Box Office Follower

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Feb 3 - 5): The Women in Black, Chronicle, Big Miracle

2012-02-03T03:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Women in Black	16.0	$5,604 PTA
2. Chronicle	13.0	$4,472 PTA
3. The Grey	9.0	-54.2%
4. Big Miracle	7.0	$3,289 PTA
5. One for the Money	6.0	-47.9%
6. Red Tails	5.8	-44.1%
7. Underworld Awakening	5.6	-54.7%
8. The Descendants	4.5	-29.7%
9. Man on a Ledge	4.3	-46.3%
10. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	4.0	-42.7%

(And Super Bowl prediction: Patriots - 27, Giants - 24)

:)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jan 27 - 29): The Grey, Man on a Ledge, One for the Money

2012-01-27T03:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Grey	13.5	$4,239 PTA
2. Man on a Ledge	10.5	$3,502 PTA
3. One for the Money	10.0	$3,654 PTA
4. Underworld Awakening	10.0	-60.5%
5. Red Tails	10.0	-46.8%
6. Contraband	7.5	-37.7%
7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	7.0	-30.3%
8. Beauty and the Beast	5.5	-37.4%
9. The Descendants	4.5	+89.7%
10. Haywire	4.5	-46.7%
-. The Artist	3.3	+39.1%

Final Oscar Nomination Predictions

2012-01-21T23:10:00.000-08:00

Always fun to do this exercise each year. :)

Best Picture
1. The Artist
2. The Descendants
3. Hugo
4. The Help
5. Midnight in Paris
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
7. Moneyball

(War Horse will be next on the list, but with snubs from DGA/WGA/ASC/ADG guilds and a lack of showing in important categories at BAFTA, its chance at BP is very much on thin ice; then there are Bridesmaids and The Ides of March, but I don't see enough No. 1 votes for either; the lack of guilds has practically killed The Tree of Life, Drive, and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, although the last two did get some much-needed help from BAFTA towards the end.)

Best Director
1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
2. Martin Scorsese, Hugo
3. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
4. Alexander Payne, The Descendants
5. David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Actress
1. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
2. Viola Davis, The Help
3. Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
4. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
5. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

(I'm pulling hard for Rooney Mara to make it, and academy has favored younger actresses for this category in the past.)

Best Actor
1. George Clooney, The Descendants
2. Brad Pitt, Moneyball
3. Jean Dujardin, The Artist
4. Michael Fassbender, Shame
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

(Fassbender, IMO, gave the best performance of the year, so hopefully he won't get snubbed.)

Best Supporting Actress
1. Octavia Spencer, The Help
2. Jessica Chastain, The Help
3. Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
4. Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
5. Bérénice Bejo, The Artist

(BAFTA nominated Bejo in the lead category, so we could see her miss due to category confusion.)

Best Supporting Actor
1. Christopher Plummer, Beginners
2. Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
3. Nick Nolte, Warrior
4. Jonah Hill, Moneyball
5. Albert Brooks, Drive

(Brooks is vulnerable after missing both SAG and BAFTA; among the four acting categories this year, this is the most unpredictable one for nominations but also the most predictable for the winner, as Plummer will finally win an Oscar.)

Best Original Screenplay
1. Midnight in Paris
2. The Artist
3. Margin Call
4. Bridsmaids
5. A Separation

(Going for a surprise here with A Separation instead of Win Win or 50/50.)

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. The Descendants
2. Moneyball
3. The Help
4. Tinker Tailor Solider Spy
5. The Ides of March

Best Foreign Language Film
1. A Separation, Iran
2. Pina, Germany
3. In Darkness, Poland
4. Footnote, Israel
5. Monsieur Lazhar, Canada

Best Documentary Feature
1. Project Nim
2. Pina
3. The Loving Story
4. We Were Here
5. Semper Fi: Always Faithful

Best Animated Feature
1. Rango
2. The Adventures of Tintin
3. Arthur Christmas
4. Puss in Boots
5. Chico and Rita

Best Cinematography
1. Hugo
2. The Artist
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
5. The Tree of Life

Best Editing
1. The Artist
2. Hugo
3. Moneyball
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5. Drive

Best Art Direction
1. Hugo
2. The Artist
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
5. War Horse

Best Costume Design
1. Hugo
2. My Week with Marilyn
3. The Artist
4. Jane Eyre
5. The Help

Best Makeup
1. The Iron Lady
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
3. The Artist

Best Visual Effects
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
3. Hugo
4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
5. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Best Original Score
1. The Artist
2. Hugo
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4. War Horse
5. The Help

Best Original Song
1. "Life's a Happy Song," The Muppets
2. "Pictures in my Head," The Muppets
3. "The Living Proof," The Help
4. "Lay Your Head Down," Albert Nobbs
5. "Hello Hello," Gnomeo & Juliet

Best Sound Mixing
1. Hugo
2. Super 8
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
4. Moneyball
5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Sound Editing
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2. Hugo
3. Hanna
4. Super 8
5. War Horse

Best Documentary Short
1. Incident in New Baghdad
2. Witness
3. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
4. In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypts Unfinished Revolution
5. Pipe Dreams

Best Live Action Short
1. The Road Home
2. Raju
3. Pentecost
4. Sailcloth
5. Time Freak

Best Animated Short
1. La Luna
2. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
3. Wild Life
4. Magic Piano
5. Luminaris

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jan 20 - 22): Underworld Awakening, Red Tails, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Haywire

2012-01-20T03:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Underworld Awakening	23.0	$7,472 PTA
2. Red Tails	18.5	$7,365 PTA
3. Beauty and the Beast	11.5	-35.2%
4. Contraband	11.0	-54.8%
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	10.0	$3,802 PTA
6. Joyful Noise	6.7	-40.3%
7. Haywire	6.5	$2,665 PTA
8. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	6.0	-48.7%
9. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	4.5	-47.6%
10. The Iron Lady	4.5	-16.9%

Note: due to the start of an exciting new chapter in my personal life, I will likely be cutting down the time spent on box office analysis, although I will remain committed in providing my weekly predictions regardless how little time I may find in studying for them.

China Weekly Box Office (1/9 - 1/15): Sherlock Holmes 2 entered the market

2012-01-18T20:49:00.001-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Great Magician（大魔术师）	74.6m ($11.81m)	New	44,867	2,185,120	74.6m ($11.81m)
2. Mission Incredible: Adventures On The Dragon's Trail（喜羊羊与灰太狼之开心闯龙年）	73m ($11.56m)	New	51,947	2,434,956	73m ($11.56m)
3. You Are the Apple of My Eye（那些年，我们一起追的女孩）	35m ($5.54m)	+29.6%	47,397	1,084,598	62m ($9.83m)
4. The Flowers of War（金陵十三钗）	29m ($4.59m)	-61.8%	30,729	717,716	592.5m ($93.50m)
5. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D（龙门飞甲）	27.7m ($4.38m)	-61.8%	29,479	641,203	536.7m ($84.69m)
6. The Monkey King 3D（大闹天宫3D）	18.6m ($2.94m)	New	20,644	538,350	18.6m ($2.94m)
7. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows（大侦探福尔摩斯2：诡影游戏）	18m ($2.85m) (opened on Sun)	New	8,817	536,512	18m ($2.85m)
8. Dear Enemy（亲密敌人）	5.8m ($0.92m)	-74.8%	10,535	175,544	111.8m ($17.68m)
9. The Oxford Murders（深度谜案）	2.48m ($0.39m)	-75.2%	4,891	75,038	18.58m ($2.95m)
10. The Killer Who Never Kills（杀手欧阳盆栽）	2.22m ($0.35m)	-34.7%	7,457	74,000	5.62m ($0.89m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1583)

MLK Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jan 13 - 16): Contraband, Beauty and the Beast, Joyful Noise

2012-01-13T03:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Contraband	22.0	$7,684 PTA
2. Beauty and the Beast	19.0	$7,238 PTA
3. Joyful Noise	18.0	$6,581 PTA
4. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	15.0	-24.5%
5. The Devil Inside	11.0	-67.4%
6. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	10.0	-27.0%
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	9.0	-20.8%
8. War Horse	7.0	-19.3%
9. We Bought a Zoo	6.0	-27.8%
10. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	6.0	-36.8%

China Weekly Box Office (1/2 - 1/8)

2012-01-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Flowers of War（金陵十三钗）	76m ($12.07m)	-43.7%	63,270	1,839,303	563.5m ($88.91m)
2. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D（龙门飞甲）	72.5m ($11.51m)	-39.1%	60,244	1,655,180	509m ($80.31m)
3. You Are the Apple of My Eye（那些年，我们一起追的女孩）	27m ($4.29m)	New	28,934	809,595	27m ($4.29m)
4. Dear Enemy（亲密敌人）	23m ($3.65m)	-43.9%	30,798	670,358	106m ($16.76m)
5. The Oxford Murders（深度谜案）	10m ($1.59m)	+63.9%	11,764	307,881	16.1m ($2.56m)
6. Speed Angels（极速天使）	8.1m ($1.29m)	-47.7%	18,615	248,237	23.6m ($3.74m)
7. Dream House（梦宅诡影）	7.2m ($1.14m)	-21.7%	14,815	217,719	16.4m ($2.60m)
8. The Allure of Tears（倾城之泪）	5.1m ($0.81m)	-62.5%	13,155	154,639	42.7m ($6.74m)
9. The Killer Who Never Kills（杀手欧阳盆栽）	3.4m ($0.54m)	New	9,518	106,951	3.4m ($0.54m)
10. My Best Bodyguard（玩命阻击）	3.16m ($0.50m)	-24.8%	10,156	101,509	7.36m ($1.16m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1588)

China Weekly Box Office (12/26 - 1/1)

2012-01-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Flowers of War（金陵十三钗）	135m ($21.36m)	-33.3%	72,129	3,342,411	487.5m ($76.84m)
2. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D（龙门飞甲）	119m ($18.83m)	-32.0%	66,033	2,746,999	436.5m ($68.80m)
3. Dear Enemy（亲密敌人）	41m ($6.49m)	-2.4%	26,552	1,232,711	83m ($13.11m)
4. Speed Angels（极速天使）	15.5m ($2.45m)	New	18,657	483,317	15.5m ($2.45m)
5. The Allure of Tears（倾城之泪）	13.6m ($2.15m)	-43.3%	27,400	429,428	37.6m ($5.93m)
6. Dream House（梦宅诡影）	9.2m ($1.46m)	New	12,527	286,783	9.2m ($1.46m)
7. The Oxford Murders（深度谜案）	6.1m ($0.97m)	New	5,920	192,125	6.1m ($0.97m)
8. My Best Bodyguard（玩命阻击）	4.2m ($0.66m)	New	7,287	138,067	4.2m ($0.66m)
9. Love Shock（2012来了）	1.1m ($0.17m)	New	2,334	38,777	1.1m ($0.17m)
10. The Treaty of Double Bed（双人床条约）	0.92m ($0.15m)	New	3,282	31,571	0.92m ($0.15m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1582)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jan 6 - 8): The Devil Inside, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2012-01-06T03:30:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Devil Inside	20.0	$8,753 PTA
2. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	18.0	-38.8%
3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	12.0	-42.5%
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	11.0	-25.8%
5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	10.0	-38.9%
6. War Horse	9.0	-37.6%
7. We Bought a Zoo	9.0	-32.0%
8. The Adventure of Tintin	8.0	-30.0%
9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy	4.0	$4,944 PTA
10. New Year's Eve	3.0	-52.6%

The signs are excellent for The Devil Inside everywhere one looks: Major Theater Chain's tracking came in way higher than ReelSource's, $17m vs. $5m; it has averaged 40,000 tweets a day this week; the unaided awareness is at 10% overall, which is very positive in itself and blows all other January releases away (albeit those films will see their numbers improve as we move closer); and for the actual sales figure, the film was leading Fandango's hottest tickets list with 31% on Thursday noon, over existing strong online sellers such as Mission: Impossible 4, Sherlock Holmes 2, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and War Horse. Even with a relatively smaller theater count of 2,285, $20m looks quite possible for it.

Despite being consistently shunned by critics awards (still a mystery given how well it is reviewed by the critics) and industry guilds so far, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has produced one of the best runs of the year for films in limited release, grossing $4.5m in 4 weeks while not in more than 57 theaters. The question now is if it can hold up its PTA with this aggressive expansion. $5K average would be a reasonable goal for the film.

Thanks to WOKJ, Box Office Derby is Back

2012-01-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, Box Office Mojo made the unfortunate decision of shutting down their very popular Derby game, where users could show their box office knowledge and skills by predicting each weekend's top 10 films. I participated in it for more than 7 years, and having that taken away from you in an instant, even though we were not competing for any actual prize, was a very saddening experience. The great news is that another site which believes in such a game, a site that gave me the first opportunity to write formal box office analysis articles and one that I am proud to remain part of, decided to take upon the task of re-creating the game. Given the amount of work they needed to do, it is pretty amazing they got everything ready to officially launch the new Box Office Derby at the start of 2012, with more features and charts as well. If you had formerly played in Box Office Mojo's version, or if you are simply interested in box office predictions and discussions, I would highly recommend you to participate and play.

The predictions for Jan 6 - 8 are now open:
http://www.worldofkj.com/derby_predict.php

New Year Weekend Box Office Predictions (Dec 30 - Jan 1): the year looks to end on a positive note after much struggling in December

2011-12-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	31.5	+6.8%
2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	23.0	+13.5%
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	18.5	+47.0%
4. War Horse	15.5	+106.2%
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	15.0	+17.6%
6. We Bought a Zoo	13.0	+38.9%
7. The Adventure of Tintin	11.5	+18.5%
8. New Year's Eve	6.5	+96.4%
9. The Darkest Hour	4.1	+36.7%
10. The Muppets	2.9	+35.2%

In 2005, every film in the top 18 saw an increase of at least 14.6% this weekend from the Christmas frame. We could expect similar scenario to play out this year, although the degree of increase could be a bit lower for some due to how strong the Christmas Day business was. A few films I would particularly keep my eyes on are Mission: Impossible 4, War Horse, and New Year's Eve. M:I4 has enjoyed outstanding dailies so far, and if it could achieve a 10%+ increase this weekend, it will then have the stamina to make a run at $230m+ total. War Horse, on the other hand, has been relatively frontloaded so far, dropping three days in a row after its strong debut. It reminds me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, another Christmas Day release for an Oscar contender from a renowned director where the opening day ended up being the best day of its entire run. At least War Horse, in only 2,376 theaters currently, has some room for expansion to lessen the level of frondloadedness. As for New Year's Eve, it will be interesting to see how big a bump it could get on Saturday.

China Weekly Box Office (12/19 - 12/25): The Flowers of War and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate both surged past 300m yuan

2011-12-28T21:00:00.001-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Flowers of War（金陵十三钗）	202.5m ($31.93m)	+35.0%	95,196	4,753,521	352.5m ($55.48m)
2. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D（龙门飞甲）	175m ($27.60m)	+22.8%	86,320	3,810,975	317.5m ($49.97m)
3. Dear Enemy（亲密敌人）	42m ($6.62m)	New	26,552	1,046,077	42m ($6.62m)
4. The Allure of Tears（倾城之泪）	24m ($3.78m)	New	27,625	684,931	24m ($3.78m)
5. White Vengeance（鸿门宴）	1.17m ($0.18m)	-92.5%	4,631	39,433	151.07m ($23.53m)
6. Xin Yue Mei Ying（新月魅影）	0.96m ($0.15m)	New	4,321	33,958	0.96m ($0.15m)
7. Three Idiots（三傻大闹宝莱坞）	0.79m ($0.12m)	-83.2%	1,733	23,435	12.89m ($2.02m)
8. 1911（辛亥革命）	0.42m ($0.066m)	-	69	16,178	62.67m ($9.87m)
9. Speed Pioneer（极速先锋）	0.30m ($0.047m)	New	767	7,949	0.30m ($0.047m)
10. Zhui Ai（追爱）	0.25m ($0.039m)	-	1,683	9,830	4.68m ($0.74m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1577)

Updated Predictions for Christmas Week Openers: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, MI4, The Adventures of Tintin, We Bought a Zoo, War Horse, The Darkest Hour

2011-12-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	3-day OW	4-day OW
Mission: Impossible 4	$8m	$7m (-13%)	$10m (+43%)	$6m (-40%)	$11m (+83%)	$16m (+45%)	$27m	$43m
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	$6.5m	$5m (-23%)	$6m (+20%)	$4m (-33%)	$6.5m (+63%)	$8.5m (+31%)	$16.5m	$25m
The Adventures of Tintin	$3m	$3.3m (+10%)	$4.6m (+39%)	$2.8m (-39%)	$4.2m (+50%)	$7m (+67%)	$11.6m	$18.6m
We Bought a Zoo	N/A	N/A	$4m	$2m (-50%)	$3.5m (+75%)	$6m (+71%)	$9.5m	$15.5m
War Horse	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$4.5m	$5.5m (+22%)	$4.5m	$10m
The Darkest Hour	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$2m	$1.5m (-25%)	$2m	$3.5m

Note: for Sunday openers, 3-day OW becomes 1-day, and 4-day OW becomes 2-day.

Reasons of some of the changes: I lowered the opening day projection for M:I4 to $8m after realizing I way overestimated the mid-week dailies from IMAX locations (not the film's fault, but my own stupidity). Still believe it will beat the opening Wednesdays of both Little Fockers and Rocky Balboa. For The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, after looking at the dailies of R-rated films from 2005 during this week (e.g. Syriana and Munich), I no longer see the same OD-to-OW multiplier as previously used, especially given the popularity of the novel. The buzz for The Adventures of Tintin and We Bought a Zoo appears to be even lower, so I downgraded them accordingly. One other factor that could affect Christmas Day is the NBA. NBA always has games on Christmas Day, but the major difference this time is due to the lockout, the season opens on the day and will have 5 games instead of 2. This could dampen the box office of male-oriented films a little.

Movie	Predicted 3-Day Gross (m)	Predicted 4-Day Gross (m)
1. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	27.0	43.0
2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	22.0	35.0
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	16.5	25.0
4. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	15.0	24.0
5. The Adventures of Tintin	11.6	18.6
6. We Bought a Zoo	9.5	15.5
7. War Horse	4.5	10.0
8. New Year's Eve	5.0	8.0
9. Hugo	2.8	4.5
10. Arthur Christmas	2.7	4.0
-. The Darkest Hour	2.0	3.5
Top 10 Total	116.6 (+10.0%)	187.6

For people who think my predictions for the openers appear too low, the top 10 will gross $116.6m combined, which would in fact be a 10% increase over last frame. Back in 2005, the last time Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday (the worst day of the week for it to fall on in term of box office), the top 12 dropped 17.8% from the previous weekend and barely crossed $100m combined, so it is not unreasonable at all for this weekend to be depressed again, even with all the openers.

Merry Christmas to all!

China Weekly Box Office (12/12 - 12/18): Epic battle between The Flowers of War and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

2011-12-20T11:07:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Flowers of War（金陵十三钗）	150m ($23.55m)	New	54,804	3,663,898	150m ($23.55m)
2. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D（龙门飞甲）	142.5m ($22.37m)	New	56,086	3,269,098	142.5m ($22.37m)
3. White Vengeance（鸿门宴）	15.7m ($2.46m)	-69.8%	30,738	484,867	149.9m ($23.53m)
4. Sector 7（深海之战）	5.46m ($0.86m)	-65.2%	12,117	155,334	21.16m ($3.33m)
5. Three Idiots（三傻大闹宝莱坞）	4.7m ($0.74m)	-36.5%	9,749	146,874	12.1m ($1.90m)
6. Priest（驱魔者）	4.2m ($0.66m)	-67.7%	8,461	116,054	37.8m ($5.94m)
7. The Adventures of Tintin（丁丁历险记）	2.75m ($0.43m)	-70.7%	3,926	72,828	130.95m ($20.62m)
8. Jump! Ashin（翻滚吧！阿信）	2.3m ($0.36m)	-32.4%	7,662	77,233	5.7m ($0.90m)
9. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus（魔法奇幻秀）	2.08m ($0.33m)	-74.0%	5,656	70,104	17.78m ($2.80m)
10. Magic to Win（开心魔法）	2.06m ($0.32m)	-72.5%	5,916	69,313	19.86m ($3.12m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1570)

Here comes another epic December battle between domestic films. Last year it was between Jiang Wei's Let the Bullets Fly and Feng Xiaogang's If You're the One 2; this time it's Zhang Yimou's adaptation of the famous Chinese writer Geling Yan's popular novel against Hark Tsui's 3D visual feast of his wu-xia world. What makes this encounter even more fascinating is 1) both are expensive by Chinese film-making standard: Flying Sowrds of Dragon Gate cost $35m, while The Flowers of War is the most expensive Chinese film ever made with $100m; 2) Unlike Let the Bullets Fly and If You're the One 2 where they were released a week apart, these two are going head-to-head by releasing on the exact same day. Both are filled with star power as well, with Christian Bale headlining one and Jet Li leading the other.

