For major film studio releases at major US chain theaters, the way it frequently works: the first week has a very large percentage of ticket sales that go for the showing rights but no fixed release fee or a low fixed fee. The following week's screening rights are a lower percentage than the previous week. And so on for additional weeks until the minimum percentage of ticket sale revenue is hit under the contracts. The earliest week(s) of a release are generally tied to higher total dollar sales from concessions than later weeks of any given release's showing -- that helps the theater owners/operators somewhat.