and the overall attendance has declined, but you're saying it's been somewhat steady? Yeah, I'd say for the 15 years prior to the pandemic, I think we're between 1.1 and 1.2 billion attendees went to the theater. Okay. Some years was up, some years was down, but from all intents and purposes, it was about 1.15 billion tickets were sold. Let's get into why attendance matters here because obviously the narrative has been that ticket price increases and the format changes and everything has padded the industry at the expense of its customers and essentially is propping it up by making it more expensive to go to movies. You note that the average movie price domestically this year was $13.47 for an adult. An adult published ticket price. Yeah. And despite that, the numbers are up this year. So what is fueling that? Yeah, well, one thing about ticket pricing, it's actually, believe it or not, it's in line with inflationary rates. A lot of people don't recognize that. So whether it's ads or gas or housing or cars, whatever it may be, it's actually in line. So yes, it's been an increase. I think when I looked at the data recently comparing this to 2023, there was an average ticket price increase of about 10%, but again, look at the inflation rate. It was 10%. Okay. So you'd argue that the inflation adjusted number has not gone up that, COVID decimated the attendance number. That's right. And it has crept up a little bit each year since then. And now we see it spiking. What about this year is causing it to spike? I think we're finally at a sense at normalcy, honestly, within the box office. We've had these sort of starts and stops since the pandemic, whether it was Spider-Man, No Way Home, whether it was Top Gun, whether it was Barbon Heimer, we're finally at this normal pace. You know, the days of checkerboard seating and alternating rows for social distancing are gone. And we've just, we put all that stuff in the rear of the mirror. The strikes are now gone. That obviously was an impact. That slowed things down in the other year. But now we're finally at a pace where there's constant product coming out to the theater. And beyond that, I think that theaters are getting a little bit more creative. We released the stat June 12th weekend. There was literally a million dollars in box office activity around sports, FIFA, UFC, NBA playoffs. So they're getting a little bit more creative. But is it just the movies? Is it just the number of movies is up? And the studios seem to be having more appealing product and the superhero fatigue that has dragged down things over the past couple of years as being replaced finally by other genres of movies that are working like Michael and like back rooms and obsession. And these other types of movies that are kind of filled the void. Like what do the demos tell us about what kinds of movies are working? Yeah, I think James Z is definitely playing a big factor. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. You've noted back rooms in obsession. I think the amazing thing about those two times in particular, as well as Michael, they've had some really nice legs. It hasn't just been really front loaded. So it's not just in and out for the opening weekend. Things have really stuck around. They've been able to find their way within the marketplace and find audiences as a result being just great titles. So is it a specific demo thing? Like the data is showing you that because I saw a report Matthew Ball, the researcher, did a report in 2024 that noted that a big factor in the decline in admissions was the relative abandonment of the two to 24 demo essentially saying that young people are no longer going to the movies at the same frequency as they once did. And that was the result of that was the decline in admissions. What is the data from this year Show it! key age groups for us under 13 and over 60 and the reason those are so key is because they value those figure prices differently. So we always put a strong focus on those. And when I look at under 13, this year, the last year, 12% this year versus 13% last year. So essentially negligible. When I look at 60, we're talking 6% versus 5%. Again, it's very negligible. I think what's happening, it's not necessarily that there's a new age group that's been activated. I think what's happening is the different age groups are finding the different areas of interest. Moons ago, when there was the beginning of the decline of the superhero in a sense, the way we would look at that is what happened was the audiences were aging up, right? Superhero movies might have been desired by say 25 or 30 year olds. What have you? Well, those people might be 50, 55 now. So I think things are just aging up. And in the case of the younger generation, they clearly seem to be leaning towards horror. Yeah, and is the demo showing that what kind of genres are performing and not performing? You noted in your mid-year report that action doesn't necessarily perform as well anymore. And it's more horror and younger skewing. I think that's what's the most surprising thing for us this year. For us to say that action is down and horror and animation, I like to look at that with a bit of caution, right? In this industry, we've had these false narratives or false positives before, think of anyone but you. We say, "Oh my gosh, our rated comedians