So the result? Almost a tie for the opening 4 days. Flying Swords has the help of 3D screens, but The Flowers of War is enjoying some of the best word-of-mouth the Chinese audience has ever given to a Zhang Yimou's film. Some are saying he has finally made one as good as those of his 1990s' endeavors such as To Live and Raise the Red Lantern. Long term I expect The Flowers of War to pull away (and will challenge $100m total), but the holding power of 3D could keep the race interesting. The next few weeks should be exciting to follow.

Some Christmas Musing: How well will all the openers co-exist in the crowded holiday frame?

2011-12-18T00:10:00.000-08:00

When looking at the schedule, many would wonder why there are so many new movies crammed into the Christmas week, but in fact, due to the unique nature of the Christmas/New Year holiday, where every day of the two-week period - except for Christmas Eve - is a strong day at the box office, it is not uncommon to see a high number of new releases. Six years ago, the last time Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, we saw 8 new wide releases in total, with 6 openers and 2 others expanded to the status. The table below shows some numbers from that frame.

Movie (Day of the Week It Opened)	Opening Day	Opening Weekend	OD-to-OW Multiplier	Fri-to-Sat Change	Sun-to-Mon Change
Fun with Dick and Jane (Wed)	$3.76m	$21.53m	5.73	-52.5%	+9%
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (Wed)	$2.55m	$15.34m	6.02	-49.7%	+74.9%
Memoirs of a Geisha (went wide on Friday)	$2.65m	$10.17m	3.84	-44.2%	+30.3%
The Ringer (Fri)	$2.38m	$7.70m	3.24	-72.3%	+19.8%
Munich (Fri)	$1.37m	$6.04m	4.41	-21.2%	+10.8%
Rumor Has It (Sun)	$3.47m	$7.52m	2.17	N/A	+16.4%
Wolf Creek (Sun)	$2.81m	$4.91m	1.75	N/A	-25.1%
The Producers (went wide on Sun)	$1.62m	$3.30m	2.04	+23.7%	+7.8%

Note: For pre-Christmas openers such as Fun with Dick and Jane, the opening weekend refers to Friday-to-Monday, while for Christmas Day openers, the opening weekend refers to Sunday + Monday.

The basic pattern for this week: mid-week will be strong as schools are off for winter break, and holdovers who have been in theaters for at least a week will see good week-to-week increases; Friday will be stronger; Saturday, or Christmas Eve, will be the weakest day by far, as many theaters will be closed for the night altogether, and the overall business will drop around 45% from Friday; Sunday, or Christmas Day, will see a surge to become one of the top 3 strongest box office days of the winter holiday; then finally Monday will see another jump across the board (only a few films will see decline that day) to claim the title of the busiest box office day of the holiday. Family films will experience especially superb increases to the level of 65%+, and a couple may see 100%+ jumps as Wallace & Gromit and Dreamer achieved in 2005.

So let's take a look at this week's slate and see if we could give some projections on where they could land. Three films will go wide on Wednesday: Mission: Impossible 4, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Adventures of Tintin. Mission: Impossible 4 is a unique case in that Paramount decided to release its IMAX version earlier to generate good buzz and word-of-mouth, and I would say in that they succeeded tremendously. A 58% Friday-to-Saturday increase without midnight counted is simply terrific. Among all the Wednesday releases on Christmas week, Alvin & Chipmunks 2 grossed the most on opening day with $18.8m, but that was helped by Christmas Eve falling on the next day. Then we have Little Fockers at $7.1m and Rocky Balboa at $6.2m. M:I4 should beat both without problem, especially when it is getting $4m a day from IMAX screens alone. I see at least $10m for its opening day (feel $12m is about right), and a 5+ OD-to-OW multiplier would give it $50m+ for the 4-day weekend, with $60m a good possibility.

For Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I would use Fincher's last big December effort, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, as a comparison. Benjamin Button grossed $11.9m on its opening day; however, that's Christmas Day. The source material could make Dragon Tattoo more frontloaded, but I don't see it beating the figure on a Wednesday, not when it's rated R while Benjamin Button is PG-13. Another film to compare would be True Grit, also a pre-Christmas Wednesday release from renowned directors. It opened to $5.5m, a number Dragon Tattoo should beat given the expected upfront demand. So a $7-8m start feels reasonable, and that would translate to a 4-day weekend of $35-40m.

The Adventures of Tintin should have the best OD-to-OW multiplier among the Wednesday openers; unfortunately, it is also looking at the lowest opening day of the three. Beating Cheaper by the Dozen 2 should not be an issue, but $5m is as high as I see it getting on the first day. A 6.0 multiplier puts the Friday-to-Monday gross at $25-30m.

The PG rating means good multiplier for We Bought a Zoo. Cheaper by the Dozen 2, for example, had a 3.93 Friday-to-OW multiplier. $5m opening day seems reasonable for it as well, putting its 4-day weekend in the neighborhood of $20m.

Although Muich opened on Friday while War Horse is opening on Sunday, the former could still be used as a reference for the latter. Munich had a $6,755 PTA in 532 theaters for the Sunday-to-Monday portion. With much more locations, I don't see War Horse matching it, although something as low as what Rumor Has It received ($2,669 PTA in 2,815 theaters) is equally unlikely. Look for a low $4K PTA and $10m opening for the first two days.

Wolf Creek is definitely closest comparison to The Darkest Hour, as it will be one of the rare movies to drop on Monday. With little marketing push and stronger competition for males elsewhere, I don't see it matching Wolf Creek's opening day. A $3-4m two-day start is most likely.

China Weekly Box Office (12/05 - 12/11)

2011-12-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. White Vengeance（鸿门宴）	52m ($8.17m)	-36.6%	59,611	1,570,048	134.2m ($21.07m)
2. Sector 7（深海之战）	15.7m ($2.47m)	New	23,447	441,755	15.7m ($2.47m)
3. Priest（驱魔者）	13m ($2.04m)	-36.9%	18,895	352,781	33.6m ($5.28m)
4. The Adventures of Tintin（丁丁历险记）	9.4m ($1.48m)	-44.0%	9,013	235,529	128.2m ($20.19m)
5. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus（魔法奇幻秀）	8m ($1.26m)	+3.9%	13,972	259,655	15.7m ($2.47m)
6. Magic to Win（开心魔法）	7.5m ($1.18m)	-27.2%	16,263	249,335	17.8m ($2.80m)
7. Real Steel（铁甲钢拳）	7.4m ($1.16m)	-39.8%	6,582	192,658	142.5m ($20.50m)
8. Three Idiots（三傻大闹宝莱坞）	7.4m ($1.16m)	New	10,029	234,474	7.4m ($1.16m)
9. East Meets West 2011（东成西就2011）	5.8m ($0.91m)	-72.4%	12,613	183,718	78.5m ($12.34m)
10. Love Is Not Blind（失恋33天）	5m ($0.79m)	-64.3%	7,782	143,802	349.8m ($52.92m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1572)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Dec 16 - 18): Sherlock Holmes 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, Mission: Impossible 4, Young Adult

2011-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	48.0	$12,893 PTA
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	30.0	$8,058 PTA
3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	12.0	$28,235 PTA
4. New Year's Eve	8.0	-38.6%
5. Arthur Christmas	5.2	-20.1%
6. The Muppets	4.7	-32.7%
7. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1	4.5	-42.5%
8. The Sitter	4.5	-54.3%
9. Hugo	4.0	-33.9%
10. Young Adults	4.0	$4,057 PTA

Brief thoughts after watching Mission: Impoosible 4 at a soldout IMAX auditorium in San Francisco (Metreon): it is the best action movie of the year. Sort of like a hybrid of Bourne and 007 that combined all the good parts, with non-stop but not over-the-top actions and cool gadgets. Good humors from Simon Pegg. It is destined to be the crowd-pleaser of this holiday season, and I see great legs and potential for $200m total. Also Dark Knight Rises prologue in IMAX is a must see; definitely the most anticipated film of 2012 by far.

China Weekly Box Office (11/28 - 12/04)

2011-12-16T00:41:00.001-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. White Vengeance（鸿门宴）	82m ($12.88m)	New	66,909	2,521,525	82m ($12.88m)
2. East Meets West 2011（东成西就2011）	21m ($3.30m)	-59.4%	33,936	663,088	72.7m ($11.43m)
3. Priest（驱魔者）	20.6m ($3.24m)	New	24,030	563,457	20.6m ($3.24m)
4. The Adventures of Tintin（丁丁历险记）	16.8m ($2.64m)	-58.0%	15,953	435,458	118.8m ($18.71m)
5. Love Is Not Blind（失恋33天）	14m ($2.20m)	-69.4%	20,844	421,432	344.8m ($52.13m)
6. Real Steel（铁甲钢拳）	12.3m ($1.93m)	-55.8%	11,949	348,047	135.1m ($19.34m)
7. Magic to Win（开心魔法）	10.3m ($1.62m)	New	14,906	328,025	10.3m ($1.62m)
8. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus（魔法奇幻秀）	7.7m ($1.21m)	New	8,797	247,429	7.7m ($1.21m)
9. Cold Steel（遍地狼烟）	4.6m ($0.72m)	New	10,033	148,578	4.6m ($0.72m)
8. A Big Deal（巨额交易）	4.2m ($0.66m)	New	7,574	136,674	4.2m ($0.66m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1571)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Dec 9 - 11): New Year's Eve, The Sitter

2011-12-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. New Year's Eve	20.0	$5,706 PTA
2. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1	9.5	-42.5%
3. The Sitter	9.0	$3,274 PTA
4. Hugo	8.0	+5.9%
5. The Muppets	7.7	-30.5%
6. Arthur Christmas	6.5	-12.2%
7. The Descendants	5.0	+4.4%
8. Happy Feet Two	3.9	-34.1%
9. Jack and Jill	3.7	-30.9%
10. Immortals	3.0	-32.8%

1. The first sign of concern for New Year's Eve came from Flixster, where its number of user ratings has ascended at a very slow pace and still falls short of 10,000 as of Thursday night. Normally only family films would see a sub-50 ratings-to-opening-weekend ratio, which is what it needs to break $20m for the opening frame. While ReelSource's tracking appeared to bring some good news on Monday with its high-30s number, it actually added to my concern since one had the feeling that the one from Major Theater Chain would be much more reasonable (i.e. lower), and such discrepancy would bring the MTC << RS "rule" into play. It did lead Fandango's ticket sales chart with their latest Thursday afternoon update, but 16% is not really an impressive figure given we are coming out of one of the weakest weekends of the year. Valentine's Day (18% at RT with 3.8 average) showed bad reviews don't necessarily affect the box office for the genre, but having such terrible reviews (5%/3.2 so far) won't bring in additional viewers either. New Year's Eve also does not have the release date gimmick of Valentine's Day; instead, it will rely on the holiday the title is targeting to help its legs.

2. If the trailer for New Year's Eve came across as too eager showing off its impressive cast and not having enough funny bits, then the one for The Sitter would appear as if they are actively trying to be not funny. The reviews, as expected, are terrible as well. More alarmingly, it has gathered around 6,700 user ratings at Flixster so far, abysmal for a genre (R-rated comedy) known for higher ratios. Not making Fandango's top 5 advance sales list is another bad sign. It could have trouble making double-digit this weekend.

3. With weakness from the openers, holdovers will see good-to-excellent holds across the board, especially for two films that continue to expand, Hugo (+768, +41.7%) and The Descendants (+300, +52.3%).

China Weekly Box Office (11/21 - 11/27)

2011-12-04T18:13:00.001-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. East Meets West 2011（东成西就2011）	51.7m ($8.13m)	New	42,233	1,639,708	51.7m ($8.13m)
2. Love Is Not Blind（失恋33天）	45.8m ($7.20m)	-52.3%	56,754	1,424,572	330.8m ($52.13m)
3. The Adventures of Tintin（丁丁历险记）	40m ($6.29m)	-35.5%	37,951	1,083,717	102m ($16.07m)
4. Real Steel（铁甲钢拳）	27.8m ($4.37m)	-25.9%	28,170	851,454	122.8m ($19.34m)
5. Immortals（惊天战神）	15m ($2.36m)	-48.3%	20,516	411,296	33.4m ($5.26m)
6. Legendary Amazons（杨门女将）	14m ($2.20m)	-40.4%	31,091	455,580	37.5m ($5.91m)
7. Tropa de Elite 2（精英部队：大敌当前）	9.8m ($1.54m)	New	13,057	324,825	9.8m ($1.54m)
8. Nightmare（午夜凶梦）	6.1m ($0.96m)	New	11,051	198,374	6.1m ($0.96m)
9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes（猩球崛起）	4.7m ($0.74m)	-56.5%	7,712	144,748	202m ($31.80m)
10. Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence（名侦探柯南：沉默的15分钟）	0.52m ($0.082m)	-69.4%	1,691	19,381	30.32m ($4.77m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1573)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Dec 2 - 4)

2011-12-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1	15.0	-64.0%
2. The Muppets	14.0	-52.1%
3. Hugo	8.0	-29.6%
4. Arthur Christmas	6.0	-50.3%
5. Jack and Jill	5.5	-45.0%
6. The Descendants	5.0	-31.9%
7. Happy Feet Two	5.0	-62.7%
8. Immortals	4.0	-54.9%
9. Tower Heist	3.5	-51.2%
10. Puss in Boots	3.0	-60.1%
-. Shame	0.4	$44,444 PTA

China Weekly Box Office (11/07 - 11/13): the darkhorse Love Is Not Blind surpised all with a monster start to win over Real Steel and Immortals

2011-11-24T20:28:00.001-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Love Is Not Blind（失恋33天）	189m ($29.79m)	New	89,530	5,967,792	189m ($29.79m)
2. Real Steel（铁甲钢拳）	57.5m ($9.06m)	New	49,912	1,711,309	57.5m ($9.06m)
3. Immortals（惊天战神）	33.4m ($5.26m)	New	21,706	891,855	33.4m ($5.26m)
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes（猩球崛起）	31m ($4.89m)	-65.0%	36,578	985,378	186.5m ($29.36m)
5. Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence（名侦探柯南：沉默的15分钟）	8.4m ($1.32m)	-57.4%	16,906	291,262	28.1m ($4.42m)
6. Starry Starry Night（星空）	4.4m ($0.69m)	-58.9%	9,779	134,803	15.1m ($2.37m)
7. Kora（转山）	1.48m ($0.23m)	-40.8%	3,927	48,828	3.98m ($0.63m)
8. Single Terminator（光棍终结者）	1.15m ($0.18m)	New	3,038	40,125	1.15m ($0.18m)
9. Zuo Li Jun（左利军）	1.07m ($0.17m)	+118.4%	165	35,666	1.56m ($0.25m)
10. Green Lantern（绿灯侠）	0.89m ($0.14m)	-88.6%	2,575	26,300	72.19m ($11.34m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1576)

Thanksgiving Weekend Predictions (11/23 - 27): The Muppets, Arthur Christmas, Hugo

2011-11-22T22:07:00.001-08:00

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I - $40m 3-day / $62m 5-day (-71.0%)

Breaking Dawn Part I has followed closely with New Moon in term of daily percentage changes: Sat-to-Sun - -33.9% vs. -34.2%; Sun-to-Mon - -62.7% vs. -62.3%. New Moon did face less new competition on its Thanksgiving week with Old Dogs and Ninja Assassin grossing $45.4m combined over 5 days, but it had to deal with much stronger holdovers, especially in The Blind Side, so overall expect Breaking Dawn to continue follow a similar trajectory. In the end, it is likely to not only miss the $300m mark, but also gross less than New Moon's total of $296.6m.

2. The Muppets - $35m 3-day / $50m 5-day ($10,174 PTA)

There are many positives pointing to an excellent start by The Muppets:

a. Over 6,000 tweets on Monday alone and around 17,000 user ratings already at Flixster. For a family film, both are very strong. For example, Happy Feet 2 last week translated 9,300 Flixster ratings on Thursday into a $21.2m weekend.

b. It accounted for 31% of the ticket sales at Fandango on Tuesday.

c. MTC tracking put it at $31.5m while RS gave it high-$20s for the 3-day portion. Although the difference is not large enough to strongly indicate an opening higher than MTC's figure, a number below RS' is also unlikely.

d. The reviews are simply terrific. In fact, as of now, it remains perfectly fresh at RottenTomatoes with 59 reviews, and the average stands at 8.1.

As we could see from the all-time best Thanksgiving opening chart, Disney has a good track record for the frame. I do not expect another Tangled (and certainly not Toy Story 2), but a $35m 3-day and $50m 5-day similar to what Enchanted achieved looks very reasonable.

3. Happy Feet Two - $18.5m 3-day / $25m 5-day (-12.9%)

The original Happy Feet declined only 10.8% on its Thanksgiving weekend. However, it enjoyed better word-of-mouth as well as faced much weaker competition, with only Deck the Halls targeting its demo, so expect the sequel to drop a little harder.

4. Arthur Christmas - $11m 3-day / $15m 5-day ($3,258 PTA)

Not much to say about the film other than I don't really like the signs for it: MTC tracking came in significantly lower than RS' (10.5 vs. mid-teen), low number of Flixster ratings (around 5,000), and weak advance sales.

-. Hugo - $5m 3-day / $7m 5-day ($3,915 PTA)

Financier Graham King's insistence on releasing Hugo this week may end up ranked as one of the very worst release date decisions of the year, if not many years. The marketing effort has not been there to support generating the necessary buzz for the well-reviewed but harder-to-sell film from Martin Scorsese. As a result, Hugo may perish before the excellent reviews could kick in to help its legs. Paramount did realize the difficult task it is facing and limited the amount of theaters this week to 1,277 to leave space for expansion, but if the initial per-theater-average is mediocre, there might not be an expansion at all.

This will also be a week for the limited releases to shine. Last week's darling The Descendants will continue to shine, and joining it includes The Artist, A Dangerous Method, and My Week with Marilyn, all fresh at RottenTomatoes. I am most interested in The Artist's performance since on paper, it is the hardest one to sell being both black-and-white and silent, but it is also the one with the most Oscar buzz, with many predicting a Best Picture nomination coming in February.

Early Weekend Thoughts (Nov 11 - 13): Puss in Boots looks to 3-peat over Immortals, Jack and Jill, and J. Edgar

2011-11-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

I will be traveling with family to Hawaii for 10 days starting tomorrow, and online time will be limited, so will post my thoughts on this weekend's top 5 now.

1. Puss in Boots - $30m (-9.2%)

Puss in Boots' leggy run should continue this weekend with the help of Veterans Day on Friday, as family films tend to perform exceptionally well on this holiday. The last time Veterans Day fell on Friday, Chicken Little turned a $2.23m Tuesday into a $31.7m weekend, thanks to a 81.8% Thursday jump and then a 285.4% Friday increase. Puss in Boots' second Tuesday of $2.43m is not only better than Chicken Little's by comparison, it is also better than what it earned a week ago, a very rare occurrence. Another superb hold should occur.

2. Immortals - $20m (New)

The general expectations on Immortals were relatively low given the recent failure of Conan the Barbarian ($10m opening) and The Three Musketeers ($8.7m). However, both tracking firms, Major Theater Chain and ReelSource, came in early this week and put its opening at around mid-$20m, indicating the appeal to 300 crowd could be working. On the other hand, Flixster shows 15,859 user ratings so far, not that strong for a film that is likely to see a user-rating-to-OW ratio of over 1,000. On the Twitter front, it is on track for about 15,000 tweets from Monday to Thursday, good but again not necessarily matching the tracking strength, as its tweets-to-Friday ratio should be close to 2,000, and with the catchy 11/11/11 release date and the inherent frontloading nature of the genre, a $8m Friday may not translate to a $20m weekend.

3. Tower Heist - $17m (-29.2%)

On the equivalent weekend in 2005, many holdovers saw excellent holds due to holiday. With good word-of-mouth and sneak-in business from 2 R-rated openers, look for Tower Heist to have a great sophomore frame.

4. Jack and Jill - $15m (New)

Simply not feeling the latest Adam Sandler release. The ads have not generated much interest, as it is stuck in a place that doesn't attract any particular demographics. It could very well be Sandler's second Little Nicky.

5. J. Edgar - $14m (New)

Outside Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's recent offerings had experienced pretty similar runs: Hereafter, Invictus, Changeling, and Flags of Our Fathers all opened between $8.6m and $12.1m and finished with $32.7-37.5m total. The interests in J. Edgar appear to be higher due to the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, but the worse reviews could cut its legs short, so expect a stronger start but weaker overall multiplier.

