Hong Kong Hong Kong Box Office

[Bluebomb]

5 hours ago, TigerPaw said:

May be the case,  and the public suspects this, but i highly doubt it.

 

Hearsay the China distributor is facing financial distress, and cannot afford publicity, hence changing its release date.

 

They spent a lot on the original promotion, inviting Mike Tyson and Donnie Yen to square off in a ring, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qorONpQaJnY
but apparently the distributor is not doing very well now and cannot afford any publicity and is trying to invite more investors, even members of public to invest in publicity and profit-sharing. Read all this on the Donnie Yen Baidu Tieba Forums. 

I am quite positive about Ip Man 3's box office results around the world, but now China is a tricky one, they need to change the distributor but it is hard because the current distributor is also one of the production and investment companies.

That sounds much more likely than the turnabout face of changing its release date due to competition.

 

Thursday schedules

Broadway/AMC
 

Palace APM
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3D - 22 showings	Initiation Love - 3 showings (▼ 4)	Legend
	Burnt - 1 showing (▼ 7)	In the Heart of the Sea
	Point Break - 1 showing (▼ 6)	The Vanished Murderer
	Port of Call - 4 showings (▲ 3)	Return of the Cuckoo
	Keeper of Darkness - 6 showings (▼ 7)	She Remembers, He Forgets
	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 - 1 showing (▼ 4)	Our Times

Star Wars will be shown on 3-4 screens throughout the day here. Pre-sales are great in some places with others are really bad. Love the Coopers, the other release this weekend will be shown in just 1 Broadway/AMC theater.

The holdovers are getting cut left right and center for Star Wars. The best of the lot is EDKO's own Keeper of Darkness which will maintain engagements at most theaters this week. 1/3 will be giving it full day showtimes. Point Break and Port of Call are the only other winners as far as holdovers are concerned. Big losers are Freeheld, Legend and In the Heart of the Sea.

UA
 

Cityplaza
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3D - 12 showings	In the Heart of the Sea - 4 showings (▼ 6)	Freeheld
Love the Coopers - 4 showings	Before We Go - 1 showing (▼ 5)	Victor Frankenstein
	Port of Call - 3 showings (▼ 4)	Spectre
	Keeper of Darkness - 5 showings (▼ 7)
	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 - 4 showings (▼ 5)

Star Wars will be played on 2-3 screens (IMAX included). At Megabox, it is only getting 1 screen in its regular theater despite tickets going on sale on November 28 though with IMAX included, it will play on 2 screens total. Love the Coopers will be shown at 3 UA HK locations.

With the lower count for Star Wars here, holdovers were spared for the most part. Keeper of Darkness and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 maintains coverage at all theaters while Port of Call and Point Break are not far behind.

MCL

Grand Windsor Cinema
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (3D Eng.) - 10 showings	Point Break - 1 showing (▼ 6)	In the Heart of the Sea
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Eng.) - 4 showings	Port of Call (Dir. Cut) - 2 showings (▼ 6)	She Remembers, He Forgets

MCL is going kamikaze for Star Wars with theaters showing this on 4-5 screens. Interestingly, MCL is the only franchised theater chain that will show the 2D Cantonese version of Star Wars this week. At The GRAND including midnights, Star Wars will blast off on Thursday with 36 showtimes in total.

As MCL is pimping Star Wars heavily, holdovers aren't so lucky. The only one that retains showings at every theater is MCL's own Point Break.

GH
 

Whampoa
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3D - 7 showings	In the Heart of the Sea - 2 showings (▼ 3)	Sinister
Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 7 showings	Point Break - 4 showings (=)	Victor Frankenstein
	The Vanished Murderer - 2 showings (▼ 3)	Spectre
	Keeper of Darkness - 4 showings (▼ 5)
	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 - 1 showing (▼ 3)

Star Wars is going the UA route and posting Star Wars on 2-3 screens.

Holdovers will get a reprieve here with the usual suspects (Point Break, Keeper of Darkness, Port of Call) all escaping with showtimes of some sort.

 

[moudoudou]

On 12/13/2015, 2:01:07, Bluebomb said:

Total

 

bought my ticket for Sunday night show in Popcorn, TKO. Hope I can avoid spoilers until then...

 

I prefer 2D to 3D but the cinema refuses to pre-sale tickets for 2D showings. Luckily, MCL cinema in Popcorn is way cheaper than Isquare's one (it doesn't offer an Imax experience though): 115$ per person for a premium ticket. Image and sound are top stuff there, the cinema being quite recent.

[Bluebomb]

5 hours ago, moudoudou said:

 

bought my ticket for Sunday night show in Popcorn, TKO. Hope I can avoid spoilers until then...

 

I prefer 2D to 3D but the cinema refuses to pre-sale tickets for 2D showings. Luckily, MCL cinema in Popcorn is way cheaper than Isquare's one (it doesn't offer an Imax experience though): 115$ per person for a premium ticket. Image and sound are top stuff there, the cinema being quite recent.