are back." Well, hang on, maybe I was just a great movie, and hit really the right cylinders with the right audiences. So we want to be mindful of that. Same here. So I don't want to say doom and gloom for action and it's horror and all animation. I think a year ago we might have been questioning whether or not horror has sustainability, right? So I think we always want to look at these things with a not necessarily an isolated manner, but more like over like a 12-month, 18-month period. Interesting. Okay. And so one of the other things you think may be helping attendance is the windowing issue. We talk a lot about windowing on this show. And a number of these studios have committed to longer windows. They're backing away from the three weeks, and it's on subscription, video, and demand. And you think that might be helping? Absolutely. I mean, again, the three movies you've already mentioned, "Backroom, Subcession, and Michael." I mean, look at the tale of those three movies that had. And I would argue that if the window was my shorter, well, then the consumer likely might pick those titles elsewhere, meaning at the home. Yeah. So you think that that is working? Absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting because I count now. Whenever the streaming date is announced, I always count backwards. And I noticed that for Super Mario, universal data, I believe it's a four-month window from there. Yeah. For Avatar, it got, I mean, Avatar gets the most, but Avatar got six months. Like, they are extending those. Is there a sweet spot for you, Steve, in terms of how long the window should be before it becomes no longer-- Well, I mean, like-- Please don't say forever. All my friends in exhibition would say, "The longer the better." And I do believe. Well, when you see the data, when you see the numbers start to slow down, like, when is that sweet spot? Yeah. I mean, you know what's interesting is I'd say, like, by and large, most of the audience have seen their film, the film by after 30 days. We say 32% see within the first three days. We say that 67% have seen it within the first 14 days, and that 88% have seen it within the first 30 days. That doesn't mean on day 31, we suggest going putting it into the home. Yeah, this 12% is decent money. Well, and knowing the fact, knowing that the movie will not be on streaming for four months makes you see it in the first 30 days. Exactly, right. You got that right. I mean, that sort of conforms with what logic would suggest. I would hope so. Although it feels like we went through a period of illogic when we're trying to pump up the streaming services. It should be more a part of the marketing. Movie should really say, "This will not be on streaming for five months, so you need to come to the theater." Yeah, you want to see this thing? Better do it now. They should say that. I think that would help a lot. If it said not on streaming for four months, people would be more likely to go see it, I think, way more likely. And you would essentially be shaming the other studios that don't market that because if you are in the market in an opening weekend with a minions movie going up against a movie that's going to be on streaming in three weeks and they're not telling you that it's going to take six months, then maybe you go see the minions movie because you think the other one's going to be on streaming. Yeah, minions not on peacock until January 20, 20, 27. So your kid is going to hate you for six months if you don't take him this weekend. There is something there. Another genius idea. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com/Spotify. The other thing you track that I think is interesting is this blue versus red state attendance because you see this on social media all the time now with the culture wars where it's like Hollywood doesn't make movies for me and you know, I'm conservative. They care more about versus signaling and diverse casting and yadda yadda, all the nonsense. And your data, you put this out every week. And for the first half of the year, the attendance number in blue counties, you counted by counties. So the attendance number in blue counties was 61% of moviegoers, and red counties had 39%. So essentially, the data is showing that people in blue counties like going to the movies more than in red counties. Or is that just because blue counties are more big city and there are more theaters available? I think it's going to be more of the latter. Yeah, you know, one of the things we, whenever we talk about blue or red, what we always try to do is put it in perspective. So the reality is 60 40 or 61 39 or whatever that is, it's on pace, it's normal. Think about the big cities. New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, those are all going to be blue, heavy, heavy movie going markets. I mean, New York and LA alone are 15% often of the attendance. So they're going to lean blue. Yeah, and that was huge numbers. And you know, in many places, I just got back from South Carolina. And there aren't that many movie theaters there. We got, we got to go about 25, 30 minutes to get to our local synoplex. But I will say this, you know, when we, when we look at the stando, we will see pops in certain red zones when we were looking at Melania, right? Not to be, not to speak politically, but you know, we obviously