China Weekly Box Office (10/31 - 11/06): Rise of the Planet of the Apes continued to dominate

2011-11-08T23:42:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes（猩球崛起）	88.5m ($13.93m)	+32.1%	82,800	2,856,681	155.5m ($24.47m)
2. Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence（名侦探柯南：沉默的15分钟）	19.7m ($3.10m)	New	19,408	661,073	19.7m ($3.10m)
3. Starry Starry Night（星空）	10.7m ($1.68m)	New	14,527	327,617	10.7m ($1.68m)
4. Green Lantern（绿灯侠）	7.8m ($1.23m)	-68.8%	16,234	210,072	71.3m ($11.20m)
5. Unknown（不明身份）	7.6m ($1.20m)	New	16,160	248,609	7.6m ($1.20m)
6. Lost In Panic Cruise（密室之不可靠岸）	6.3m ($0.99m)	-37.2%	17,782	205,479	16.33m ($2.57m)
7. The Warrior's Way（黄沙武士）	4m ($0.63m)	New	9,851	125,274	4m ($0.63m)
8. Love on Credit（幸福额度）	3.75m ($0.59m)	-72.2%	11,070	115,278	33.25m ($5.22m)
9. Sleepwalker in 3D（梦游）	3.6m ($0.57m)	-44.6%	9,839	107,398	10.1m ($1.59m)
10. Interceptor（黑暗终结者）	2.9m ($0.46m)	New	6,534	95,899	2.9m ($0.46m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1574)

China Weekly Box Office (10/24 - 10/30): Rise of the Planet of the Apes set new fall opening weekend record

2011-11-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes（猩球崛起）	67m ($10.54m)	New	42,016	2,168,284	67m ($10.54m)
2. Green Lantern（绿灯侠）	25m ($3.93m)	-35.1%	43,994	661,200	63.5m ($9.97m)
3. Love on Credit（幸福额度）	13.5m ($2.12m)	-15.6%	30,785	418,086	29.5m ($4.63m)
4. Lost In Panic Cruise（密室之不可靠岸）	10.03m ($1.58m)	New	20,654	324,700	10.03m ($1.58m)
5. Limitless （永无止境）	7.8m ($1.23m)	-58.9%	17,175	251,531	50.3m ($7.90m)
6. Sleepwalker in 3D（梦游）	6.5m ($1.02m)	New	14,548	186,996	6.5m ($1.02m)
7. Sleepless Fashion（与时尚同居）	3.4m ($0.53m)	+21.4%	12,819	115,803	6.2m ($0.97m)
8. Its Love（白蛇传说）	3.2m ($0.50m)	-75.4%	7,998	118,255	206.2m ($32.33m)
9. Fake Identity（双重身份）	2.3m ($0.36m)	-65.2%	7,156	72,304	8.9m ($1.39m)
10. 1911（辛亥革命）	2.2m ($0.35m)	-38.9%	1,135	69,664	58.7m ($9.20m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1573)

China Weekly Box Office (10/17 - 10/23): Not very exciting start for Green Lantern

2011-11-07T21:53:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Green Lantern（绿灯侠）	38.5m ($6.04m)	New	39,614	991,756	38.5m ($6.04m)
2. Limitless （永无止境）	19m ($2.98m)	-19.1%	33,507	610,539	42.5m ($6.67m)
3. Love on Credit（幸福额度）	16m ($2.51m)	New	24,627	486,322	16m ($2.51m)
4. Its Love（白蛇传说）	13m ($2.04m)	-58.7%	24,097	443,989	203m ($31.83m)
5. Mural（画壁）	9.1m ($1.43m)	-68.4%	20,805	285,714	180.9m ($26.93m)
6. Who Under The Bed（床下有人）	6.6m ($1.03m)	-12.0%	17,192	228,294	14.1m ($2.21m)
7. Fake Identity（双重身份）	6.6m ($1.03m)	New	16,092	211,878	6.6m ($1.03m)
8. Last Night（一夜迷情）	4.2m ($0.66m)	-20.8%	11,949	128,518	9.5m ($1.49m)
9. 1911（辛亥革命）	3.8m ($0.60m)	-49.3%	2,740	122,265	56.5m ($8.85m)
10. Sleepless Fashion（与时尚同居）	2.8m ($0.44m)	New	6,410	87,884	2.8m ($0.44m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1568)

China Weekly Box Office (10/10 - 10/16): Limitless performed above expectation

2011-11-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Its Love（白蛇传说）	31.5m ($4.95m)	-60.6%	50,993	970,724	190m ($29.79m)
2. Mural（画壁）	28.8m ($4.52m)	-65.3%	46,663	872,991	171.8m ($26.93m)
3. Limitless （永无止境）	23.5m ($3.69m)	New	26,562	746,505	23.5m ($3.69m)
4. 1911（辛亥革命）	7.5m ($1.18m)	-21.9%	8,980	240,734	52.7m ($8.25m)
5. Who Under The Bed（床下有人）	7.5m ($1.18m)	New	11,975	256,060	7.5m ($1.18m)
6. Last Night（一夜迷情）	5.3m ($0.83m)	New	10,658	160,557	5.3m ($0.83m)
7. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	4.6m ($0.72m)	-72.9%	5,992	118,130	117.1m ($18.35m)
8. I Phone You（爱封了）	2.7m ($0.42m)	New	8,495	81,154	2.7m ($0.42m)
9. Drive Angry（狂暴飞车）	2.7m ($0.42m)	-55.7%	5,990	80,645	62.8m ($9.84m)
10. Love Sick（恋爱恐慌症）	2.4m ($0.38m)	New	5,994	77,195	2.4m ($0.38m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1570)

China Weekly Box Office (10/03 - 10/09): Independence holiday week

2011-11-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Mural（画壁）	83m ($13.01m)	+38.3%	70,817	2,532,021	143m ($22.41m)
2. Its Love（白蛇传说）	80m ($12.54m)	+1.9%	78,503	2,408,187	158.5m ($24.84m)
3. The Dragon Knight（洛克王国！圣龙骑士）	18m ($2.82m)	+33.3%	27,580	658,135	31.5m ($4.94m)
4. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	17m ($2.67m)	+8.3%	12,963	413,725	112.5m ($17.63m)
5. 1911（辛亥革命）	9.6m ($1.51m)	-45.1%	14,282	285,120	45.1m ($7.07m)
6. Drive Angry（狂暴飞车）	6.1m ($0.96m)	-28.2%	8,558	173,838	60.1m ($9.42m)
7. May Day 3DNA（五月天追梦3DNA）	5.3m ($0.83m)	-31.6%	6,667	132,965	25.05m ($3.92m)
8. Lee's Adventures（李献计历险记）	5m ($0.78m)	+212.5%	11,517	152,998	6.6m ($1.03m)
9. Captain America: The First Avenger（美国队长）	4m ($0.63m)	-28.6%	4,723	104,876	95.6m ($14.98m)
10. Love You You （夏日乐悠悠）	2.4m ($0.38m)	+89.0%	6,925	73,664	3.67m ($0.58m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1568)

China Weekly Box Office (09/26 - 10/02): domestic films dominated; Sanctum ended as the highest September grosser

2011-11-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Its Love（白蛇传说）	78.5m ($12.30m)	New	53,086	2,358,065	78.5m ($12.30m)
2. Mural（画壁）	60m ($9.40m)	New	39,944	1,816,530	60m ($9.40m)
3. 1911（辛亥革命）	17.5m ($2.74m)	-2.8%	30,931	537,304	35.5m ($5.56m)
4. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	15.7m ($2.46m)	-28.6%	15,900	386,890	95.5m ($14.96m)
5. The Dragon Knight（洛克王国！圣龙骑士）	13.5m ($2.12m)	New	12,498	484,565	13.5m ($2.12m)
6. Drive Angry（狂暴飞车）	8.5m ($1.33m)	-59.5%	14,600	235,652	54m ($8.46m)
7. May Day 3DNA（五月天追梦3DNA）	7.75m ($1.21m)	-35.4%	14,956	198,768	19.75m ($3.09m)
8. Captain America: The First Avenger（美国队长）	5.6m ($0.88m)	-61.4%	9,037	154,100	91.6m ($14.35m)
9. The Purple House（紫宅）	4.2m ($0.66m)	-31.1%	12,927	146,699	10.3m ($1.62m)
10. Love in Space（全球热恋）	2.3m ($0.36m)	-77.7%	6,174	70,747	66.6m ($10.43m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1567)

China Weekly Box Office (09/19 - 09/25): terrible start for 1911

2011-11-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

Apologize for not updating numbers from China for a long time. Posting them now.

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	22m ($3.45m)	-38.5%	24,948	535,932	79.8m ($12.50m)
2. Drive Angry（狂暴飞车）	21m ($3.29m)	-14.3%	33,022	557,176	45.5m ($7.13m)
3. 1911（辛亥革命）	18m ($2.82m)	New	23,489	541,077	18m ($2.82m)
4. Captain America: The First Avenger（美国队长）	14.5m ($2.27m)	-60.3%	23,789	393,914	86m ($13.47m)
5. May Day 3DNA（五月天追梦3DNA）	12m ($1.88m)	New	13,701	286,532	12m ($1.88m)
6. Love in Space（全球热恋）	10.3m ($1.61m)	-61.9%	21,204	311,649	64.3m ($10.07m)
7. The Purple House（紫宅）	6.1m ($0.96m)	New	10,716	203,740	6.1m ($0.96m)
8. My Kingdom（大武生）	6.1m ($0.96m)	-71.0%	16,958	192,429	48.1m ($7.54m)
9. Arthur et la guerre des deux mondes（亚瑟3）	5.25m ($0.82m)	New	10,497	188,239	5.25m ($0.82m)
10. The Man from Nowhere（孤胆特工）	5.1m ($0.80m)	+2.0%	15,218	174,002	10.1m ($1.58m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1566)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Nov 4 - 6): Tower Heist, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

2011-11-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Puss in Boots	27.0	-20.8%
2. Tower Heist	25.5	$7,574 PTA
3. A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas	16.0	$5,565 PTA
4. Paranormal Activity 3	8.1	-55.1%
5. In Time	6.0	-50.2%
6. Footloose	3.8	-30.9%
7. Real Steel	3.2	-33.1%
8. The Rum Diary	3.1	-39.6%
9. The Three Mustketeers	2.2	-37.3%
10. The Ides of March	2.0	-28.7%

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Oct 28 - 30): Puss in Boots, In Time, The Rum Diary

2011-10-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Puss in Boots	50.0	$12,652 PTA
2. Paranormal Activity 3	21.0	-60.1%
3. In Time	10.0	$3,203 PTA
4. The Rum Diary	7.5	$3,301 PTA
5. Footloose	6.3	-39.1%
6. Real Steel	6.0	-44.6%
7. The Three Mustketeers	4.7	-45.8%
8. The Ides of March	2.8	-42.3%
9. Moneyball	2.3	-42.2%
10. Dolphin Tale	2.0	-52.6%

After one of THE most memorable World Series games I have ever seen and then a midnight movie (a pretty terrible one), it's 2:30am, and I will have to give a short version of my predictions again. Just want to emphasize a few things:

1. Having a Game 7 is bad news for Friday box office. The World Series may have seen rating declines in recent years, but this is still Game 7, the first one since 2002. Also from what we saw on Tuesday, where no baseball game contributed to better-than-normal increases across the board, even a 10-15% rating translates to a good chunk of the audience. Male-oriented films will see the most noticeable effect, with Moneyball being the leading candidate to get hit the hardest, but even Puss in Boots will get impacted some as families could easily decide to push it to Saturday.

2. The signs for Puss in Boots are very strong, from tracking (MTC coming in way higher than RS, $48m vs. $38m), Box Office Mojo poll (~26% Opening Weekend interest), and tweets (~7,400 from Monday to Thursday, when the ratio for a non-Pixar animated film normally hovers in the 500-600 range). Below is a table showing the BOM polls of other similar films:

Movie	BOM Opening Weekend %	Sometime in Theaters %	Opening Weekend Gross
Shrek Forever After	23.7%	23.6%	$70.8m
Megamind	21.4%	25.4%	$46.0m
How to Train Your Dragon	22.5%	24.0%	$43.7m
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa	21.5%	17.7%	$63.1m
Monsters Vs. Aliens	27.7%	26.0%	$59.3m
Ice Age: The Meltdown	29.2%	24.8%	$68.0m
Shark Tale	26.5%	28.0%	$47.6m
Bee Movie	18.2%	22.0%	$38.0m

3. In Time, on the other hand, is showing quite a bit of weakness when we consider its sci-fi genre. Its BOM poll is weaker than what Source Code received, and around 7,500 tweets Mon-to-Thurs for the genre tends to mean a sub-$5m Friday.

4. Last weekend, many holdovers, in various degrees, were benefited from Paranormal Activities 3's popularity and the sneak-in business it generated. They won't receive such boost this frame, so expect some heavier drops.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Oct 21 - 23): Paranormal Activity 3, The Three Mustketeers, Johnny English Reborn, The Mighty Macs

2011-10-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Paranormal Activity 3	48.5	$14,604 PTA
2. The Three Mustketeers	12.0	$3,977 PTA
3. Real Steel	10.3	-36.8%
4. Footloose	8.5	-45.4%
5. Johnny English Reborn	7.7	$4,965 PTA
6. The Ides of March	5.0	-29.7%
7. Dolphin Tale	4.4	-29.4%
8. Moneyball	3.7	-32.2%
9. The Thing	3.0	-64.7%
10. 50/50	2.9	-31.9%
-. The Mighty Macs	1.1	$1,128 PTA

The signs could hardly look any better for Paranormal Activity 3. Its Box Office Mojo poll shows 23.6% Opening Weekend votes, higher than what either Paranormal Activity 2 (20.3% OW) or Jackass 3D (18.8%) received. The number of tweets it generated this week is even more impressive, averaging over 40,000 a day and simply one of the best performers we have ever seen. Its advance sales also accounted for a higher percentage of the total sales than what those two films had on their respective pre-release Wednesdays. Then the fact that Major Theater Chain tracking came in significantly higher than ReelSource's, $38m vs. $30m, echoed a potential breakout start of $45m+. Each of the last three years, we saw the top 12 films on this equivalent frame to gross at least $105m combined; with the current weakness in the market and other new wide releases not expecting to perform well, the condition is ripe for Paranormal Activity 3 to make a run at $50m this weekend.

Ever since the first trailer, which feels to be a long time ago, The Three Musketeers has taunted the fact it is shot in 3D instead of being post-converted. However, the climate for 3D films has cooled down significantly, and period action is not a genre people associate with 3D, so having it could turn off even more viewers. Look for a low-teen opening at best.

Johnny English Reborn is sort of the wild card of the weekend. The buzz appears minimal, but its BOM poll is actually a little better than what Mr. Bean's Holiday had: 11.2% OW vs. 9.6%. Reborn's international gross has been on par with Mr. Bean's Holiday as well, and the latter opened to $9.6m in 1,714 theaters domestically. The market also hasn't seen a PG-rated film since Dolphin Tale a month ago, so a small overperformance could be in store.

The Mighty Macs reminds me of The Final Season and Gracie, and a figure in between feels reasonable.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Oct 14 - 16): Footloose, The Thing, The Big Year

2011-10-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Real Steel	17.5	-35.9%
2. Footloose	17.0	$4,790 PTA
3. The Thing	11.5	$3,837 PTA
4. The Ides of March	6.5	-37.9%
5. Dolphin Tale	6.3	-31.0%
6. Moneyball	4.9	-34.3%
7. The Big Year	4.5	$2,093 PTA
8. 50/50	3.8	-32.8%
9. Courageous	3.1	-36.3%
10. Dream House	2.5	-44.1%

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Oct 7 - 9): Real Steel, The Ides of March

2011-10-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Real Steel	24.5	$7,122 PTA
2. The Ides of March	11.5	$5,230 PTA
3. Dolphin Tale	10.5	-24.5%
4. Moneyball	7.5	-37.7%
5. 50/50	5.5	-36.4%
6. Courageous	5.3	-41.5%
7. Dream House	4.3	-47.1%
8. The Lion King 3D	3.5	-67.0%
9. Abduction	3.1	-44.7%
10. What's Your Number	3.0	-44.7%
11. Contagion	2.8	-42.9%
12. Killer Elite	2.6	-47.1%

(Sorry that I didn't really have any time to write tonight; just did some quick calculations from my charts.)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Sep 30 - Oct 2): What's Your Number, 50/50, Courageous, Dream House

2011-09-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Dolphin Tale	15.5	-19.1%
2. Moneyball	13.2	-32.3%
3. The Lion King 3D	11.1	-49.4%
4. What's Your Number	10.5	$3,500 PTA
5. 50/50	9.1	$3,700 PTA
6. Courageous	8.1	$7,000 PTA
7. Dream House	7.0	$2,630 PTA
8. Abduction	5.5	-49.7%
9. Contagion	5.3	-37.3%
10. Killer Elite	4.3	-54.0%

For the fourth straight weekend, we will have four new wide releases joining the fray. September is one of the weakest months for box office, so having 19 good-scale openers all crammed into it is quite absurd. Last weekend turned out to be a pleasant surprise on the strength of 4 main openers combining for $58.9m and The Lion King's impressive hold, as the overall market set a new September record ($105.9m total for the top 12 films). This frame is unlikely to sustain such performance, and with Dolphin Tale and Moneyball receiving great word-of-mouth, the holdovers in the top 12 look to grab around $65m, not leaving much room for the new releases. I will be surprised if even two of them break double-digit.

To me, the new film best suited to break double-digit is actually What's Your Number. It fills a market void and will enjoy the most number of theaters among the openers (3,002). The trailer had been well received by the audience each time I saw it, especially the end. The R-rating is a concern, and there are signs of weakness such as weak tracking ($6-7m), small number of tweets (around 400 from Monday to Thursday), and little advance sale; however, its 8.4% Opening Weekend figure at Box Office Mojo poll is stronger than some past R-rated romantic comedies such as Going the Distance (5.8%, $6.9m start) and My Best Friend's Girl (4.4%, $8.3m), even though the number could not quite match Good Luck Chuck's 11.2% ($13.7m). Balancing all the factors, I put its per-theater-average at around $3,500 for a $10-11m weekend.

In addition to good BOM poll (18.4% OW, way better than the most recent R-rated comedy Our Idiot Brother), 50/50 also has excellent reviews in its favor. On the other hand, the cancer topic is a hard sell, and people don't really want to relate that to comedy. As Drive just showed, doing well on those fronts (24.0% OW, 93% at RottenTomatoes) does not necessarily translate to good box office. Not appearing on Fandango's top 5 ticket sales list is a bigger concern for it than for What's Your Number. It could break double-digit, but I feel it will fall short.

Courageous has led Fandango's tickets list since Wednesday, as churches tend to do group buying in advance for religious films. Fireproof, director Alex Kendrick's previous endeavor, took advantage of the same late September weekend to open with a very healthy $8,148 PTA in 838 locations, and look for Courageous to achieve something similar, although higher screen count of 1,161 could mean a slightly smaller PTA.

Dream House is one film I feel least confident about. The online signs (number of tweets, BOM poll) are decent, but the delay, very low-key marketing, and the lack of advance sales are all causes for concerns. The buzz around it feels rather minimal, so it could very well end up last among the four.

With weakness from the openers as well as its own magnificent word-of-mouth, Dolphin Tale will be able to duplicate what The Help, the previous movie to receive A+ CinemaScore, accomplished on its sophomore weekend: claiming the top spot. Comparable films include Soul Surfer (-31.4% on its second frame), Secretariat (-26.6%), and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (-17.4%). I expect its hold to be close to Meatballs, as there is little new direct competition, and A+ CinemaScore has proven to be strongly correlated to superb box office legs.

Moneyball also enjoyed a strong CinemaScore of A, but it does have one obstacle of baseball playoff starting this weekend after Major League Baseball changed the schedule this season. A drop somewhere between The Social Network, Red, and The Town, well-received films that opened in similar range, is likely.

Not surprisingly, Disney extended The Lion King's run beyond the initial two-week engagement after its splendid performance. However, as we have seen with Toy Story 1/2 re-release, Michael Jackson's This Is It, and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Concert Tour, when the engagement was extended, the films would suffer steep declines because one of the main reasons the first two weeks got good business is precisely the limited time; by the time the third weekend came, many were either not aware, or those who were had already seen the movie, indicated by the small Friday increase. The Lion King did hold much better on its second weekend than all of those films; even Toy Story re-release dropped 37.8% with no new competition, while The Lion King declined just 27.3% when facing Dolphin Tale. And unlike TS, it does not have to face a $30m+ opener on its 3rd weekend. It is also not losing any theaters; in fact, according to BOM, it will gain 10. So while the Friday increase will still be quite a bit smaller than the previous week, it should be good enough to avoid a 50% drop.