They began selling tickets for the 2D Star Wars version at Popcorn yesterday. Here's a tip: always wait until 2 days before release to see if they have 2D before buying because they always do that to get you into buying a 3D ticket. Theaters never release 2D pre-selling for blockbusters until 2 days before. If you check the theater chain's coming soon page, they will tell you if they will show 2D at this theater chain.

___________________________________________________________

Star Wars 7 is the most confusing blockbuster ever. Blockbusters no matter their size have some sort of consistency to them but this movie has a huge gap between those theaters performing well and those that are really lagging behind. I looked at raw admissions from several theaters last night to see how Star Wars 7 is shaping up in that theater and the results are astounding.
 

Festival Walk
	Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3D
Day	Time	Seats sold	Seats available	% filled
Dec. 17	10:45 AM	25	138	18.12%
	11:15 AM	214	354	60.45%
	11:20 AM	37	144	25.69%
	12:00 PM	16	156	10.26%
	1:20 PM	4	138	2.90%
	1:50 PM	114	354	32.20%
	2:00 PM	8	144	5.56%
	2:10 PM	5	156	3.21%
	2:35 PM	35	156	22.44%
	3:00 PM	12	127	9.45%
	3:55 PM	9	138	6.52%
	4:25 PM	153	354	43.22%
	4:35 PM	6	144	4.17%
	4:40 PM	8	156	5.13%
	5:10 PM	37	156	23.72%
	5:30 PM	9	127	7.09%
	6:30 PM	7	138	5.07%
	7:00 PM	236	354	66.67%
	7:10 PM	11	156	7.05%
	7:45 PM	97	156	62.18%
	8:00 PM	15	127	11.81%
	9:05 PM	35	138	25.36%
	9:35 PM	222	354	62.71%
	9:45 PM	11	156	7.05%
	9:50 PM	6	144	4.17%
	10:20 PM	27	156	17.31%
Total		1359	4821	28.19%

There is no need to discuss this one. Star Wars 7 is playing very well here almost to Avengers 2 esque numbers.

There is a nice chunk of theaters, around 10-15, that are standing alongside or doing even better than Festival Walk, so much so that they could comprise nearly 2/3 of Star Wars business.

Others (opening day)

394 admissions - Hollywood
<300 admissions - tmtplaza
284 admissions - Broadway Mongkok
216 admissions - Kwai Fong
<150 admissions - Megabox (does not include IMAX showings)

I really wanted to see how poorly Star Wars is doing with a random selection of theaters. Hollywood is doing regular business although 3D has gotten more admissions than 2D so far, which should not be happening. This is a 2D stronghold theater that rejects 3D even for blockbusters. tmtplaza was weak before and is not doing much better now. One of the busiest theaters in HK, Mongkok has done shockingly terrible business. Hollywood's 3D admissions actually beat Mongkok's entire admissions and it is doing nearly less than 5 times the business of Festival Walk. Mongkok is a theater that sees a lot of walk-ins but these pre-sales are inexcusable. It should not be doing almost 1/5 of Festival Walk's business. Even a look at its admissions today, it only went up to 290 admissions (+6 admissions), 10 hours before Star Wars is supposed to be officially released. Kwai Fong hasn't picked up much from earlier. If you factor out the IMAX showings at Megabox which would put it over the 1,000 admissions mark combined, the regular theater has been doing horribly. It's no wonder they did not add any screens at this location.

All in all though, I see Star Wars beginning with about 29,000-31,000 admissions in pre-sales on Thursday due to the overwhelming ticket selling at 1/3 of locations.

[Bluebomb]

	Thursday adm.	(so far)		December 17
Rank	Movie	LW	TW	% chg
1	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	--	30,870	--
2	Ten Years	--	585	--
3	Keeper of Darkness	785	265	-66.2%
4	Port of Call	508	245	-51.8%
5	Go Lala Go 2	403	231	-42.7%
6	Point Break	881	208	-76.4%
7	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	420	206	-51.0%
8	Burnt	722	194	-73.1%
9	Love the Coopers	--	158	--
10	Initiation Love	--	119	--

Disappointing number for Star Wars 7. That number includes midnights which accounted for at least 1,500 admissions. I see 45,000-50,000 for the day today.
 

Movie	OD pre-sales adm.	% diff
Star Wars: The Force Awakens	30,870
Avengers: Age of Ultron 3D	47,647	-35.2%
Transformers: Age of Extinction	30,850	+0.1%
The Amazing Spider-Man 2	54,986	-43.9%
Captain America 2	13,794	+123.8%
Monsters University	34,005	-9.2%
Man of Steel	12,350	+150.0%
Iron Man 3	46,074	-33.0%
Iron Man 2	31,977	-3.5%
The Dark Knight Rises	38,750	-20.3%
The Amazing Spider-Man	32,580	-5.2%
The Avengers	47,317	-34.8%
Transformers 3	44,161	-30.1%
Harry Potter 7-2	62,089	-50.3%
Toy Story 3	32,294	-4.4%
Pirates 4	21,559	+43.2%
Shrek 3	49,634	-37.8%
The Hobbit	18,440	+67.4%
Mission Impossible 4	24,390	+26.6%

30,000 is OK but theaters were expecting way more.