have someone's going to lean red. We, we saw more of a 50 50 split, less of a 60 40 split. And we saw popping in zones where there, there was a heavy white population zones where there was a larger age group or age population was, you know, we saw, do we rate in Florida? Sorry, we're doing Maricopa County. So yeah, that one's obvious. So there are other examples of movies that tended to skew heavily blue or heavily red. Yeah, I think we've got the most recognition around snow white when this first came out because I think there was a remake. A lot of commentaries, you know, we say about that title. And I think we'll, we'll get caught up in the culture wars. And it's on Fox News, and if Fox News is telling you not to see it, maybe the red counties aren't. Bingo, right? You know, is this snow woke? Is it whatever, right? I kept hearing that. And when we were looking at the data, it didn't matter. People didn't go, people didn't care. It was doing great actually in red zones. Oh, interesting. But the movie didn't work. Period. That was it. And everybody hated it. It universally, regardless of political affiliation. I know. I wonder, what does the data tell you about Supergirl? It does, because you know, you see so much. Oh, they're trying to go woke and they're trying to do yada yada. What was the data on Supergirl politically? You know, you know, that's right. I haven't looked at it politically, but I will say this, one of the problems we saw with Supergirl was we do. We monitor seats and we like to monitor when they're occupied. Last year alone, we monitored 4.7 billion seats. And the case of Supergirl, what we were looking at were a couple of red flags. One of them was the activity. When were the seats being occupied? And unfortunately for Supergirl, it was all front loaded. It was Friday night. You know, we just didn't see the activity going Saturday or Sunday. For the DC fan base like that, you were either in and you went opening night or you just don't care. That's right. It just didn't have that crossover. What has been the impact on attendance of the PLF's, the premium screens? The premium, large format. A lot of times people think that it's all or nothing. The reality is there's been a bit of a consistency with premium format. And it's been 16% of the overall audience, not necessarily specific to titles. For certain titles, it's incredibly important. A movie like Odyssey, movie like Oppenheimer. For Avengers, we care about this division, right? Or Infinity Vision. Don't get me started on Infinity Vision. Sorry, I mean, to poke the bear. But the reality is the consistency of premium format, it's 16% of the occupancy of the overall attendance. And it has been since the beginning of the pandemic. Since we've worked from the pandemic. Oh, interesting. Because if you look at the ticket prices, the average adult PLF price is $18.20, which is. almost five dollars more than regular. So that any increase in PLF penetration is going to increase box office, not attendance necessarily, but box office. That's right. And I would say like one of the one of the trends that we're seeing now with with movie going is there's a little bit more of an appointment style approach to it, right? Certainly with the Christopher Nolan movie where folks are going to choose their 70 millimeter, choose their iMacs, choose whatever. But with the idea of appointment style booking versus going into the theater and choosing what you're going to see is gone. We've talked about that. Yeah. People don't go to the movies. They go to see a movie that they have decided they will go see. Right. Yeah. We often get asked about pre-sales activity. And now, you know, I asked to find pre-sales. It used to be any activity that happens before you walk into before you walk into the lobby. But now, you know, you're at the supermarket. You're about to cross the alley and buy your tickets on your phone and boom, you've got it. Is that a pre-sale? Is it not? What does that mean? So it's kind of been an interesting the behavior our patterns, I'd say, have changed. So what about the ratings? You hear a lot about how our rated movies are back. And a lot of these, you know, genre movies that are succeeding. But in your numbers, you put out for the first half of the year, 33, 33% of attendance was for our rated movies. 35% was PG-13, and 28% was PG. How has that shifted over the past decade or so? Well, I think that our, you know, PG and PG-13, we often lump together when we're looking at our audience. Sure. Okay. Definitely different. But the reality is, again, there's there's more of a consistency than you might think. The R-rated phenomenon of 33%, it's consistent with last year, of 32%. So there hasn't been sort of these eye-opening, or sorry, these, these revolutionary changes, in a sense, with moviegoers going to see R-rated film. I mean, family films still are dominant, and family films are still vertical to the box office, the theater, to theaters. Well, it's a quarter of attendance is animation, according to your numbers for this year. And that is more than double 2025. One of the things that's interesting with animation that we're seeing this year is more animated films are playing in premium this year. Typically, you know, mom and dad don't want to spend that extra $5, as you said, to play it in the largest film, you know, the babies that are fine in the standard seats, right? But now it seems that this year, we've had some big animated titles obviously with toy story most recently. But there is a bit more of a play for premium for those for that genre. And Craig will be excited about this one. Comedy is up to 11% of attendance this year. That was 4% last year. Give a scary movie and some credit with that one. Okay, so that gets put in comedy, not horror. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, genre is always a hard one, right? I think there's like genres or, you know, sometimes it's very, you know, cut and dry, you know, our rated comedy, our rated horror. Those are easy. But sometimes you get into these like weird little nuances. Yeah, what is sci-fi? The comic book movies count as sci-fi. I mean, you have a big spike this year for sci-fi, but Project Hail Mary was responsible for that. Yeah, of course. What is the ultimate takeaway from your attendance numbers? Are should we be just as excited about the attendance as people have been about box office? Is the boost in attendance going to maybe put pressure on these theater owners to maybe not raise prices as much or are they going to be more emboldened to raise prices because people are coming back? Well, here's what I would say about theater owners. You know, there are 5,000 theaters across the country. Believe it or not, they all don't get along and they all don't see the world in the same manner. We go to cinema con every year. We see it. Right. So I'd say it all depends. I don't know if they might not the answer you're looking for, but it all depends on the situation. The market, the circuit, you know, mainstream USA versus some big mega-traveless, whatever. So I don't think there's like sort of a blanket industry-wide response to that. So where are the bright spots in movie going right now? As far as the bright spots with the movie going, LA and New York still dominate. They still drive the marketplace. The big cities are still going to be your go-to places. Obviously, premium is key. I think what the studios and what the exhibitors are doing very well in tandem in partnership are creating unique experiences, whether it's 70 millimeter, whether it's 35 millimeter, whether it's 3D or further premium screens. I think what the industry is doing very well is it's collectively trying to invigorate and create activation with the movie gore, beyond just seeing it in traditional standards. So I think that's where the trends are. It's more of these format-driven initiatives. Yeah, because you can get to a higher number for artists with fewer attendance if everybody's paying five bucks more. This sounds relatively optimistic, Steve. Is there anything that like what do you think needs to change for the better? Well, I think I think the industry is doing what they should be doing. Continuing to give back to the consumer, continuing to create a better experience, whether or not it's whether it's with concessions or better seating or better film formats or excuse me with more film formats or it's more content from the studio's side. I think it's it's it's a collected, it's not one silver bullet. I think that you know often I'm asked about like, well, what's the thing? What's going to get more people to activate and go to the theater? I think that's a hard thing. You know, people go to movie theaters for different reasons. Some people go to see it for a director, the cast, because it's part of a franchise, because they just want to go out. Whatever it may be- Air conditioning. Air conditioning, sure. And how has that changed? Does your data suggest the motivations for people changing over the plan? You know, since COVID for instance? I'd say planning is what's changed the most, right? You know, you know it earlier. People don't go to the movies, right? They go to see a movie and they can't see their movie, then they move on. People don't give that enough importance because it is a fundamental change in how people view movies and the entire business of getting people to theaters has changed to accommodate the fact that people don't automatically go. And it's changed the kinds of movies that get made. And it's changed everything about the experience because you got to convince people to go to a theater when a generation ago, all you had to do was convince them to pick yours amongst a platter of options. Very different value proposition, very different business case. Yeah, and I would say Matt, that change in moviegoer behavior is changing the revenue activity for theaters, meaning it's so much of what they're doing now is also around ads and trailers, as you well show. And that's obviously a hot topic at Sinmacon. And we're seeing that with our measurement, the length of the trailer pack, the quantity of trailers, the ads that are being inserted. Let me guess, people hate ads. Well, back to your question about why attendance for us, that's why it's so important because if you're going to be measuring, you're going to be providing ads and putting revenue around the ads, you need a third-party independent measurement service that's measuring the actual reach. Sinmacon seemed pretty excited this year. Are you as optimistic? I think in 2026 Sinmacon, I think was the most optimistic, that I felt, right? And I think obviously it works when you're coming in from a win. We're in a really good first quarter, right? I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic. I look at the attendance. I don't look at the box office, so I'm always a little bit more measured with, but I am bullish. I'm high at the movie going as he, where movie going is not going the way of the bowling alley, right? It's still a popular activity. It's great when you do activate a younger generation with the films we were talking about earlier. Older generations are going to the movie theater. They're just not seeing movies like maybe Downton Abbey. They might be seeing an MCU movie, but that's what older folks are going to do is see. So I do believe that the audience is there. 