Weekend Box Office (Sep 23 - 25): Dolphin Tale, Moneyball, Killer Elite, Abduction

2011-09-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Lion King 3D	18.0	-40.3%
2. Dolphin Tale	16.5	$4,705 PTA
3. Moneyball	16.0	$5,346 PTA
4. Killer Elite	11.0	$3,684 PTA
5. Abduction	10.0	$3,207 PTA
6. Contagion	8.5	-41.6%
7. Drive	5.5	-51.5%
8. The Help	4.8	-26.3%
9. I Don't Know How She Does It	2.5	-43.2%
10. Straw Dogs	2.3	-55.1%

Won't be able to write in details this week, so just want to point out that September has never seen top 12 films to gross over $100m combined (unadjusted to inflation); the highest was 9 years ago when Sweet Home Alabama set September's opening weekend record with $35.7m to help the top 12 gross $91.8m together. With the 8 holdovers looking set to grab at least $40m, it is unlikely that the four openers will total over $60m, and with Dolphin Tale poised to outperform the initial expectations, one, or maybe even two, of the other three could disappoint. Also I don't expect Drive to hold all that well with its C- CinemaScore and fierce new competitions for its demo.

China Weekly Box Office (09/12 - 09/18): Captain America repeated, but Sanctum was the more impressive performer

2011-09-20T20:28:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Captain America: The First Avenger（美国队长）	36.5m ($5.72m)	+4.3%	44,715	983,297	71.5m ($11.20m)
2. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	35.8m ($5.61m)	+62.7%	33,128	880,039	57.8m ($9.05m)
3. Love in Space（全球热恋）	27m ($4.23m)	-	40,127	813,253	54m ($8.46m)
4. Drive Angry（狂暴飞车）	24.5m ($3.84m)	NEW	26,523	637,025	24.5m ($3.84m)
5. My Kingdom（大武生）	21m ($3.29m)	-	38,092	647,348	42m ($6.58m)
6. Source Code（源代码）	7.1m ($1.11m)	-60.6%	10,512	216,992	68.1m ($10.67m)
7. The Man from Nowhere（孤胆特工）	5m ($0.78m)	New	10,558	165,453	5m ($0.78m)
8. Overheard 2（窃听风云2）	2.8m ($0.44m)	-77.6%	5,741	83,482	216.3m ($33.86m)
9. Cars 2（赛车总动员2）	2.8m ($0.44m)	-50.0%	3,456	77,756	77.3m ($12.11m)
10. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	2m ($0.31m)	-53.5%	808	48,602	81.4m ($12.70m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1566)

Saturday Morning Rants: the impressiveness of The Lion King's opening and the ridiculousness of "early Friday numbers"

2011-09-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Lion King 3D got $8.8m on Friday. To put this in perspective, on the same weekend two years ago, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs turned a $8.1m Friday into a $30.3m opening weekend, or a 3.72 internal multiplier. People may argue this has more rush factor since it is a re-release of a classic, but the 3D re-release of Toy Story/Toy Story 2 double-feature had a 3.84 IM on its opening weekend. With those as comparisons, The Lion King is looking at a $33m start, and that's simply incredible.

So just how magnificent this opening is? To me, it ranks right up there both as the most surprising and as the best opening of the year period. The average pre-release forecast was around $15m, and I personally thought I was pushing its upper limit with my $22m prediction, given its theater count and the amount of screens. The screen count is what makes this start especially impressive even in term of the raw number. Because it is a re-release, The Lion King is not hogging multiple screens like family films traditionally do to achieve big openings. In fact, it occupies only a single screen in almost all of its 2,330 theaters. If we assume 5 showings per theater per day and $10 average ticket price (it's 3D but also has many kids in attendence, so should not average much higher), then each showing yesterday attracted 75 people on average. We could compare this to Transformers 3 for example. The latter got $33.0m in 9,300 screens on its first Friday, translating to 70 people per show even if we assume the same average ticket price. And when we consider family films tend to have trouble filling the late showings, The Lion King would basically need to sell out plenty of the afternoon and early night showings across the country to achieve such start. One more food for thought: when the original one first expanded wide in the summer of 1994, it got $40.9m in 2,552 theaters for a $16,022 PTA; 17 years later, in the early fall, the re-release is looking at a $14K PTA. That's some staying power.

Toy Story double-feature re-release, which was also advertised as a two-week only event but extended beyond, ended with a 2.46 overall multiplier. If The Lion King matches it, it will be looking at adding another $80m to its total and make its way to the all-time Top 10 on the domestic chart.

One other matter I feel compelled to say something about is how the "early friday numbers" are being reported earlier and earlier to the point where "respected" trade papers such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are giving weekend projections on Friday afternoon based on early matinee returns. That is simply ridiculous, and we have seen how off these projections could get. A month ago, Rise of the Planet of the Apes saw its reported Friday number rose steadily from $13m in the afternoon to $15m early evening to $18m late night and then finally $19.5m with real estimate, leading to a change in weekend projection from mid-$30m to $50m+ and a complete alteration in article's tone. Now with The Lion King, the first report at around 3pm PST from Variety said $15-18m for the weekend directly without even giving what they thought Friday number would be. Then THR revised to $22-24m later at night, and it turned out we're looking at $30m+. We know why they are doing it ealy to attract traffic, but it is still sad to see the two renowned trade papers stoop to the level of Nikki Finki at Deadline and sacrifice the fundementals of professional journalism.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Sep 16 - 18): The Lion King 3D, Drive, I Don't Know How She Does It, Straw Dogs

2011-09-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Lion King 3D	22.0	$9,442 PTA
2. Contagion	12.0	-46.4%
3. Drive	11.5	$3,985 PTA
4. I Don't Know How She Does It	7.0	$2,827 PTA
5. The Help	6.3	-29.4%
6. Straw Dogs	5.7	$2,367 PTA
7. The Warrior	2.8	-46.6%
8. The Debt	2.7	-43.4%
9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	2.3	-40.8%
10. Colombiana	2.1	-46.8%

What was supposed to be a close race for the top spot is turning out to be not the case at all, as The Lion King 3D is blowing away its competitors in terms of advance sales and number of tweets. By Thursday afternoon, it accounted for 62% of Fandango sales, simply a remarkable figure for this time of the year. Its tweets reached 10,000 on Wednesday alone. On the Box Office Mojo front, 18% of voters say they will see it on the opening weekend. That is a bit lower than what the 3D re-release of Toy Story/Toy Story 2 received - 22.9%; however, the TS re-release was a double-feature, which limited the amount of showings it could have per day as well as its family appeals, since the kids will have great difficulty sitting in theater for 3 hours. The Lion King will not have such problem, and it will maintain Toy Story's nostalgia factor. If we just look at the 18%, it is an excellent number for a family film. On the same weekend two years ago, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs turned 13.9% OW interest into a $30.3m start. The Lion King does not have the theater count to match that start, but it could get close to a $10,000 per-theater-average, as the Toy Story double-feature re-release achieved $7K PTA while playing an average of only 3 showings per day. It is true that 3D is nowhere near as popular as two years ago, but The Lion King will also be played in some 2D screens to alleviate the concern.

For a while, it looks like Drive may suffer a similar fate as Warrior did last week, a superbly-reviewed film not able to attract the audience it deserves. However, as the week progresses, its prospect is becoming better and better. The OW interest at BOM poll jumped from around 19% on Monday to 23.8% by Thursday night. Also the Never percentage is below 30%, indicating people are open to check out the film, and the excellent reviews (93%/8.3 average at RottenTomatoes, 81 with 6 100s at Metacritic) could convince last-minute deciders to propel its opening higher. The big jump in theater count from originally estimated 2,400 to 2,886 exhibits FilmDistrict's confidence, and it finally entered Fandango's advance sales list on Thursday with 3%, a figure that will continue to improve into the weekend.

Weinstein Company has not aggressively marketed I Don't Know How She Does It, and the awareness and interests are not very high as a result. Its BOM poll shows a paltry 2.2% for the portion of voters who are interested in seeing it the opening weekend; although people may argue BOM demo is as far away from the film's targeted audience as possible, we could still compare it with films of similar demo, and the number trails the ones from others such as Did You Hear About the Morgans (5.0% OW, $6.6m opening), Love Happens (5.4% OW, $8.1m opening), and The Women (4.0% OW, $10.1m opening). The appeal for this film does appear to skew even more females than usual, and there has not been a female-oriented comedy in a while, so some upside surprise to a $3,000+ PTA could occur.

Among the four new wide releases, Straw Dogs has the weakest outlook. Last week demonstrated yet again when Major Theater Chain tracking came in way below ReelSource's, the final outcome will most likely be even weaker than MTC's forecast, and Straw Dogs essentially matched Warrior's tracking with mid-teen from RS and $8m from MTC. In addition, it still had not cracked the top 5 in Fandango's advance sales by Thursday afternoon, quite terrible for a R-rated thriller, and any time a R-rated film of this genre is unable to grab over 10% OW from the BOM poll, it will have trouble exceeding $3,000 PTA.

China Weekly Box Office (09/05 - 09/11): Captain America conquered the Mid-Autumn holiday

2011-09-14T22:04:00.001-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Captain America: The First Avenger（美国队长）	35m ($5.48m)	New	26,999	928,628	35m ($5.48m)
2. Love in Space（全球热恋）	27m ($4.23m)	New	31,183	805,489	27m ($4.23m)
3. Sanctum（夺命深渊）	22m ($3.45m)	New	13,894	527,704	22m ($3.45m)
4. My Kingdom（大武生）	21m ($3.29m)	New	24,034	632,720	21m ($3.29m)
5. Source Code（源代码）	18m ($2.82m)	-58.1%	33,438	576,738	61m ($9.56m)
6. Overheard 2（窃听风云2）	12.5m ($1.96m)	-69.3%	25,783	379,247	213.5m ($33.42m)
7. The Smurfs（蓝精灵）	7.3m ($1.14m)	-71.9%	12,577	193,582	257.8m ($40.34m)
8. Beginning of The Great Revival（建党伟业）	5.7m ($0.89m)	-18.6%	1,078	97,569	403.43m ($62.46m)
9. Cars 2（赛车总动员2）	5.6m ($0.88m)	-78.4%	12,233	148,541	74.5m ($11.67m)
10. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	4.3m ($0.67m)	-42.7%	1,977	124,241	79.4m ($12.39m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1566)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Sep 9 - 11): Contagion, The Warrior, Bucky Larson

2011-09-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Contagion	24.2	$7,500 PTA
2. The Help	9.5	-34.9%
3. The Warrior	6.5	$3,500 PTA
4. The Debt	5.9	-40.5%
5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	4.9	-38.1%
6. Colombiana	4.1	-45.1%
7. Apollo 18	3.5	-59.8%
8. Shark Night 3D	3.1	-63.1%
9. Our Idiot Brother	2.7	-50.5%
10. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World	2.4	-50.2%
-. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star	1.7	$1,133 PTA

The signs for Contagion are looking quite good. Having Major Theater Chain's tracking a healthy percentage higher than the one from ReelSource, 30 vs. high-teen, is always nice. Even though the previous "rule" of the actual gross being even higher than MTC's in such circumstance has not been accurate lately, it is at least indicative of a number in between. The Box Office Mojo poll of 26.9% Opening Weekend interest is excellent for an adult-oriented film. By comparison, Ocean's Thirteen had 27.6%, The Adjustment Bureau 23.5%, Green Zone 19.3%, and The Informant 15.7%. It also occupied 14% of Fandango's tickets sale on Thursday, up from 8% the previous day, and the reviews are positive enough to not deter the last-minute deciders. Expect a per-theater-average around $7,500 for a $24-25m opening.

The Warrior, on the other hand, is facing a uphill battle despite excellent reviews. The fighting genre is not known for big openings, and there is little star power in the cast. Having MTC come in significantly lower than RS, 8 vs. mid-teen, is a serious concern, as the rule works a larger percentage of time in this case and points to a sub-$8m start. The BOM poll of 11.0% OW interest is lower than The Fighter's 16.1% and just a bit higher than Pride & Glory's 9.7%. Undisputed, another comparable film, opened to a $4,127 PTA in 1,102 theaters, while The Protector had $3,266 PTA in 1,541. With the screen competition The Warrior is facing, a higher average in the $5K range appears unlikely. I do hope I am wrong, but at this time I am feeling a rather disappointing first punch.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star reminds me a lot of The Rocker, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Let's Go to Prison, and Grandma's Boy. I understand MTC has it pretty high at $5.5m, but with a tiny 2.2% OW interest at BOM, lower than any of those films received, I cannot see a PTA over $2,000.

A couple of factors could make this Sunday a bad day at the box office: the opening week of NFL regular reason and the 10th anniversary of 9/11. On the equivalent weekend last year, the top 10 films dropped an average of 44.9% Saturday-to-Sunday, with 3 declining over 50%. The 9/11 effect could add a few more percentages, and look for the Sunday night game in New York between Cowboys and Jets to score big rating. Combining it with the fact that last Sunday was helped immensely by the Labor Day holiday, we should see some higher-than-normal drops for holdovers.

China Weekly Box Office (08/29 - 09/04): Fall season begun with Source Code claiming the top spot

2011-09-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Source Code（源代码）	43m ($6.74m)	New	48,444	1,414,939	43m ($6.74m)
2. Overheard 2（窃听风云2）	40.7m ($6.38m)	-49.9%	50,148	1,217,469	201m ($31.46m)
3. The Smurfs（蓝精灵）	26m ($4.07m)	-48.5%	27,024	696,177	250.5m ($39.20m)
4. Cars 2（赛车总动员2）	25.9m ($4.06m)	-39.8%	33,761	692,328	68.9m ($10.79m)
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2（哈利波特7(下)）	11.5m ($1.80m)	-54%	15,399	295,705	408m ($63.62m)
6. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	9.4m ($1.47m)	-53.9%	10,764	225,744	1.0808b ($167.95m)
7. Perfect Baby（巴黎宝贝）	9m ($1.41m)	-10.0%	21,264	312,934	19m ($2.98m)
8. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	7.5m ($1.18m)	-18.5%	3,741	205,423	75.1m ($11.72m)
9. Beginning of The Great Revival（建党伟业）	7m ($1.10m)	+29.6%	2,515	145,258	397.73m ($61.57m)
10. Season of the Witch（女巫季节）	6.6m ($1.03m)	-61.2%	14,149	218,326	36.8m ($5.76m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1567)

China Weekly Box Office (08/22 - 08/28): Cars 2 opened to third place as Overhead 2 repeated

2011-09-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Overheard 2（窃听风云2）	81.3m ($12.72m)	+2.9%	68,954	2,421,083	160.3m ($25.08m)
2. The Smurfs（蓝精灵）	50.5m ($7.90m)	-38.4%	33,655	1,350,628	224.5m ($35.13m)
3. Cars 2（赛车总动员2）	43m ($6.73m)	New	37,537	1,129,201	43m ($6.73m)
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2（哈利波特7(下)）	25m ($3.91m)	-54.5%	23,735	653,594	396.5m ($61.82m)
5. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	20.4m ($3.19m)	-50.2%	17,257	490,620	1.0714b ($166.48m)
6. Season of the Witch（女巫季节）	17m ($2.66m)	+28.8%	26,281	566,477	30.2m ($4.73m)
7. Perfect Baby（巴黎宝贝）	10m ($1.57m)	New	17,178	340,251	10m ($1.57m)
8. Treasure Hunt（无价之宝）	9.9m ($1.55m)	+20.7%	20,051	335,282	18.1m ($2.83m)
9. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	9.2m ($1.44m)	-29.2%	4,952	289,855	67.6m ($10.54m)
10. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	7.4m ($1.16m)	-	2,962	212,582	56.2m ($8.76m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1565)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Sep 2 - 5): Apollo 18, The Debt, Shark Night 3D

2011-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Help	17.2	+18.6%
2. Apollo 18	12.5	$3,756 PTA
3. The Debt	10.5	$5,750 PTA
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	8.8	-0.8%
5. Shark Night 3D	8.0	$2,851 PTA
6. Colombiana	7.5	-27.9%
7. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World	7.0	+16.5%
8. The Smurfs	6.0	+26.3%
9. Our Idiot Brother	4.7	-33.0%
10. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark	4.5	-47.2%

Of the three new wide releases, Apollo 18 stands the best chance of unseating The Help as the No. 1 film of the weekend. However, after some initial good reactions to its first trailer, Weinstein has failed to capitalize on them on the marketing front; instead, the film got pushed back to its current date, and the interests have gradually subsided. Its 11% Opening Weekend figure at Box Office Mojo poll is mediocre for a horror movie that crosses into the sci-fi genre. The one positive is its PG-13 rating, given all the recent openers appealing to the 13-25 male demo have been R-rated (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Our Idiot Brother, Conan the Barbarian, Fright Night, etc). The situation is similar to when Babylon A.D. opened in 2008, and we could see a similar adjusted gross as the result.

The immediate comparison to Shark Night 3D would be Piranha 3D, but unfortunately for the former, the 3D appeal has dropped so much this year that not only it no longer provides a boost to a film's PTA, it may have become a hindrance as people who could not find 2D showings at their preferred theaters may decide not to see the film at all. Also unlike Piranha 3D, there is no abundance of nudity in Shark Night as a headline attraction. The Box Office Mojo poll reflects the difference, as Shark Night 3D's 9.6% OW interest pales against Piranha 3D's 17.4%. In the end, it may not even get a $3,000 PTA over the first 4 days.

The Debt opened to $0.970532m on Wednesday. While the number may not appear all that impressive on the first glance, it is in fact quite good when we compare against past Wednesday openers on the Labor Day weekend:

Movie	Wednesday (m)	4-Day Weekend (m)	Wed-to-OW Multiplier
The American	1.674363	16.662233	9.95
Traitor	0.792214	10.006327	12.63
Balls of Fury	1.691	14.111454	8.35
The Constant Gardener	0.929829	10.961311	11.79
Vanity Fair	0.599825	6.268925	10.45

The American had higher pre-release buzz and then suffered from poor word-of-mouth, while Balls of Fury skewed younger males, so a 10+ multiplier like the other three films did should be achievable for The Debt. That will put its 4-day weekend at over $10m and give it a 6-day start of over $12m.

With Hurricane Irene hurting last weekend's box office and the weakness of new openers, we could expect holdovers to experience healthier holds comparing to past Labor Day frames. Given the Labor Day history, older-female oriented films like The Help and family films such as Spy Kids and The Smurfs should see the best holds.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Aug 26 - 28): The Help will be No. 1 again over Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Colombiana, and Out Idiot Brother

2011-08-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Help	15.5	-22.6%
2. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark	11.0	$3,986 PTA
3. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	10.5	-34.9%
4. Colombiana	9.0	$3,443 PTA
5. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World	7.0	-39.9%
6. Our Idiot Brother	6.0	$2,348 PTA
7. The Smurfs	5.2	-33.4%
8. Fright Night	3.8	-50.7%
9. Conan the Barbarian	3.8	-62.1%
10. Final Destination 5	3.6	-53.3%

China Weekly Box Office (08/15 - 08/21): Overheard 2 built on the original's success with a gangbuster opening

2011-08-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Smurfs（蓝精灵）	82m ($12.83m)	-10.9%	48,369	2,157,327	174m ($27.23m)
2. Overheard 2（窃听风云2）	79m ($12.36m)	New	45,906	2,330,383	79m ($12.36m)
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2（哈利波特7(下)）	55m ($8.61m)	-56.3%	48,454	1,452,720	371.5m ($57.91m)
4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	41m ($6.42m)	-46.8%	33,199	1,009,852	1.051b ($163.29m)
5. Season of the Witch（女巫季节）	13.2m ($2.07m)	New	15,177	426,908	13.2m ($2.07m)
6. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	13m ($2.03m)	-27.8%	6,848	408,035	58.4m ($9.10m)
7. Treasure Hunt（无价之宝）	8.2m ($1.28m)	New	13,016	267,711	8.2m ($1.28m)
8. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	7.4m ($1.16m)	-19.6%	3,839	235,069	48.8m ($7.60m)
9. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	7.2m ($1.13m)	-22.6%	3,259	213,967	385.33m ($59.63m)
10. Oceans（海洋）	6.2m ($0.97m)	+210%	8,153	197,389	8.2m ($1.28m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1565)

Hong Kong police films have always been a popular genre in China, but only a few of them received good word-of-mouth, with Infernal Affairs being the most well-known example. Overheard became another one in 2009 and was able to turn a 24m yuan start into a 89m yuan total. Building upon that success, Overheard 2 roared to a 79m yuan 4-day opening. The WOM again appears good, and it should top 200m yuan in the end.

The Smurfs had a solid hold on its sophomore week. 3D family films tend to experience good late legs, so a $40m+ total looks likely. For the big two, Transformers 3 continues to be on track for a $170m finish, while Deathly Hallow Part 2 should gross close to $65m.

China Weekly Box Office (08/08 - 08/14): The Smurfs entered the frame to battle Harry Potter and Transformers with a strong start

2011-08-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2（哈利波特7(下)）	126m ($19.72m)	-33.9%	82,989	3,294,979	316.5m ($49.30m)
2. The Smurfs（蓝精灵）	92m ($14.40m)	New	42,705	2,336,211	92m ($14.40m)
3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	77m ($12.05m)	-53.9%	51,101	1,871,657	1.01b ($156.87m)
4. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	18m ($2.82m)	+5.9%	7,705	540,054	45.4m ($7.07m)
5. Legend Of The Moles-The Frozen Horror （摩尔庄园冰世纪）	10.3m ($1.61m)	New	15,838	367,225	10.3m ($1.61m)
6. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	9.3m ($1.46m)	+36.8%	3,535	246,815	378.13m ($58.50m)
7. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	9.2m ($1.44m)	-16.4%	4,217	284,600	41.4m ($6.44m)
8. L-O-V-E（爱到底）	3.6m ($0.56m)	-52.0%	11,390	123,796	11.1m ($1.72m)
9. No Limit（无极限之危情速递）	3.3m ($0.52m)	New	7,941	112,206	3.3m ($0.52m)
10. Seer（赛尔号）	2.9m ($0.45m)	-77.2%	9,531	106,656	42.6m ($6.61m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1565)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Aug 19 - 21): Fright Night, Spy Kids 4, Conan the Barbarian, and One Day

2011-08-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Help	20.6	-20.9%
2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	15.5	-44.3%
3. Fright Night	14.0	$4,496 PTA
4. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World	11.0	$3,338 PTA
5. Conan the Barbarian	10.5	$3,482 PTA
6. The Smurfs	7.9	-42.5%
7. Final Destination 5	6.8	-62.3%
8. 30 Minutes or Less	5.5	-58.7%
9. One Day	5.5	$3,200 PTA
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	4.0	-44.8%

Don't really have much time to analyze all the numbers in details as I just got back from a 3-day family vacation to Lake Tahoe. Basically going with my original instinct that all openers will underperform, and The Help will have a Bridemaids type of hold with its A+ CinemaScore. Nothing in the past several days, from the daily figures, the polls, as well as the advance sales, has changed my feeling. By late August, the top 12 will normally see their gross combined drop to $110m or lower. With July and the first couple of weekends in August being as robust as they are, we are due for a fallback where the new openers are not appealing enough to generate much excitement. Fright Night is the only one with upside potential, as it has gathered good reviews and delivered decent numbers at Box Office Mojo poll.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Aug 12 - 14): The Help, Final Destination 5, 30 Minutes or Less, Glee

2011-08-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	26.2	-52.2%
2. The Help	21.0	$8,363 PTA
3. Final Destination 5	20.0	$6,339 PTA
4. 30 Minutes or Less	15.0	$5,194 PTA
5. The Smurfs	13.0	-37.2%
6. Glee The 3D Concert Movie	10.0	$4,902 PTA
7. Cowboys & Aliens	7.0	-55.5%
8. Crazy, Stupid, Love.	6.9	-42.6%
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	6.8	-45.4%
10. Captain America: The First Avenger	6.2	-52.4%
11. The Change-Up	5.1	-62.3%

The Help was off to an excellent start on Wednesday, grossing $5.5m. Here are the opening-day-to-opening-weekend multipliers for some of the past August Wednesday openers:

Vampire Sucks - 3.04
Pineapple Express - 1.92
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 - 1.86
Tropic Thunder - 3.97
World Trade Center - 4.20
The Princess Diaries 2 - 2.71
Freaky Friday - 3.70

The popularity of the book could mean some frontloadedness, but the appeal to older females and African American demo could in turn offset the effect. Another important factor to note is that the film received an A+ CinemaScore. In most circumstances, CinemaScore isn't necessarily a reliable tool of judging the audience's reaction, but when it reaches A+ (or below B on the opposite end), it definitely means something. The film is a crowd-pleaser, and we could be witnessing a The Blind Side (another A+ CinemaScore recipient) type of run brewing, albeit on a smaller scale since the opening would not be as large. Look for a Wed-to-OW multiplier in the upper half of what those other films listed received. Then it could have an overall multiplier of 6 for a $130m+ total.

Final Destination is one of the very rare franchises to see each of the new films improve upon its predecessor in term of opening, with the last one setting new height of $27.4m thanks to 3D screens. However, the environment is not as friendly this time around. The interest appears lower, as indicated by the Box Office Mojo poll: its 15.3% OW is a few levels below The Final Destination's 21.1% and even a little lower than Final Destination 3's 16.3%. The popularity of 3D has also declined significantly since two years ago. While 3D screens accounted for 70% of The Final Destination's opening gross, they will not touch 50% for FD5. As a result, a start closer to the third one's $19.2m is more likely.

30 Minutes or Less is the second collaboration between director Ruben Fleisher and actor Jesse Eisenberg, after the success of Zombieland. Eisenberg has become more well known after his Oscar-nominated turn in The Social Network, but we are reaching a serious level of comedy fatigue, as it is the 7th R-rated comedy of the summer. Last weekend, The Change-Up suffered and opened to a underwhelming $13.5m. While 30 Minutes or Less has better BOM poll numbers (13.9% OW vs. 9.6%), I would not expect a much stronger start, especially since it has to face Final Destination 5, a direct competition.

Glee is the wild card of the weekend. Unlike other 3D concert movies such as Justin Bieber, Jonas Brothers, or Miley Cyrus, Glee is an ensemble from a popular TV show and doesn't offer one star with a rabid fanbase. The question remains how many regular viewers of the free show will turn up to see the movie. Sill, with 2,040 theaters, it doesn't require a big percentage of them to achieve double-digit.

Unless the word-of-mouth carries The Help to an even more potent weekend, Rise of the Planet of the Apes should have no trouble claiming the pole position again. However, the midweek so far has not indicated a splendid sophomore hold is in play, as its Tuesday and Wednesday holds were not much different from what Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens got. With better WOM and two new R-rated films creating sneak-in business, its Friday should be strong, likely over 70%; then a 3.3 IM will put its weekend around $26m. That would still be plenty good for a $50m+ opener.

China Weekly Box Office (08/01 - 08/07): Deathly Hallows Part 2 overcame Transformers 3 and set a new opening record for Harry Potter film

2011-08-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2（哈利波特7(下)）	190.5m ($29.58m)	New	67,907	4,720,019	190.5m ($29.58m)
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	167m ($25.94m)	-53.9%	87,816	3,954,553	933m ($144.82m)
3. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	17m ($2.64m)	+107.3%	6,684	527,295	27.4m ($4.25m)
4. Seer（赛尔号）	12.7m ($1.97m)	-53.0%	28,942	488,461	39.7m ($6.16m)
5. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	11m ($1.71m)	-26.7%	3,946	312,233	32.2m ($5.00m)
6. L-O-V-E（爱到底）	7.5m ($1.16m)	New	9,778	238,701	7.5m ($1.16m)
7. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	6.8m ($1.06m)	+235.0%	2,348	193,401	368.83m ($57.04m)
8. Mysterious Island（孤岛惊魂）	3.1m ($0.48m)	-43.6%	6,517	105,478	89.3m ($13.83m)
9. The Wages of Sin（水落石出）	2.3m ($0.36m)	New	4,091	75,657	2.3m ($0.36m)
10. Xiang Xiao Qiang Yi Yang Huo Zhe（像小强一样活着）	2.1m ($0.33m)	+75.0%	6,280	82,256	3.3m ($0.51m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1553)

Harry Potter is one of the rare foreign franchises to see every single film of the series released in China. The first 7 films grossed around 600m yuan combined, with the last one setting both the opening weekend high of 81m yuan and the total high of 205.18m. With the way Hollywood films have performed this summer, the expectations were certainly high for its finale, and it did not disappoint. It started out with 48.8m yuan ($7.58m) on Thursday and then grossed another 141.7m yuan ($22m) over the weekend, an improvement of 75% over Part 1. In just 5 days, it will surpass Part I's total. However, it did receive some help that escaped the previous one: Chinese Valentine's Day on Saturday, which propelled the Saturday earning to 65m yuan, accounted for 34% of the first four days' total. This will make the overall multiplier smaller than Part 1's 2.53. 400m yuan is no sure thing yet.

Transformers 3 had an expected hold against Harry Potter, but it is decelerating pretty fast, and with The Smurfs opening this Wednesday, it looks to finish short of 1.1b yuan ($170m). Still a mind-blowing total.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Aug 5 - 7): Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Change-Up

2011-08-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes	34.0	$9,320 PTA
2. The Smurfs	19.0	-46.6%
3. The Change-Up	16.0	5,493 PTA
4. Cowboys & Aliens	15.6	-57.2%
5. Captain America: The First Avenger	12.6	-50.7%
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	11.9	-45.9%
7. Crazy, Stupid, Love.	11.8	-38.2%
8. Friends with Benefits	4.9	-47.2%
9. Horrible Bosses	4.2	-41.6%
10. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	3.2	-47.4%

Comparing to what I observed on Tuesday night, the signs for Rise of the Planet of the Apes have generally improved, while the ones for The Change-Up have gotten a bit worse. Apes saw the opening weekend interests at BOM poll strengthen to 35.8%, its Twitter traffic exploded on Thursday to finish with over 14,000 tweets Monday-to-Thursday, and a daily average of +2,100 "Want-to-see" ratings at Flixster. However, as you may have noticed, my prediction actually went down from the initial one I gave. The reason is that even with the improved numbers, it remains mediocre for a film of the sci-fi genre with built-in audience. The # of votes at Flixster could reach 30,000 by Friday (currently at 27,778 as of 10:53pm PST Thursday night), but it is still closer to Super 8 than to Cowboys & Aliens, and it should most likely have a higher votes-to-opening-weekend ratio than the former. The advance sales have not been strong either, as it accounted for only 15% of the sales on Fandango by Thursday afternoon. Overall, I feel a $12-13m Friday is in store for a $33-35m opening frame. It would need to rely on its good word-of-mouth to leg out a $100m+ total.

The reviews for The Change-Up have really gone south (25% with 51 reviews at Rottentomatoes), and the interests look to be dipping as well. The BOM poll currently stands at 9.8% OW and 15.4% Sometime in Theaters. On the Flixster front, it only gained around 900 new votes a day to put its count so far at just above 15,000, so it may not catch Crazy, Stupid, Love, and for a R-rated comedy vs. CSL's PG-13 rating, that is not promising as The Change-Up will definitely end up with a higher ratio. A $6m Friday and an IM a bit worse than Friends with Benefits' will yield a $16m weekend.

First Looks at This Week's Openers: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Change-Up

2011-08-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

Let's take a look at where the numbers stand at the moment for this week's two openers:

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Tracking - Major Theater Chain: 46; ReelSource: mid-to-high 50s
BOM Poll - 34.4% Opening Weekend, 26.1% Sometime in Theaters, 12.7% Never; 1,181 users
Tweets - 1,550 on Monday
Flixster - # of "Want-to-see" Ratings: 23,576

My feeling after looking at these figures? Not promising.

1. Tracking: historically, when what MTC reported is significantly lower than RS', there is a good chance that the final actual will be lower than MTC's number, sometimes by a similar percentage. If that happens, it will put Apes' opening weekend at around $37m.

2. BOM poll: the OW percentage is on par with what Cowboys & Aliens got, and Sometime in Theaters % is lower.

3. Tweets: with its Monday start, it could reach 10,000 tweets total for the first 4 days of the week, but not much higher, and a lower number around 9,000 is also possible. I expect the ratio to be in the 700-1,000 range, so a $15m+ opening day looks unlikely.

4. Flixster: Cowboys & Aliens ended up with around 40,000 want-to-see ratings by its opening Friday, while Super 8 had close to 27,000. From my observation, the number doesn't actually increase dramatically during the week before a film opens, so Apes will most likely finish between the two, but closer to Super 8.

So overall, with the way it stands now, I will go out on a limb and call a sub-$40m opening on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, or more precisely, something close to what Cowboys & Aliens and Super 8 opened to. The good reviews could bring in some late deciders, but them alone won't make a big difference this weekend.

The Change-Up

Tracking - Major Theater Chain: 12; ReelSource: almost mid-teen
BOM Poll - 10.0% Opening Weekend, 15.6% Sometime in Theaters, 37.0% Never; 1,095 users
Tweets - 740 on Monday
Flixster - # of "Want-to-see" Ratings: 13,265

Initial feeling? Mixed but positive.

1. Tracking: so what history says when both tracking firms produce similar numbers? The actual could go anywhere. We have seen films greatly overachieve (e.g. The Smurfs: $20m from both MTC and RS, $35.6m actual) or underachieve, or hit the number they were predicting. As a result, I do not put much weight on tracking when they are close.

2. BOM poll: the OW% is 25% weaker than Bridemaids, 22% weaker than Friends with Benefits, but on par with No Strings Attached.

3. Tweets - Monday was a little weak, but it is rebounding nicely on Tuesday, making 5,000 tweets from Monday to Thursday likely. I do not foresee a ratio higher than 900, so $6m+ looks to be a good bet.

4. Flixster - Crazy, Stupid, Love had around 16,000 votes by Friday, while Friends with Benefits got to 19,000. The number for The Change-Up puts it on pace to join them right in the same neighborhood.

So overall, only the tracking is saying a sub-$15m, while the others are indicating a $17-19m start, and in this case, I am trusting the latter.

China Weekly Box Office (07/25 - 07/31): Transformers 3 had $118.9m after 11 days

2011-08-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	362m ($56.22m)	-10.4%	145,341	8,678,973	766m ($118.88m)
2. Seer（赛尔号）	27m ($4.19m)	New	27,218	960,170	27m ($4.19m)
3. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	15m ($2.33m)	+177.8%	4,489	423,489	21.2m ($3.29m)
4. Yang Shan-zhou（杨善洲）	8.2m ($1.27m)	+272.7%	3,544	279,672	10.4m ($1.61m)
5. Mysterious Island（孤岛惊魂）	5.5m ($0.85m)	-65.0%	11,274	188,679	86.2m ($13.35m)
6. Wu Xia（武侠）	4.3m ($0.67m)	-73.1%	8,223	128,896	172.3m ($26.66m)
7. Guo Ming Yi（郭明义）	2.5m ($0.39m)	+38.9%	1,266	78,914	4.3m ($0.67m)
8. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	2.03m ($0.32m)	-59.4%	2,200	82,958	362.03m ($55.98m)
9. The Seal of Love（秋之白华）	2m ($0.31m)	New	65	78,678	2.6m ($0.40m)
10. Treasure Inn（财神客栈）	1.8m ($0.28m)	-67.9%	1,923	46,427	103.4m ($16.00m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1553)

This is an excellent hold by Transformers 3, better than both of the first two films' second week holds (-17% and -16.2% respectively, although the second one started on a Wednesday instead of Thursday). 74.6% of the total gross so far came from 3D, while IMAX accounted for 8.9%. The film did start losing some steam later in the week, and with the Harry Potter finale opening on Aug 4th, expect it to experience a heftier decline this week, probably in the 50% range or higher. Still, it should have no trouble clearing 1b yuan in several weeks.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jul 29 - 31): Cowboys & Aliens, The Smurfs, and Crazy, Stupid, Love

2011-07-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Cowboys & Aliens	37.0	$9,867 PTA
2. Captain America: The First Avenger	28.0	-57.0%
3. The Smurfs	26.0	$7,658 PTA
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	23.0	-51.5%
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love.	14.5	$4,801 PTA
6. Friends with Benefits	10.4	-44.2%
7. Horrible Bosses	7.4	-37.7%
8. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	6.6	-45.2%
9. Zookeeper	5.0	-42.5%
10. Cars 2	3.0	-47.0%

China Weekly Box Office (07/18 - 07/24): Transformers 3 set all sorts of opening records

2011-07-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon（变形金刚3）	404m ($62.66m)	New	95,441	9,503,646	404m ($62.66m)
2. Wu Xia（武侠）	16m ($2.48m)	-68.9%	25,923	478,612	168m ($25.99m)
3. Mysterious Island（孤岛惊魂）	15.7m ($2.44m)	-61.9%	25,969	521,768	80.7m ($12.50m)
4. Treasure Inn（财神客栈）	5.6m ($0.87m)	-62.7%	9,840	185,185	101.6m ($15.72m)
5. Shen Zhou 11（飞天）	5.4m ($0.84m)	New	1,671	157,205	6.2m ($0.96m)
6. Unthinkable（战略特勤组）	5.4m ($0.84m)	-72.3%	9,833	173,521	28.8m ($4.46m)
7. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	5m ($0.78m)	-64.3%	6,217	169,548	360m ($55.66m)
8. Legend of a Rabbit（兔侠传奇）	3.8m ($0.59m)	-68.3%	8,560	112,659	15.8m ($2.45m)
9. Coming Back（回马枪）	3.4m ($0.53m)	-29.2%	10,539	124,635	8.2m ($1.27m)
10. To Love or Not（一夜情未了）	2.3m ($0.36m)	-20.7%	7,517	78,284	5.2m ($0.81m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1551)

Transformers 3 didn't merely set the new records, it destroyed the old ones. It feels at each passing hour, it is establishing a new record, and this will continue for another couple of weeks, until eventually Avatar's endurance takes over. Here are some of the records it set:

Midnight - 12m yuan / $1.86m (+200% over the previous record of 4m yuan by Avatar)
Thursday w/ midnight - 102.3m yuan / $15.86m (Biggest opening day)
Saturday - 112m yuan / $17.37m (Biggest day ever)
Opening Weekend - 301.7m yuan / $46.79m
Opening Week - 404m yuan / $62.66m (previous record: Avatar's 287m yuan)
# of Showings for the Week - 95,441 (previous record: Avatar's 72,159)
Admissions for the Week - 9,503,646 (previous record: Avatar's 6,510,889, and again Avatar had a full 7 days when it established all its records, while Transformers 3 had just 4)

Transformers 3 also got off to a good start this week with a strong Monday hold, and it appears another week close to $60m is possible. Harry Potter (8/4) and then Smurfs (8/10) will provide good competitions on its 3rd and 4th week, but with such a strong first 14 days, it should clear $150m without sweat. I'm thinking a $170-180m finish.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jul 22 - 24): Captain America: The First Avenger, Friends with Benefits

2011-07-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Captain America: The First Avenger	57.0	$15,343 PTA
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	50.0	-70.4%
3. Friends with Benefits	21.1	$7,211 PTA
4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	12.0	-43.7%
5. Horrible Bosses	11.0	-38.1%
6. Zookeeper	9.0	-27.0%
7. Cars 2	5.1	-39.3%
8. Winnie the Pooh	5.0	-36.4%
9. Bad Teacher	3.1	-39.8%
10. Midnight in Paris	1.4	-25.4%

Since the last time I wrote my thoughts on the openers, Friends with Benefit saw its BOM poll dipped a bit to 12.0% Opening Weekend and 14.9% Sometime in Theaters, and the buzz has not seemed to pick up much from earlier in the week, so I am lowering my prediction on it a little. The BOM poll has stayed virtually the same for Captain America: The First Avenger, but early reviews (71% at Rottentomatoes so far with 82 reviews) have been good outside the universal bash on the unnecessary 3D post conversion, and for a movie that appeals to adults, it could help bring in some viewers sitting on the fence. The latest advance sales report indicates its Friday could be between what Green Lantern ($21.4m) and Thor ($25.5m) had. Being in July, the Friday-to-Saturday hold will be closer to the former than the latter, although the expected good word-of-mouth should help. Something over $55m looks doable, although I am still not sold on $60m.

After a record setting start and an excellent Monday, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 has fallen back from the pace of The Dark Knight or Pirates of the Caribbean 2 to the pace that a Harry Potter film normally see the last couple of days. Now the question is how well it could rebound on the weekend:

Movie	Wed-to-Thurs	Thurs-to-Fri	Weekend IM
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	-9.7%	+34.1%	3.18
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	-8.8%	+36.1%	3.16
The Dark Knight	-10.4%	+41.1%	3.24
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	-12.7%	+50.1%	3.36

Given the aging of Harry Potter fans, the finale could see a small improvement in Friday increase over the last two HP summer releases, but it is also facing the most serious competition on the second weekend among these films (Pirates 2 faced the least competition). A 8% Thursday drop, 39% Friday increase, and 3.18 multiplier would put it around $50m.

It's good news/bad news for Transformers 3: on one hand, it will lose more 3D screens, something that has helped it more than any other blockbusters this summer, but on the other hand, the film that will take away its screens is from the same studio. The two could offset each other in some degree, leaving it to have a 4th weekend drop similar to what the previous two Transformers experienced.