349 million people went to movies in the first half of this year. How does that compare to like 2015? Well, here's what I was saying. Last year, there was 318 million people want to see the theater up until the same point in time. That's roughly about 46, 47% of last year's activity. If that holds true, we'll hit about $760 million attendees this year. Now listen, I get it all depends on the content. There's different films that are going to be competing in the fall and over the Christmas break, but I think it's reasonable to assume $750, $760 is an attainable number for us this year. Would that be the highest of the 2020s? Yes, it is since the pandemic. So we are on the upward swing. Prior to the pandemic, I'd say we average about 1.1.1.2 billion. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Still a ways away. Still a ways away. It still a ways off. It's still a good business. All right. See you. Appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are back with the call sheet. Craig, you're going to deny this, But I was sitting next to you at Cinemacon. during the Minions and Monsters presentation and I heard audible laughing from you. I mean, Melodon Tree came out and showed not one, not two, but three separate clips of Minions and Monsters throughout the presentation. They were all great. He's very excited about this movie. Yes, it's like a Minions love letter to Old Hollywood. It's like Babylon and Minions had a baby, so yeah, you and I were both in on it. Yes, definitely funnier than the other ones. It looks people the studio told me I will actually like this one. Critics seem to like it. I will be there with my kid. Weirdly though, the tracking is only at about 80 million for the five day it opened last night. Kind of surprising. The previous one in 2022 opened to 100 million over the three-day weekend. That was the year where July 4th was on a Monday, so they had the first second and third for that weekend. I'm kind of surprised the tracking is lower for this one. What's really the difference? I mean, Friday is the federal holiday this time compared to Monday in 2022. It's still the same amount of time off, correct? Yeah, but having the fourth July on a Saturday, I think takes away a little bit of the audience from this weekend. Now, that's why they opened it on Wednesday, so they can capture three, you know, three whole days of movie going before, because a Monday day off is different than even though no one has school on Friday. That's still different than a Monday, you're saying? Yes, and it opened to about 13 million last night. We have a little advantage this year for this movie because we know what it opened on Wednesday. But I'm going to take the over. I think 80 seems low, right? It was 130 over the four day in 2022. This feels still even with the fourth July landing on a Saturday. It feels weirdly low. I don't know if you think Toy Story hurts it. I do. People saving up to go to the Odyssey, which is over two minions and monsters long. That's a hilarious detail, by the way, that minions and monsters, 85 minutes, Odyssey, almost three hours. And you can see two minions and monsters or one Odyssey. I think some how I think minions and monsters will seem longer to me. Well, you know, it's kind of like the perfect family outing as you can send your kids to go watch minions twice, and you can watch the Odyssey. Exactly. And then eat whatever candy during the intermission. I am taking the over on this one. I think even with the World Cup, even with fourth on the Saturday, even with, you know, so many people flocking to Washington, DC for the freedom to 50 great American state fair that I know you were attending, correct? Now I will be there. I'll be podcasting live live from the very empty fairgrounds there in DC with the thunderstorms. Above you. Yeah. I'm taking the over you two. Yeah. How high are you going to go to? I want to make you pick a number. Oh, you keep doing this. You keep doing this gamblers don't have to do this. They just have to say over or under. That's fair. I just think the line is a little bit questionable. I think it should be higher. But it should be. Yeah. But energy has it at 80. All the services are around the same. Some have it a little higher, but some have it lower. So I'll, I mean, maybe it'll get to 90. Yeah. I mean, look, we took the over on Toy Story. We barely missed. We got that wrong. So I know. I know. So all right. We'll see. That's the show for the day. I want to thank my guest, Steve Buck, producer Clark Hornebeck. All right, there's John Jones and Jesse Lopez. And I want to thank you. Happy fourth. We'll see you on Monday.