Both openers will provide some direct competition against Horrible Bosses, but like how Bridesmaids handled The Hangover Part II (-20.7%, basically the same as the week before), or how Bad Teacher dealt with Horrible Bosses (-38.5%, despite weaker word-of-mouth and previous weekend being a holiday), Horrible Bosses itself should march on just fine and will eventually join the other three R-rated comedies in the $100m+ club. Zookeeper has so far closely followed the path of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which survived another record-setter, The Dark Knight, on its sophomore frame and then turned in a superb third weekend hold. Zookeeper will face tougher competition from the new releases, but look for it to achieve something similar.

China Weekly Box Office (07/11 - 07/17): a weak frame before Transformers 3 opens

2011-07-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Wu Xia（武侠）	51.5m ($7.97m)	-48.8%	52,330	1,507,170	152m ($23.51m)
2. Mysterious Island（孤岛惊魂）	41m ($6.34m)	+70.8%	42,816	1,323,861	65m ($10.06m)
3. Unthinkable（战略特勤组）	19.5m ($3.02m)	+400%	24,049	610,710	23.4m ($3.62m)
4. Treasure Inn（财神客栈）	15m ($2.32m)	-42.3%	20,045	489,875	96m ($14.85m)
5. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	14m ($2.17m)	-54.8%	14,475	455,877	355m ($54.88m)
6. Legend of a Rabbit（兔侠传奇）	12m ($1.86m)	New	18,935	340,136	12m ($1.86m)
7. Konferenz der Tiere（动物总动员）	7m ($1.08m)	-53.3%	9,316	201,496	61m ($9.43m)
8. Punished（迷途追凶）	6.1m ($0.94m)	New	14,070	207,553	6.1m ($0.94m)
9. Coming Back（回马枪）	4.8m ($0.74m)	New	9,037	163,487	4.8m ($0.74m)
10. Rest on Your Shoulder（肩上蝶）	4.6m ($0.71m)	-34.3%	10,680	140,030	11.6m ($1.79m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1547)

First Looks at This Week's Openers

2011-07-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

For Captain America: The First Avenger:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT	MTC Tracking	ReelSource Tracking
Thor	$65.7m	53.6%	26.9%	62	High 50s
Green Lantern	$53.2m	39.4%	25.1%	58	Low 50s
The Green Hornet	$40.0m (4-day)	31.0%	24.0%	42	High 30s
Captain America: The First Avenger	?	41.8%	29.9%	50	High 40s

There are other similar superhero movies to compare with such as The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four, but I picked the three above because they're the closest to Captain America in release date, making the Box Office Mojo poll comparison more meaningful, none is a sequel, and all of them have 3D. As we see, the poll numbers fall between Thor and Green Lantern, but much closer to the latter. Does this mean it will open in the mid-50s range? Not necessarily, as Green Lantern has more appeal to the younger audience and thus could see a bit weaker online poll numbers while still opening to the same amount of gross. Captain America would need the Opening Weekend percentage in the 45% range to feel comfortable about a $55m start. As it stands now, something close to $50m appears more likely. This is echoed by the tracking figures. Interestingly, MTC came in higher than RS for the other three movies on the chart as well, but none of them saw significant differences between the two, and the actual opening stayed close to the tracking for all.

Captain America did have a strong start on Twitter, with 4,706 tweets on Monday. However, a great deal of buzz was generated by its upcoming premiere at ComicCon, so its ratio will definitely be higher than what those three films had. With that in mind, the start isn't suggesting a Friday figure bigger than the low 20s. The strength of Harry Potter finale and to some degree Transformers 3, as well as the 3D fatigue, are two main hurdles Captain America may find hard to overcome.

For Friends with Benefits:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT	MTC Tracking	ReelSource Tracking
Bad Teacher	$31.6m	17.9%	19.1%	25	Low 20s
Horrible Bosses	$28.3m	20.5%	20.0%	27	Mid 20s
Bridesmaids	$26.2m	13.4%	14.4%	11	Mid teens
No Strings Attached	$19.7m	10.0%	12.3%	20	Mid 20s
Friends with Benefits	?	13.5%	15.2%	21	Low 20s

Among the films listed, Horrible Bosses had the best BOM poll but didn't open to as well as Bad Teacher did and just slightly better than Bridesmaids' start. That's because in term of male-female ratio, it appealed to males the most, while Bridesmaids was at the opposite end of the spectrum with its female appeals. Friends with Benefits is somewhere in the middle, so having a poll breakdown similar to Bridesmaids' means it will not open as high. No Strings Attached, in fact, should be the best comparison, and the stronger poll for Friends with Benefits is good news.

Early Predictions:

Captain America: The First Avenger - $51m
Friends with Benefits - $22m

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jul 15 - 17): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Winnie the Pooh

2011-07-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	156	$35,657 PTA
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	20.6	-56.3%
3. Horrible Bosses	16.0	-43.5%
4. Zookeeper	10.0	-50.2%
5. Winnie the Pooh	8.0	$3,326 PTA
6. Cars 2	7.8	-48.7%
7. Bad Teacher	4.7	-47.3%
8. Larry Crowne	3.0	-49.5%
9. Super 8	2.3	-52.5%
10. Monte Carlo	1.3	-65.8%

Some crazy numbers are being thrown around for the potential opening weekend gross of the Harry Potter finale, including $180m from a Deadline Hollywood article. Yes, it will shatter the midnight record of $30m that Eclipse set and claim the opening day record as well from another Twilight film, New Moon. However, with such a massive midnight start - there is a possibility that the midnight alone could outgross the rest of Friday, a Saturday drop of over 50% from the opening day becomes very likely, and in order to break The Dark Knight's opening weekend record of $158m, let alone reach the height of $180m (a ridiculous number IMO), a $85m+ Friday could be required.

Here is how I see the dailies will break down. For midnight shows, let us assume 40% of the sales are for 3D screens, and each 3D ticket represents a 35% premium in price, then for the same overall admissions, 3D will help raise the gross by 0.4*0.35 = 0.14 or 14%. With how the midnight culture has grown over the years, the finale factor, and this being on a Friday, I'll project a 20% admissions growth from Eclipse, giving a midnight figure of $30m * 1.2 * 1.14 = $41m.

For the rest of the weekend, I will assume 3D represents 35% of the ticket sales, so a uptick of 0.35*0.35 = 12.25% in dollars. Four of the first five films in the series grossed around $33m from the opening day when excluding midnight, and the last two saw some small increases, with the last one making $37.7m. I'll give this one $38.3m without the premium, or an actual figure of 38.3*1.1225 = $43m. So for the opening day, we are looking at a $84m.

From the chart I posted in a previous blog entry, we see that the only time a Harry Potter opened on a summer Friday, it dropped 5% on Saturday, and that was in early June when not all the schools were out yet instead of the middle of July. The Deathly Hallows Part I saw just a tiny Saturday increase even though it was in November, so a Saturday drop here from Friday without midnight seems likely, although the pure strength of sellouts from the previous day will help push some business over. A 5% drop will put Saturday number at around $41m.

Sunday number has been the most consistent, with the drops from 3 previous summer Harry Potter releases at 24%, 18.9%, and 25.5%. A 25% decline here will give it a $31m Sunday. Then the total for the weekend will be 84+41+31 = $156m. However, if they are that close to The Dark Knight's record, one can't help but wonder if Warner Bros, a studio, along with a few others, that is never shy of making some number tricks out of the hat, will attempt to push it over.

Summary:
Midnight - $41m
Friday w/o midnight - $43m
Friday - $84m
Saturday - $41m (-4.7% from Friday w/o midnight, -51.2% from Friday overall)
Sunday - $31m (-24.4%)
Weekend - $156m

Among holdovers, Transformers 3 appears to be the most logical choice to benefit from spillover business that all the Harry Potter sellouts will certainly produce; on the other hand, it will also have to face one of the more difficult tasks of losing a lot of 3D and IMAX screens. How the two factors balance each other will be very interesting to observe. If both Harry Potter 7.2 and Transformers 3 had been in 2D as it was the case for the previous two times they met in July, the latter probably would have experienced a 60% Friday increase, but the loss of 3D screens means the majority of the spillover business it receives will be from 2D, and it will result in a decrease in per-theater-average. A 10% dip there will push the Friday increase down to 45% (160% / 1.1 - 1). The Saturday jump will be higher though when the Harry Potter fever subsides a little, as both of the previous Transformers increased close to 34% on the Saturday a Harry Potter film opened. That will give a weekend total close to $21m, which, under the circumstance, is actually not bad. Hancock had a very similar drop against The Dark Knight on its 3rd weekend, but then recovered fine after and had a 3.56 multiplier from that point on. The same multiplier will put Transformers 3's total at $355m. From where I see, the battle for the yearly crown between the two heavyweights will be extremely close.

China Weekly Box Office (07/04 - 07/10): Wu Xia had a relatively disappointing start

2011-07-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Wu Xia（武侠）	100.5m ($15.55m)	New	73,967	2,961,980	100.5m ($15.55m)
2. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	31m ($4.80m)	-66.3%	27,801	976,685	341m ($52.71m)
3. Treasure Inn（财神客栈）	26m ($4.02m)	-52.7%	35,864	848,563	81m ($12.53m)
4. Mysterious Island（孤岛惊魂）	24m ($3.71m)	New	16,750	759,734	24m ($3.71m)
5. Konferenz der Tiere（动物总动员）	15m ($2.32m)	-31.8%	19,775	422,416	54m ($8.35m)
6. Coursier（终极快递）	8.3m ($1.28m)	+9.2%	15,086	277,777	15.9m ($2.46m)
7. Rest on Your Shoulder（肩上蝶）	7m ($1.08m)	New	11,798	209,706	7m ($1.08m)
8. The Devil Inside Me（夺命心跳）	6.8m ($1.05m)	-18.1%	12,648	215,873	15.1m ($2.33m)
9. Unthinkable（战略特勤组）	3.9m ($0.60m)	New	3,894	122,950	3.9m ($0.60m)
10. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	3.2m ($0.50m)	-89.3%	1,674	68,215	603.7m ($93.19m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1547)

Looking Back at Previous Harry Potter Films

2011-07-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

Putting together a chart below. Please let me know if you would like see comparisons on any other data that we can slice.

	HP1	HP2	HP3	HP4	HP5	HP6	HP7.1
The Month Opened in	November	November	June	November	July	July	November
The Day of the Week Opened on	Friday	Friday	Friday	Friday	Wednesday	Wednesday	Friday
Theater Count	3,672	3,682	3,855	3,858	4,285	4,275	4,125
Screen Count	8,119	8,515	8,900	?	9,000+	near 10,000	9,400
Midnight Gross	N/A	N/A	~5	6.3	12	22.2	24
Opening Day w/o Midnight	32.33	29.63	33.27	33.82	32.23	35.98	37.68
Opening Day	32.33	29.63	38.27	40.12	44.23	58.18	61.68
Saturday	33.51	34.21	31.49	36.72	28.31	29.23	38.23
Fri-to-Sat Change	+3.6%	+15.5%	-17.7%	-8.5%	+9.6%	+9.0%	-38.0%
Fri-to-Sat Change w/o Midnight	+3.6%	+15.5%	-5.3%	+8.6%	+9.6%	+9.0%	+1.4%
Sunday	24.45	24.51	23.93	25.85	22.96	21.78	25.11
Sat-to-Sun Change	-27.0%	-28.4%	-24.0%	-29.6%	-18.9%	-25.5%	-34.3%
Internal Multiplier	2.79	2.98	2.45	2.56	2.98	2.90	2.03
Internal Multiplier w/o Midnight	2.79	2.98	2.67	2.85	2.98	2.90	2.68
Multiplier at the End of 4th Weekend	2.65	2.42	2.26	2.38	2.57	2.49	2.06
Overall Multiplier	3.52	2.97	2.66	2.82	2.98	2.85	2.36
Overall Gross	317.58	261.99	249.54	290.01	292.00	301.96	295.00

Several points immediately coming to mind when looking at the comparison:

1. The screen count had been trending up until the last release. With this being the last film of the franchise, expect it to beat the 9,400 figure, but probably won't exceed 10,000 considering several other films still command good number of screens. The market Half-Blood Prince faced was emptier.

2. The midnight gross has exploded, and this one should certainly continue the trend and most likely exceed The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' current record of just over $30m.

3. Despite the growth of midnight showings, the opening day without midnight has in fact remained relatively stable, so don't expect that portion to grow proportionally as the midnight will. In the last several Harry Potter films, pretty much ever since Prisoner of Azkaban, we have seen the tendency of jumping the gun on the optimistic side just because the midnight or opening day got bigger.

4. Another indication of the Harry Potter fanbase having not grown much at all over time is that the Sunday number has been stable since the first film. It means once the upfront demand burned off, each film basically returned to a similar trajectory, varied only by the date of the year, not the reception of the film itself. The end result is that none of the latter films exceeded the first one in raw total, let alone in admissions; instead, the franchise has simply become more frontloaded toward the first couple of days of the release. It should change with Harry Potter 7.2 due to the finale factor and some help from 3D/IMAX, but we should keep this in mind when following all the reports this week. Nonetheless, it is an exciting event to track. :)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jul 8 - 10): Horrible Bosses, Zookeeper

2011-07-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	46.5	-52.5%
2. Horrible Bosses	30.4	$10,000 PTA
3. Zookeeper	22.6	$6,500 PTA
4. Cars 2	14.4	-45.2%
5. Bad Teacher	8.3	-42.8%
6. Larry Crowne	7.8	-40.4%
7. Super 8	4.9	-38.1%
8. Monte Carlo	4.2	-43.7%
9. Green Lantern	3.6	-45.1%
10. Mr. Popper's Penguins	3.2	-42.2%

The two wide releases this week look to reaffirm a couple of the main box office themes for the summer: strong performances by the R-rated comedies and underachievement of the family-oriented films. First, let us compare the Box Office Mojo polls of Horrible Bosses with similar summer entries from the past:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT
The Hangover	$45.0m	23.9%	21.6%
Wedding Crashers	$33.9m	17.2%	23.6%
Superbad	$33.1m	27.7%	15.6%
Bad Teacher	$31.6m	17.9%	19.1%
Knocked Up	$30.7m	21.0%	22.4%
Dinner for Schmucks	$23.5m	15.9%	23.2%
Horrible Bosses	?	20.4%	20.4%

As we could see, Horrible Bosses came out rather well, and $30m appears very much achievable. On the other hand, here is the comparison for Zookeeper:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT
Paul Blart: Mall Cop	$31.8m	7.2%	11.6%
Evan Almighty	$31.2m	17.3%	25.7%
Land of the Lost	$18.8m	14.3%	21.2%
Mr. Popper's Penguins	$18.4m	6.6%	11.6%
Yogi Bear (3D)	$16.4m	5.1%	10.3%
Marmaduke	$11.6m	3.8%	5.7%
Zookeeper	?	6.0%	10.3%

The numbers show Zookeeper trails Evan Almighty and Land of the Lost by a significant margin and is even a little worse than what Mr. Popper's Penguins had. However, we have to note that the one outlier in this chart, Paul Blart, happens to star Kevin James too. With it and Grown Ups, James has demonstrated ability to attract more audience outside the online crowd than a similar film without him would typical get, so a benefit of the doubt is warranted.

To project holdovers' performances, we could look for similar films from 2005, the last time July 4th fell on a Monday. For example, Larry Crowne's demo follows closely with Cinderella Man, and its daily changes post holiday resemble what Cinderella Man had as well. Expect a 80% Friday increase and a 3.2+ IM. Herbie: Fully Loaded would be a good comparison for Monte Carlo. A 5% Thursday decline, followed by a 30% Friday increase and 2.73 IM would give it a $4.2m weekend, decent hold given the steep drop the film experienced on its initial Saturday. For Green Lantern, we may look at Revenge of the Sith, as it also had to face a new release from its own studio. Revenge of the Sith did not lose as many screens as Green Lantern will, but Warner Bros is more aggressive than Fox in term of finding ways to boost its existing film' gross when a new one comes out, so the factors could offset each other, leaving Green Lantern to have a much better hold than it had shown the previous couple of weekends.

In the end, Transformers 3 will have no trouble claiming the top spot for the second frame in a row. It has followed War of the Worlds' dailies pretty closely, and it is facing less competition as well as enjoying better word-of-mouth. That should result in a slightly better hold for another $46m+ weekend.

China Weekly Box Office (06/27 - 07/03): Beginning of the Great Revival three-peated while Treasure Inn started well; Panda 2 crossed 600m yuan

2011-07-05T23:26:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	92m ($14.23m)	-14.8%	61,116	2,714,665	310m ($47.91m)
2. Treasure Inn（财神客栈）	55m ($8.51m)	New	48,118	1,833,944	55m ($8.51m)
3. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	30m ($4.64m)	-34.8%	25,992	806,885	600.5m ($92.69m)
4. Konferenz der Tiere（动物总动员）	22m ($3.40m)	+29.4%	26,793	614,868	39m ($6.03m)
5. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan（雪花秘扇）	15.7m ($2.43m)	-4.8%	22,924	466,706	32.2m ($4.98m)
6. The Pretending Lovers（假装情侣）	15m ($2.32m)	+20.0%	26,325	489,715	27.5m ($4.25m)
7. The Devil Inside Me（夺命心跳）	8.3m ($1.28m)	New	9,649	250,755	8.3m ($1.28m)
8. Coursier（终极快递）	7.6m ($1.18m)	New	8,146	241,269	7.6m ($1.18m)
9. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	1.85m ($0.29m)	-53.8%	1,096	48,925	254.85m ($39.27m)
10. Sky Fighters（歼十出击）	1.25m ($0.19m)	New	126	39,407	5m ($0.77m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1547)

China Weekly Box Office (06/20 - 06/26): no big openers to challenge Beginning of the Great Revival until Wu Xia

2011-07-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	108m ($16.69m)	-1.8%	87,564	3,101,665	218m ($33.68m)
2. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	46m ($7.11m)	-22.0%	44,489	1,212,440	570.5m ($88.05m)
3. Konferenz der Tiere（动物总动员）	17m ($2.63m)	New	13,840	462,459	17m ($2.63m)
4. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan（雪花秘扇）	16.5m ($2.55m)	New	17,630	483,304	16.5m ($2.55m)
5. The Pretending Lovers（假装情侣）	12.5m ($1.93m)	New	15,268	392,218	12.5m ($1.93m)
6. Skyline（天际浩劫）	7.3m ($1.13m)	-14.1%	11,870	232,780	56.5m ($7.41m)
7. Love Finally（男得有爱）	4.2m ($0.65m)	+82.6%	13,641	152,671	6.5m ($1.00m)
8. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	4m ($0.62m)	-75.0%	3,424	118,800	253m ($38.98m)
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	3.8m ($0.59m)	-86.4%	2,983	112,359	465.8m ($71.80m)
10. Na igre 2（超能游戏者）	2.8m ($0.66m)	-34.9%	7,194	96,319	13.3m ($2.28m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1545)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jul 1 - 3): Transformers 3, Larry Crowne, Monte Carlo

2011-06-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon	75.0 (3-day) / 90.0 (4-day)	$18,700 PTA
2. Cars 2	31.0	-53.1%
3. Larry Crowne	14.0 (3-day) / 17.0 (4-day)	$5,090 PTA
4. Bad Teacher	14.0	-55.7%
5. Super 8	8.5	-29.3%
6. Mr. Popper's Penguins	7.0	-31.0%
7. Green Lantern	7.0	-61.2%
8. Monte Carlo	6.0 (3-day) / 7.0 (4-day)	$2,500 PTA
9. Bridesmaids	3.5	-33.5%
10. Midnight in Paris	3.4	-18.5%
11. X-Men: First Class	3.3	-50.6%
12. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	3.1	-37.1%

Transformers 3: Another Shrek Forever After?

2011-06-29T00:57:00.001-07:00

Just came back from watching Transformers 3 on XD 3D, and do want to get my opening week predictions on it out before any real numbers trickle in, so not much time to write detailed thoughts. However, I can't highly recommend enough on reading what Shawn wrote on the topic, as I happen to agree with many aspects of his outstanding analysis. My Shrek Forever After reference in the title may surprise some, as the two franchises have number of notable differences such as the genre and the fact that Shrek had an extra film in the middle and thus was not coming off its peak when Shrek 4 rolled around, but they also share some significant similarities, e.g. the mediocre word-of-mouth the previous film received, as well as the one area I would like to highlight: rhetoric from the pre-release chatters. On the week of Shrek 4's release, many refused to acknowledge the weak advance sales and Internet signs were reasons to worry about its potential performance, pointing out that the "same" scenario occurred for the previous two films. The infamous overreactions to Shrek 2's opening day made people believe the franchise was immune from any comparison. I am noticing the same line of defense is being used now with Transformers, as it is argued that Transformers 2 attracted many walk-in business and didn't see screens selling out until late, so it will happen again to 3, and there is nothing to be concerned about. However, the fact remains the advance sales for this one are slow even comparing to the second film, the buzz is not nearly as big due to the previous WOM, and we could easily observe a good percentage of loss in admissions. By all accounts, this one will be better received, so like Shrek Forever After, it could improve the overall multiplier and finish a bit closer to the expected result.

Here is my daily breakdown:

Tues previews - $5m (don't think it has been promoted enough to generate the awareness needed to challenge double digits; being almost exclusively on 3D and IMAX screens also limit the screen counts for the previews)
Wednesday - $40m
Thursday - $20m (-50%)
Friday - $25m (+25%)
Saturday - $26m (+4%)
Sunday - $24m (-8%)
Monday - $15m (-37%, July 4th is not the best holiday for movies, as family and friends will gather for barbeque and see the fireworks)

3-day (7/1 - 7/3) - $75m
4-day - $90m
6-day + Tues - $155m

Weekend Box Office Predictions (June 24 - 26): Cars 2, Bad Teacher

2011-06-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Cars 2	58.0	$14,095 PTA
2. Bad Teacher	24.0	$7,871 PTA
3. Green Lantern	17.5	-67.1%
4. Super 8	13.5	-37.1%
5. Mr. Popper's Penguins	11.0	-40.4%
6. X-Men: First Class	7.0	-41.3%
7. The Hangover Part II	6.0	-40.4%
8. Bridesmaids	5.5	-22.5%
9. Kung Fu Panda 2	4.5	-50.2%
10. Midnight in Paris	4.1	-16.1%

Pixar has been as rock solid as it gets both critically and box office wise. Cars 2 already broke the first trend, becoming the worst reviewed Pixar film by far with 39% at Rottentomatoes (5.6 average) and a 58 score at Metacritic, and it is in real danger of becoming a box office disappointment as well. However, the disappointment there will not necessarily be in term of raw gross, but rather relative to many's initial expectations of $80m+ opening arisen from the original's 4.06 multiplier, 15m DVD copies, countless merchandise sales, the good wills obtained from the later Pixar hits, and the additional 3D surcharge. Unfortunately, 3D has shown to become a burden for many films this year, as families are getting more reluctant to pay the premium, and the surcharge could barely cover the loss in admissions, if at all.

As we are getting closer to the release, more signs are indicating a lower opening. At Box Office Mojo, it is clinging to an opening weekend percentage of 30%, lower than original Car's 34.6% or even Ratatouille's 34.4%, which translated to the slowest start of any Pixar's films since A Bug's Life with $47m. Another comparison would be against Kung Fu Panda 2, another 3D animated sequel that opened to $47.7m from a 31.2% OW interest at BOM poll. Considering the much stronger online fanbase Pixar has tends to inflate such polls, one could see why Cars 2's prospect is taking a serious hit. Look for a $21-22m Friday, but a weaker IM will prevent it from reaching $60m for the weekend.

On the opposite side, the signs for the other wide opener, Bad Teacher, appear rather solid. Both the BOM poll and number of tweets for the week outpaced comparable films such as Get Him to the Creek, I Love You Man, and The Ugly Truth. A $20m+ start should be no problem.

There are several ways to look at Green Lantern's daily figures, and none promises even an average sophomore hold by the genre's standard. By Wednesday, it already lost 81.7% of its opening Friday's audience, worse than The Incredible Hulk's 79.0% and Rise of the Silver Surfer's 79.7%, barely ahead of Hulk's 82.1%. Its Tues-to-Wed drop of 21.4% was the worse of the day by a while, as only 3 other films reported had double-digit declines. As for how it will perform this weekend, Hulk increased the smallest on Friday with 39.6% followed by a 3.31 IM, Silver Surfer 59% and 3.20 IM, The Incredible Hulk 59.1% and 3.32 IM. A similar performance would give Green Lantern a $5.5m Friday for a $17-18m weekend.

Super 8 was assisted by Father's Day last weekend, but it will also face less competition this time around, not to mention that Bad Teacher being rated R could provide some sneak-in business. Good word-of-mouth should also help Mr. Popper's Penguins to have a steady hold.

When WALL-E opened 3 years ago, it caused Kung Fu Panda to increase only 11.2% on Friday. With bigger theater drop (-27.2%) and the continuing loss of 3D screens, looks for Kung Fu Panda 2 to have an even smaller jump. A Thurs-to-Friday decline is certainly not out of question either.

Despite the new competition from Bad Teacher, Bridesmaids should continue its amazing march toward a 6+ multiplier. After all, it handled The Hangover Part II just fine. The film in fact saw a Wed-to-Wed increase in PTA this week, so another weekend of $2,700 PTA could be in store.

China Weekly Box Office (06/13 - 06/19): Beginning of the Great Revival, the most hyped domestic release of the summer, opened

2011-06-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Beginning of the Great Revival（建党伟业）	110m ($17.00m)	New	76,706	3,053,011	110m ($17.00m)
2. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	59m ($9.12m)	-53.5%	55,457	1,531,671	524.5m ($80.94m)
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	28m ($4.33m)	-52.5%	28,176	759,219	462m ($71.21m)
4. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	16m ($2.47m)	-38.5%	15,770	489,596	249m ($38.36m)
5. Skyline（天际浩劫）	8.5m ($1.31m)	-64.6%	15,474	274,547	49.2m ($6.28m)
6. Na igre 2（超能游戏者）	4.3m ($0.66m)	-30.6%	12,235	149,150	10.5m ($1.62m)
7. Love Finally（男得有爱）	2.3m ($0.36m)	New	6,182	79,778	2.3m ($0.36m)
8. No. 32, B District（B区32号）	1.4m ($0.22m)	-77.4%	4,309	47,619	14.1m ($2.18m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1545)

On one hand, there really isn't anything wrong with a 5-day 110m yuan start; on the other hand, Beginning of the Great Revival has been hyped so much, with studio stating 800m yuan total being the goal and Chinese government clearing everything out of the way to help, such a number does feel a letdown for its backers and a victory for people tired of government-promoted propaganda. With a start a little worse than what The Founding of a Republic had and little reason to watch it twice unless being forced to, it is unlikely to even reach 400m yuan total.

Facing the onslaught of Great Revival, the top three Hollywood films of the year in China all held up fine, highlighted again by Fast Five's sub-40% drop, simply amazing given it doesn't have the luxury of 3D screens that the other two have. These three look to finish with $90m, $75m, and $40m respectively.

Father's Day Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jun 17 - 19): Green Lantern, Mr. Popper's Penguins

2011-06-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Green Lantern	49.0	$12,841 PTA
2. Super 8	21.5	-39.4%
3. Mr. Popper's Penguins	16.0	$4,793 PTA
4. X-Men: First Class	12.5	-48.2%
5. Kung Fu Panda 2	11.5	-30.5%
6. The Hangover Part II	10.0	-43.4%
7. Bridesmaids	7.5	-25.5%
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	7.0	-36.0%
9. Midnight in Paris	5.0	-14.2%
10. Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer	3.0	-50.6%

China Weekly Box Office (6/6 - 6/12): Kung Fu Panda 2 and Pirates 4 both crossed 400m yuan

2011-06-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	127m ($19.60m)	-44.8%	89,034	3,314,196	465.5m ($71.82m)
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	59m ($9.10m)	-26.3%	44,244	1,533,662	434m ($66.88m)
3. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	26m ($4.01m)	-7.7%	22,331	795,350	233m ($35.89m)
4. Skyline（天际浩劫）	24m ($3.70m)	+43.7%	32,566	770,712	40.7m ($6.28m)
5. Na igre 2（超能游戏者）	6.2m ($0.96m)	New	11,462	212,512	6.2m ($0.96m)
6. No. 32, B District（B区32号）	6.2m ($0.96m)	-4.6%	13,808	209,035	12.7m ($1.96m)
7. Case Sentitive（敏感事件）	1.5m ($0.23m)	New	6,646	53,609	1.5m ($0.23m)
8. Sui Sui Qing Ming（岁岁清明）	0.95m ($0.15m)	+137.5%	580	43,248	1.35m ($0.21m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1543)

Helped by the Dragon Boat Festival on Monday and the lack of major openers, the holdovers had another outstanding week. Kung Fu Panda 2 could still reach 600m yuan ($92m), although $100m appears unlikely now, while Pirates 4 should finish around $75m. Out of all the films, Fast Five may in fact have had the most surprising run, as it looks to finish with 250m yuan and a 3.68 multiplier from its opening weekend. The week represented a short calm before the next storm; on Wednesday, the biggest Chinese film of the summer, Beginning of The Great Revival, will officially start, with the stated goal of reaching 800m yuan ($123m) final gross.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jun 10 - 12): Super 8, Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, Midnight in Paris

2011-06-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Super 8	25.0	$7,400 PTA
2. X-Men: First Class	23.0	-58.3%
3. Kung Fu Panda 2	16.0	-33.0%
4. The Hangover Part II	15.0	-52.2%
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	11.5	-35.9%
6. Bridesmaids	9.5	-21.1%
7. Midnight in Paris	6.5	+134.7%
8. Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer	3.3	$1,300 PTA
9. Thor	2.5	-41.2%
10. Fast Five	3.4	-43.1%

After watching Super 8 with friends on Thursday night in a half-empty IMAX theater - Metreon in San Francisco, a place where such a film should have been very popular, I am more than convinced of a sub-$30m opening, and in the mean time, I could also understand why Paramount has had great trouble selling the film to the general audience. It is simply not an easy movie to sell, and keeping the plot rather secretive may have been the best approach anyway since there really isn't much in the film to make people excited. It does not feel like a big summer movie, nor did it purposely try to be one. The story could feel slow for viewers who were expecting a lot of actions going in (there aren't many), and some parts could be too scary for the younger audience. The expectations after the initial teaser were just unrealistic in retrospect. I also no longer feel confident about its long term legs, as a CinemaScore of B- would not surprise me. It is not a film where friends will tell each other that they have to see it, and crossing over to attract the female audience could be proven to be difficult.

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer has not seen much promotion from Relativity, and it is reflected on both the online activities and advance sales. The Box Office Mojo poll of 1.5% Opening Weekend interest is one of the worst ever even for a genre that is known to have weak figures there, and historically, once the OW% dips below 2%, a sub-$2K PTA becomes likely.

China Weekly Box Office (5/30 - 6/5): Kung Fu Panda 2 took advantage of International Children's Day

2011-06-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	230m ($35.51m)	+112.0%	104,285	6,133,843	338.5m ($52.22m)
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	80m ($12.35m)	-45.2%	49,600	2,105,263	375m ($57.78m)
3. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	28m ($4.32m)	-34.9%	23,264	865,265	207m ($31.88m)
4. Skyline（天际浩劫）	16.7m ($2.58m)	New	15,795	526,813	16.7m ($2.58m)
5. No. 32, B District（B区32号）	6.5m ($1.00m)	New	9,954	219,668	6.5m ($1.00m)
6. Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends - The Movie（宇宙英雄之超银河传说）	4.4m ($0.68m)	+120.0%	6,671	159,767	28.2m ($4.35m)
7. Life is a Miracle（最爱）	2m ($0.31m)	-67.7%	7,669	71,454	58m ($6.49m)
8. A Beautiful Life（不再让你孤单）	0.87m ($0.13m)	-74.4%	4,016	31,487	18.57m ($2.90m)
9. Xi Bai Po（西柏坡）	0.41m ($0.063m)	New	695	30,850	0.55m ($0.085m)
10. Sui Sui Qing Ming（岁岁清明）	0.4m ($0.062m)	New	391	19,617	0.4m ($0.062m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1544)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Jun 3 - 5): X-Men: First Class

2011-06-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. X-Men: First Class	61.0	$16,754 PTA
2. The Hangover Part II	34.0	-60.6%
3. Kung Fu Panda 2	25.0	-47.5%
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	20.0	-49.8%
5. Bridesmaids	12.0	-27.5%
6. Thor	5.2	-45.5%
7. Fast Five	3.4	-47.0%
8. Midnight in Paris	2.4	+24.4%
9. Jumping the Broom	0.9	-50.6%
10. Something Borrowed	0.8	-57.0%

We are seeing mixed signs for X-Men: First Class. On the positive side, the Box Office Mojo poll is excellent with 57.6% Opening Weekend, on par with Wolverine's 57.4%. However, BOM poll has become more inflated for films targeting younger males since 2 years ago. The movie is also receiving some of the better reviews of the year for a wide release with 86% at Rottentomatoes, and that could help attract back some of the more reluctant fans. On the other hand, an average of 7.4 there and a 66 from Metacritic indicate most reviews are just positive instead of outright raves. In addition, the stigma from poor word-of-mouth received by the previous two entries of the series (2.28 multiplier for The Last Stand and 2.11 for Wolverine) remains strong. As Batman Begins demonstrated, the initial reboot could see more subdued opening but better legs after the WOM spread, and the second film after the reboot is the one to truly take advantage and bring back all the fans and then some. On the Twitter front, it showed good result on Wednesday, but a 40,000 tweets still only point to a $25m Friday start, as its ratio will certainly be bigger than what Thor (1,184) had and closer to Iron Man 2's level (1,858). Given this is in June and the consistent level of frontloadedness for X-Men films, the internal multiplier should not be higher than 2.5.

As expected, The Hangover Part II has seen steady declines each day since its opening, and it is looking at a sizable sophomore drop. If it follows Knocked Up's equivalent Wednesday-to-weekend multiplier, it will earn $34m this frame; if it follows The Hangover's trajectory, $31m; Get Him to the Greek, $28m. The Hangover Part II is released a week earlier than those three films, so it could enjoy a bigger Friday increase as not all students are off from school yet, but on the other hand, outside Get Him to the Greek, which had to deal with combined $81m from The Karate Kid and The A-Team, the other two did not face as severe a competition as The Hangover Part II will from X-Men: First Class. A 60% loss in attendance feels reasonable.

More surprisingly, Kung Fu Panda 2 has not enjoyed good daily holds either. After being down 6% from Madagascar on Friday, it was an alarming 21% worse on Wednesday. Friday increases for animated films in early June have been steady in the past: Up - +111.9%, Shrek the Third - +111.3%, Over the Hedge - +107.2%, and Madagascar - +122.2%, so the likelihood of having a much stronger jump for Panda 2, something it would need to avoid a 45% drop from last weekend, is small. It is shaping up to be quite a disappointing run domestically for the film, although internationally it is a totally opposite story and should be more than good enough to see the third installment green-lighted.

China Weekly Box Office (5/23 - 5/29): Kung Fu Panda 2 scored the biggest opening day ever

2011-06-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	146m ($22.48m)	-2.0%	81,122	3,780,424	295m ($45.43m)
2. Kung Fu Panda 2（功夫熊猫2）	108.5m ($16.71m)	New	32,296	2,844,036	108.5m ($16.71m)
3. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	43m ($6.62m)	-36.8%	36,963	1,352,201	179m ($27.56m)
4. Life is a Miracle（最爱）	6.2m ($0.95m)	-60.8%	18,196	204,688	56m ($6.18m)
5. A Beautiful Life（不再让你孤单）	3.4m ($0.52m)	-55.8%	10,664	110,353	17.7m ($2.73m)
6. Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends - The Movie（宇宙英雄之超银河传说）	2m ($0.31m)	-73.7%	5,748	70,921	23.8m ($3.67m)
7. Thor（雷神）	2m ($0.31m)	-88.2%	4,227	59,347	98m ($15.09m)
8. Rio（里约大冒险）	0.32m ($0.049m)	-78.7%	520	9,373	138.82m ($21.32m)
9. Where Are You From?（你是哪里人）	0.3m ($0.046m)	New	1,613	11,355	0.3m ($0.046m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1540)

Given the popularity the first Kung Fu Panda enjoyed in China (38m yuan opening week, 186m total), the expectations were high for the sequel. 300m yuan total felt certain, and Internet chatters were debating if 400m is possible. The gigantic opening just moved the bar higher. Panda 2 set the biggest opening day ever with 54m yuan ($8.3m), although it's not the biggest single day gross ever since most films don't open on the most lucrative day of the week, Saturday. Then it barely dropped on Sunday. 3D screens accounted for 72% of the gross, and IMAX accounted for 4.6%. With China celebrating International Children's Day on June 1st, expect good dailies this week where a 250m yuan ($38.5m) second week is quite possible, and the target for the total became 600m yuan, with $100m (650m yuan) in sight as well.

Since Panda 2 opened on Saturday, Pirates 4 had some breathing room for most of the week and took advantage. It should start decelerating more from this point on, but 400m yuan looks certain. Fast Five continued to hold well and should break 200m within a week or two. Thor, on the other hand, is crashing toward the finish line and may in fact miss 100m yuan.

China Weekly Box Office (5/16 - 5/22): Hollywood films continue to dominate as Pirates 4 claimed the biggest opening of the year

2011-05-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides（加勒比海盗4）	149m ($22.95m)	New	42,505	3,685,382	149m ($22.95m)
2. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	68m ($10.47m)	-	56,009	2,141,732	136m ($20.94m)
3. Thor（雷神）	17m ($2.62m)	-71.2%	23,721	464,354	96m ($14.78m)
4. Life is a Miracle（最爱）	15.8m ($2.43m)	-53.5%	31,373	497,481	49.8m ($5.23m)
5. A Beautiful Life（不再让你孤单）	7.7m ($1.19m)	+16.7%	18,265	241,910	14.3m ($2.21m)
6. Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends - The Movie（宇宙英雄之超银河传说）	7.6m ($1.17m)	-46.5%	14,042	257,539	21.8m ($3.36m)
7. Rio（里约大冒险）	1.5m ($0.23m)	-72.2%	2,149	38,392	138.5m ($21.27m)
8. The Lost Bladesman（关云长）	1.02m ($0.16m)	-84.8%	4,370	32,005	159.72m ($24.60m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1540)

May keeps heating up. The pattern has been one Hollywood release a week, and each one has surged past what the previous one achieved. To put On Stranger Tides' performance into perspective, let's recap how the previous three installments of the franchise had done in China:

The Curse of the Black Pearl - 27m yuan total
Dead Man's Chest - not released
At World's End - 45m yuan opening 6 days, 125m yuan total, the 7th biggest film of the year in China

On Stranger Tides opened on Friday to 36m yuan, and then had excellent Saturday increase to achieve a 4.14 IM, surpassing the 3rd's total in merely three days. It is also the first May release ever to gross over 100m yuan in its first 3 days. Further breakdown shows 70% of the gross came from 3D, and 6.2% from IMAX. As for its long term prospect, Kung Fu Panda 2 will no doubt provide stiff competition, but it should have no trouble crossing 350m, with 400m yuan ($60m) a realistic possibility.

Fast Five held up quite well against the onslaught of Pirates 4, while Thor did not and will only crawl past 100m yuan, a disappointment considering it would just be 5 times its opening day.

Memorial Weekend Box Office Predictions (May 27 - 30): The Hangover Part II, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Tree of Life

2011-05-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. The Hangover Part II	95.0	$26,279 PTA
2. Kung Fu Panda 2	70.0	$17,834 PTA
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	48.0	-46.8%
4. Bridesmaids	17.0	-18.6%
5. Thor	9.5	-38.5%
6. Fast Five	7.0	-33.8%
7. Rio	3.0	-36.0%
8. Priest	2.4	-49.5%
9. Jumping the Broom	2.3	-37.9%
10. Something Borrowed	2.2	-37.4%
-. The Tree of Life	0.52	$130,000 PTA

The Hangover, IMO, had one of the most impressive box office performances in the last decade. Both of its opening and legs are simply stunning. So naturally the expectations for the sequel are high. For comparisons, Shrek achieved a 6.32 multiplier and then saw Shrek 2 opened to 155% higher; Pirates of the Caribbean: 6.04 multiplier for the first film, 191% improvement in opening for the sequel. Using them as cues, if this had been a traditional weekend with Friday launch, we could have easily been looking at a $110m+ opening.

The R-rating does present some challenge for The Hangover that Shrek or Pirates did not have to worry about, but this is as close to a 4-quadrant film as a R-rated movie could get, and the signs so far are not disappointing: ~75,000 tweets from Monday to Wednesday, 41.7% Opening Weekend interests at Box Office Mojo poll, $125m tracking from Major Theater Chain, and 82% of advance sales at Fandango as of 4pm on Wednesday. Look for Part II to start with a massive $35m on Thursday, but then decline gradually each day over the long weekend, king of similar to what Sex and the City 2 experienced (although unlikely to match its severity), for a $130m total across the first 5 days.

Kung Fu Panda 2, on the other hand, is seeing a mixed picture. On first glance, it should easily improve upon the first film's opening given the good word-of-mouth, 3.58 multiplier despite good competition, and the new 3D format. However, the marketing has been somewhat lazy and is not providing people additional excitement to return except to say "look, we're back!" That has led to weak tracking ($76m from MTC) and advance sales (only 2% as of 4pm on Wednesday), although the general interests appear to be there with ~12,000 tweets in the first three days of the week and 31.8% OW from BOM poll. Balancing them out, we could see a $10m Thursday, then another $70m over the next 4 days as the film will certainly have better internal multiplier than The Hangover Part II, for a 5-day total of $80m.

After Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris set the arthouse on fire last weekend with a $100K per-theater-average in 6 theaters, Terence Malick will attempt to replicate the success with his The Tree of Life, and the bet is the film will perform even better in the PTA department, especially now it won Palme d'Or. The long term prospect is more murky since the reviews indicate, unsurprising given Malick's history, it is not made for the broader audience.

Even if Kung Fu Panda 2 turns out to perform a little worse than expected, we will still have the strongest one-two punch ever for Memorial weekend. In fact, they, along with the strength from holdovers, will likely be enough to make this the biggest Memorial weekend ever, surpassing 2007 when the 3 big three-quals - Pirates 3, Shrek 3, and Spider-Man 3 - carried the top 12 to a combined $246.3m.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (May 20 - May 22): Pirates of the Caribbean 4

2011-05-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	99.0	$23,827 PTA
2. Bridesmaids	19.0	-27.6%
3. Thor	18.5	-46.7%
4. Fast Five	11.0	-46.2%
5. Priest	5.5	-63.1%
6. Rio	5.3	-36.0%
7. Something Borrowed	3.7	-46.2%
8. Jumping the Broom	3.0	-57.5%
9. Water for Elephants	2.6	-38.1%
10. Soul Surfer	1.2	-34.3%

Predicted daily breakdown for Pirates of the Caribbean 4:

Midnight - $3m
Friday - $35m
Saturday - $35m
Sunday - $26m

China Weekly Box Office (5/9 - 5/15): Fast Five battles Thor

2011-05-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. Fast Five（速度与激情5）	68m ($10.47m)	New	37,599	2,102,659	68m ($10.47m)
2. Thor（雷神）	59m ($9.08m)	+195%	52,309	1,640,339	79m ($12.16m)
3. Life is a Miracle（最爱）	34m ($5.23m)	New	39,578	1,059,850	34m ($5.23m)
4. Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends - The Movie（宇宙英雄之超银河传说）	14.2m ($2.19m)	New	11,749	474,598	14.2m ($2.19m)
5. The Lost Bladesman（关云长）	6.7m ($1.03m)	-86.6%	18,455	197,407	158.7m ($24.44m)
6. A Beautiful Life（不再让你孤单）	6.6m ($1.02m)	New	9,614	200,060	6.6m ($1.02m)
7. Rio（里约大冒险）	5.4m ($0.83m)	-79.2%	5,914	109,157	137m ($21.04m)
8. A Chinese Fairy Tale（倩女幽魂）	3.5m ($0.54m)	-85.4%	36,443	726,392	141m ($21.70m)
9. The Next Three Days（危情三日）	1.1m ($0.17m)	-91.5%	3,663	35,783	22.9m ($3.53m)
10. The Detective 2（B+侦探）	0.73m ($0.11m)	-93.9%	3,228	23,586	22.73m ($3.50m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1539)

The only previous Fast and Furious installment to be released in China was the 4th one, which got 29m yuan in total. Fast Five beat it in two days. It will likely be frontloaded, with Pirates 4 and Kung Fu Panda 2 waiting in the wing. Still, it should reach $20m+ total and could beat Thor.

Don't be fooled by the 195% increase by Thor; the weekly figure is actually slightly lower than I expected (predicted 60m+ yuan). Fast Five appears to steal its thunder quite a bit, and the 3D screens will be in serious jeopardy the next couple of weeks, so the legs could be short from this point on.

Zhang Ziyi's latest film, Life is a Miracle, is a tough film to sell, as the AIDS subject remains relatively taboo in China. However, the great reviews from early screenings helped increase the awareness, as well as the presence of Ziyi and Aaron Kwok. Even though a film started on Tuesday seldom reaches 3 times the opening week figure by the end of its run, Life is a Miracle stands a chance with its good WOM and smaller initial built-in audience, putting 100m yuan in play.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (May 13 - 15): Bridesmaids, Priest

2011-05-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Thor	32.0	-51.3%
2. Fast Five	18.3	-43.6%
3. Priest	16.7	$5,831 PTA
4. Bridesmaids	15.0	$5,142 PTA
5. Something Borrowed	8.0	-42.6%
6. Jumping the Broom	7.0	-54.0%
7. Rio	5.5	-35.3%
8. Water for Elephants	3.5	-42.3%
9. Madea's Big Happy Family	1.9	-54.5%
10. Soul Surfer	1.3	-43.7%

Great, Blogger came back, but lost my previous "Early Weekend Forecast" post. Oh well, for people who have read it, you probably noticed the change in my Bridesmaids prediction since Wednesday. I upped it due to improvement at both BOM poll and Twitter as well as good advance sales. Another breakdown of interest for each quadrant also showed it's appealing almost exclusively to women, and that makes the online figures more impressive when you compare them with other R-rated comedies with female leads.

Look like I'm one of the few to still have some faith in Priest. Legion remains the closest comparison to me, and Priest's foreign launch in Russia and Spain mirrored what Legion had. It is looking at 5,000+ tweets from Monday to Thursday, and I just can't forecast a ratio higher than what Resident Evil: Afterlife, which is a sequel and also in 3D, had, so a $6m minimum on Friday seems to be assured.

Giving Thor a 48-49% drop without midnight, similar to what Iron Man achieved. Don't see it reaching Star Trek's 42.8% level.

The WOM for Fast Five should kick in after the natural frontloadedness faded away, and it will reflect on this weekend's hold, especially with not much new competition nor event like losing IMAX screens. It is also one of the few films in the top 10 to not get a boost from Mother's Day. X-Men Origins: Wolverine improved from 69% drop on the sophomore weekend to 44.3% on its third, and there is no reason why Fast Five could not duplicate similar performance.

Early Weekend Forecast: around $10m for Bridesmaids, $16-18m for Priest

2011-05-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Bridesmaids:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT
Wedding Crashers	$33.9m	17.2%	23.6%
Knocked Up	$30.7m	21.0%	22.4%
The 40-Year-Old Virgin	$21.4m	16.4%	21.2%
Forgetting Sarah Marshall	$17.7m	26.9%	17.9%
Get Him to the Greek	$17.6m	14.6%	15.6%
MacGruber	$8.5m	13.0%	14.3%
Bridesmaids	?	11.5%	13.4%

Bridesmaids is the first Judd Apatow film to have women as the main targeted audience, and because of that, we could expect the raw numbers to be worse in the BOM poll as BOM users are mostly young males. However, it is still a Apatow-produced, R-rated raunchy comedy, with Saturday Night Live connection from Kristen Wiig, so there are overlaps with all of the films listed above, and receiving the worst set of numbers among them is definitely not promising.

Movie	# of Tweets	Opening Friday	Ratio
Hot Tub Time Machine	8,122	$4.55m	1,785
Get Him to the Greek	7,545	$6.3m	1,198
MacGruber	5,878	$1.6m	3,674

There is a reason to think Bridesmaids would have a lower ratio due to its appeal to women, but Sex and the City 2 had a ratio of 4,400, so that alone doesn't guarantee a lower ratio, at least a drastically lower one. A 1,000+ ratio remains very plausible, and with the film struggling to reach 4,000 tweets from Monday to Thursday, we are looking at a sub $4m Friday.

Tracking
ReelSource - mid-teens
Major Theater Chain - 11

Having ReelSource dropping from the $20m+ several weeks ago to mid-teen may not mean much itself, but then MTC came in more than 25% worse and significantly increased the odd of the film not opening to $11m.

The problem for Bridesmaids is that there appears to be a large disconnect between the audience it tries to appeal to (women) and the demo a R-rated raunchy comedy typically attracts, and instead of getting both, it has generated little interest in either. An opening on par with The Sweetest Thing and The Banger Sisters appears likely. The film does possess one thing in its favor: Reviews, but I'm not sure it will have enough time for the expected great word-of-mouth to help the legs, if the opening is low enough.

Priest:

Movie	OW Gross	BOM Poll: OW	BOM Poll: SiT
Resident Evil: Afterlife	$26.7m	30.5%	15.2%
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans	$20.8m	15.1%	12.8%
Legion	$17.5m	11.8%	17.2%
Daybreakers	$15.1m	16.5%	19.2%
Ultraviolet	$9.1m	14.3%	14.1%
Priest	?	13.3%	14.6%

The Opening Weekend percentage for Priest is quite solid, especially considering its PG-13 rating. Ultraviolet does represent a caution, but the presence of Milla Jovovich inflated online polls. Legion seems to be the closest comparison, and Priest's numbers are on par with it.

Movie	# of Tweets	Opening Friday	Ratio
Legion	3,890	$6.7m	581
Daybreakers	5,130	$5.9m	869
Resident Evil: Afterlife	10,195	$10.9m	935

Priest is also on track to get 4,000 tweets by the end of Thursday, but its ratio will not be close to 1,000. The PG-13 rating tends to help reduce the ratio for horror films, so I expect its ratio to be in the 600 range.

Tracking
ReelSource - 20
Major Theater Chain - 18

Pretty close between the two, so we could not really deduct much more information from them.

Friday the 13th should also help Priest's opening day while lowering the internal multiplier. A breakdown of $7m Friday and $17m weekend feels reasonable at this point.

China Weekly Box Office (5/2 - 5/8): Thor opened on Sunday; Rio marched on

2011-05-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Lost Bladesman（关云长）	50m ($7.70m)	-51.0%	63,724	1,444,669	152m ($23.41m)
2. Rio（里约大冒险）	26m ($4.00m)	-7.1%	19,862	637,723	131.6m ($20.21m)
3. A Chinese Fairy Tale（倩女幽魂）	24m ($3.70m)	-40.7%	36,443	726,392	137.5m ($21.16m)
4. Thor（雷神）	20m ($3.08m)	New	10,118	519,615	20m ($3.08m)
5. The Next Three Days（危情三日）	13m ($2.00m)	+47.7%	19,891	404,354	21.8m ($3.36m)
6. The Detective 2（B+侦探）	12m ($1.85m)	+20.0%	22,180	366,636	22m ($3.39m)
7. The Eagle（迷踪：第九鹰团）	4.8m ($0.74m)	+29.7%	10,610	151,467	8.5m ($1.31m)
8. Sucker Punch（美少女特攻队）	1.6m ($0.25m)	-64.4%	2,171	35,914	46.2m ($7.09m)
9. A Chinese Ghost Story（倩女幽魂87版）	1.35m ($0.21m)	-10.0%	4,866	41,792	2.85m ($0.44m)
10. Kong Long Bao Bei（恐龙宝贝）	1.28m ($0.20m)	-20.0%	3,866	49,801	2.88m ($0.45m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1540)

Don't let the number or ranking fool you with Thor. It is a very good start because the 20m yuan all came from one day. The opening day is the second best of the year, narrowly behind Shao Lin's 21m. Last year Iron Man 2 opened on Friday and grossed 60m yuan over its first three days, so Thor's start is comparable. Look for 60m+ this full week.

Another mighty great hold for Rio. Definitely having the best legs of any films so far this year, and it still has a couple of more weeks to run before Kung Fu Panda 2 hit.

China Weekly Box Office (4/25 - 5/1): May Day holiday

2011-05-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Lost Bladesman（关云长）	102m ($15.71m)	New	72,891	3,031,203	102m ($15.71m)
2. A Chinese Fairy Tale（倩女幽魂）	40.5m ($6.24m)	-44.5%	49,798	1,210,400	113.5m ($17.46m)
3. Rio（里约大冒险）	28m ($4.31m)	+3.7%	19,648	710,119	105.6m ($16.21m)
4. The Detective 2（B+侦探）	10m ($1.54m)	New	11,598	303,398	10m ($1.54m)
5. The Next Three Days（危情三日）	8.8m ($1.36m)	New	8,800	274,914	8.8m ($1.36m)
6. The Warring State（战国）	4.6m ($0.71m)	-80.8%	13,980	135,973	76.6m ($11.75m)
7. Sucker Punch（美少女特攻队）	4.5m ($0.69m)	-75.7%	9,390	125,733	44.6m ($6.84m)
8. The Eagle（迷踪：第九鹰团）	3.7m ($0.57m)	New	5,088	115,121	3.7m ($0.57m)
9. Kong Long Bao Bei（恐龙宝贝）	1.6m ($0.25m)	New	3,236	61,633	1.6m ($0.25m)
10. A Chinese Ghost Story（倩女幽魂87版）	1.5m ($0.23m)	New	3,255	47,303	1.5m ($0.23m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1540)

China Weekly Box Office (4/18 - 4/24): the remake of A Chinese Ghost Story expectedly dominated; Rio continued the march to 100m yuan

2011-05-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. A Chinese Fairy Tale（倩女幽魂）	73m ($11.22m)	New	65,979	2,076,222	73m ($11.22m)
2. Rio（里约大冒险）	27m ($4.15m)	-3.6%	24,135	688,951	77.6m ($11.90m)
3. The Warring State（战国）	24m ($3.69m)	-50.0%	42,041	700,934	72m ($11.04m)
4. Sucker Punch（美少女特攻队）	18.5m ($2.84m)	-14.4%	32,852	565,576	40.1m ($6.15m)
5. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart（单身男女）	4.9m ($0.75m)	-65.0%	11,089	147,738	97.2m ($14.78m)
6. Armored（激战运钞车）	4.5m ($0.69m)	-56.3%	12,554	150,300	15m ($2.30m)
7. Mr. & Mrs. Single（隐婚男女）	1.25m ($0.19m)	-74.0%	4,660	42,560	13.85m ($2.11m)
8. He-Man 2（硬汉2）	0.54m ($0.083m)	-70.0%	2,297	18,914	23.54m ($3.60m)
9. Red（赤焰战场）	0.42m ($0.065m)	-83.8%	1,638	14,536	32.52m ($4.97m)
10. The Frightening Night（夜惊魂）	0.26m ($0.040m)	-	1,169	8,698	7.4m ($1.13m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1537)

China Weekly Box Office (4/11 - 4/17): The Warring State and Sucker Punch opened; Rio steady

2011-05-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

Movie	Weekly Gross (yuan/dollar)	Change	# of showings	admissions	Total (yuan/dollar)
1. The Warring State（战国）	48m ($7.35m)	New	52,224	1,430,700	48m ($7.35m)
2. Rio（里约大冒险）	28m ($4.29m)	+23.9%	28,228	722,767	50.6m ($7.75m)
3. Sucker Punch（美少女特攻队）	21.6m ($3.31m)	New	21,904	658,737	21.6m ($3.31m)
4. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart（单身男女）	14m ($2.14m)	-68.9%	22,944	422,195	92.3m ($14.03m)
5. Armored（激战运钞车）	10.3m ($1.58m)	New	21,838	341,511	10.5m ($1.61m)
6. Mr. & Mrs. Single（隐婚男女）	4.8m ($0.73m)	-38.5%	13,011	155,239	12.6m ($1.92m)
7. Battle: Los Angeles（洛杉矶之战）	4m ($0.61m)	-85.2%	8,975	121,839	235m ($35.84m)
8. Red（赤焰战场）	2.6m ($0.40m)	-86.3%	6,881	78,676	32.1m ($4.91m)
9. He-Man 2（硬汉2）	1.8m ($0.28m)	-86.2%	6,509	57,142	23m ($3.52m)
10. The Law Of Attraction（万有引力）	0.98m ($0.15m)	-57.4%	4,456	28,905	3.28m ($0.50m)

(Source, 1 Chinese Yuan == $0.1531)

Weekend Box Office Predictions (May 6 - May 8): Thor, Something Borrowed, Jumping the Broom; Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Thor	63.0	$15,929 PTA
2. Fast Five	33.0	-61.7%
3. Something Borrowed	10.6	$3,650 PTA
4. Rio	8.3	-43.9%
5. Jumping the Broom	8.0	$3,931 PTA
6. Water for Elephants	6.5	-30.4%
7. Madea's Big Happy Family	3.9	-60.4%
8. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil	2.4	-41.6%
9. Soul Surfer	2.2	-34.7%
10. Prom	2.0	-57.6%

Will Fast Five reach $200m domestically?

2011-05-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

Movie	Opening Weekend	Overall Gross	Multiplier
The Fast and the Furious	$40.1m	$144.5m	3.60
2 Fast and 2 Furious	$50.5m	$127.2m	2.52
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift	$24.0m	$62.5m	2.60
Fast and Furious	$71.0m	$155.1m	2.18

Fast Five needs a 2.39 multiplier to reach $200m. From first glance, it appears in general, the series is on a downwarding trend in term of overall multiplier, and it will be difficult for Fast Five to get there. However, there are several good reasons to believe the film will reverse the trend and improve upon the multiplier from the previous film Fast and Furious.

Release date: Fast Five is three weeks closer to May and will see its weekdays benefit more from colleges being over in a couple of weeks, as by then it should still be earning over $15m for the weekend.

IMAX: The holding power of IMAX is well known, and it accounted for 10% of Fast Five's opening frame. To demonstrate how much it would help stabilizing a film's hold, let's suppose the non-IMAX portion of the gross drops 60% on the second weekend and the IMAX portion drops 25%, the sophomore take would be 83.6*0.9*0.4 + 83.6*0.1*0.75 = $36.4m, or a 56.5% decline overall, a 3.5 points improvement over the non-IMAX drop. In fact, the Sunday itself, which Universal is projecting a 37.3% drop from Saturday, could go up with actual due to IMAX help (and if it does, the required multiplier will be lowered).

Word-of-mouth and Demographics: it received an A CinemaScore and skewed older comparing to Fast and Furious with 48% over 25 years old. Both factors could have accounted for the improved Saturday hold. It dipped only 1.5% from Friday when we exclude the midnight, much better than Fast and Furious's 14% drop. For a fifth film, that is a very good sign.

Competition: The films in May that could be considered competition include Thor, Priest, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and The Hangover Part II. The first three are in 3D, and the last one is rated R, so there is a room for Fast Five on each upcoming weekend.

With all these advantages, I believe Fast Five will get the multiplier needed to pass $200m, and if it appears the film will need a bit extra kick, Universal does have another weapon in late July: Cowboys & Aliens. Through double-featuring and/or other means, look for Fast Five to jump that weekend, strong enough to milk another $1m or so toward the total gross from that point on.

Weekend Box Office Predictions (Apr 29 - May 1): Fast Five, Hoodwinked Too, Prom, Dylan Dog

2011-04-29T03:17:00.000-07:00

Movie	Predicted Gross (m)	Change
1. Fast Five	82.0	$22,509 PTA
2. Rio	16.0	-39.2%
3. Water for Elephants	10.8	-35.9%
4. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil	9.1	$3,633 PTA
5. Madea's Big Happy Family	9.0	-64.1%
6. Prom	6.9	$2,527 PTA
7. Hop	5.0	-59.0%
8. Soul Surfer	3.6	-33.8%
9. Source Code	3.1	-39.1%
10. Hanna	3.0	-43.4%
11. Insidious	2.9	-44.3%
12. Scream 4	2.8	-60.2%
-. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night	1.3	$1,508 PTA

Early Week Thought: Fast Five is poised for an $80m+ opening

2011-04-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

The signs are collaborating with each other quite well for a breakout performance, and they are not just constrained to one area (Internet, tracking, etc.).

1. Fast Five launched in 4 good-sized international markets last weekend (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea), and it beat Fast and Furious' opening in all of them. There is no obvious reason why the numbers would be inflated specifically for those territories due to cast or location say for the example of The King's Speech, and they are not some super-growing territories since 2009 like China and Russia, so we should expect the scenario to translate reasonably close to the U.S. If we look at the actual increase in percentage, Fast Five did 43% better in Australia than its predecessor while competing and winning over Thor in the process, 22% in U.K., and nearly tripled in South Korea. A 20% improvement domestically would put it at $85m for the weekend.

2. The BOM poll breakdown of 34.8% Opening Weekend and 16.6% Sometime in Theaters is better than Fast and Furious' 28.9% + 17.6%.

3. Two tracking firms released their figures, and Major Theater Chain being significantly higher than what ReelSource has ($78m vs. $60m) normally means the film will open even stronger than MTC's number.

4. 245 IMAX theaters, something Fast and Furious didn't have.

5. The number of tweets from last week was very solid. I know people have given Alex hard time for missing Scream 4 by a large margin, but that film had inflated signs everywhere online. I still believe Twitter analysis is a tremendously useful tool that should be incorporated in any predictive modeling.