Judging from early weekend scheduling, Star Wars will lose showtimes and screens this weekend in favor of Ip Man 3/Peanuts/Little Prince sneaks.

The only thing that will save Star Wars 7 now is word of mouth.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Bluebomb

[Cynosure]

Is HK usually a good indication of what might happen in mainland China, or not at all ?

[Bluebomb]

4 minutes ago, Cynosure said:

Is HK usually a good indication of what might happen in mainland China, or not at all ?

Usually yes especially for blockbusters although there are outliers. China is probably more receptive to Star Wars than HK but those expecting gigantic grosses in China should be very afraid of this number.

[TigerPaw]

Ip Man 3 premiere last night HK Time Move started around 9pm --> Read some Reviews and talked to some insiders about the movie, apparently pretty amazing, not just in terms of the action but apparently the story is very complete and touching! =)

[Bluebomb]

6 hours ago, TigerPaw said:

Ip Man 3 premiere last night HK Time Move started around 9pm --> Read some Reviews and talked to some insiders about the movie, apparently pretty amazing, not just in terms of the action but apparently the story is very complete and touching! =)

Yeah saw a few reviews earlier in the week that said that the story is excellent. It should be a satisfying conclusion to the franchise.

__________________________________________________

Early reviews aren't looking good for Star Wars 7. It has a 3.3/5 from users so far. Fanboys don't look very pleased. Maybe the GA reaction will be better.

 

[TigerPaw]

32 minutes ago, Bluebomb said:

 

Early reviews aren't looking good for Star Wars 7. It has a 3.3/5 from users so far. Fanboys don't look very pleased. Maybe the GA reaction will be better.

 

Wow, seriously? After checking out its 95% rotten tomatoes score I thought everyone would love it.

I am not really interested in Star Wars to be honest, probably wouldn't catch it even if I had a free Imax Ticket, but these audiences reviews are pretty intriguing. 

[Olive]

3 minutes ago, TigerPaw said:

Wow, seriously? After checking out its 95% rotten tomatoes score I thought everyone would love it.

I am not really interested in Star Wars to be honest, probably wouldn't catch it even if I had a free Imax Ticket, but these audiences reviews are pretty intriguing. 

Only 12 reviews, and 3 of them give it 1 star...Must be haters.

[TigerPaw]

1 hour ago, The Good Olive said:

Only 12 reviews, and 3 of them give it 1 star...Must be haters.

Possibly, but maybe not. I just read some IMDB reviews, some old fans hated it, they felt that it was like a remake, not a sequel. Trying too hard to be nostalgic!

Anyway do you have any updates on Pre-sales of Ip Man 3? Last I heard 19th December Screens for Ip Man 3 has increased.. =)

[Archerdude]

The negative reviewers' track record of previous reviews tells you of their tendencies and biases...

[Bluebomb]

	Thursday			December 17
Rank	Movie	LW	TW	% chg
1	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	--	40,329	--
2	Keeper of Darkness	4,298	1,840	-57.2%
3	Point Break	4,208	1,201	-71.5%
4	Port of Call	2,299	1,067	-53.6%
5	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	1,625	825	-49.2%
6	Ten Years	--	745	--
7	Go Lala Go 2	1,225	730	-40.4%
8	Burnt	2,085	690	-66.9%
9	Initiation Love	642	567	-11.7%
10	Love the Coopers	--	493	--

Terrible for Star Wars 7. Walk-ins only represented 23.5% of Star Wars 7's admissions today. That signals that the general audience does not care for this movie. Opening day reviews have gone up from this morning's bad word of mouth to a good 4.1/5.

Star Wars 7's OD falls -14.5% behind Harry Potter 7-1's OD in admissions.

Star Wars 7's OD prediction - $657,362

Even though admissions are weaker than expected, its gross should make up for some of it. Question is how high will those premium prices be?

Keeper of Darkness, Port of Call, Mockingjay 2 all had decent holds. Surprisingly, Mockingjay 2 had the best hold of the top 5. Excellent opening for Ten Years. It opened in just 1 theater, Cinematheque, and averaged 106 people per showing on Thursday. Nice for Go Lala Go 2. Strong for Initiation Love. Love the Coopers got squashed by Star Wars. Opening day score is a 4.5/5.
 

	Friday adm.	(so far)			December 18
Rank	Movie	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	--	28,528	--	-7.6%
2	The Peanuts Movie	--	1,816	--	--
3	Ten Years	--	565	--	-3.4%
4	Keeper of Darkness	1,157	387	-66.6%	+46.0%
5	Point Break	1,677	319	-81.0%	+53.4%
6	Burnt	1,114	304	-72.7%	+56.7%
7	Port of Call	691	298	-56.9%	+21.6%
8	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	787	286	-63.7%	+38.8%
9	Love the Coopers	--	281	--	+136.1%
10	Go Lala Go 2	410	259	-36.8%	+12.1%

11. The Little Prince - 196 adm. (+115 adm. on Wed.)

After Star Wars 7's midnights were taken out, it still lost admissions from Thursday. Yikes. Good opening for The Peanuts Movie. Strong for Ten Years. It will add showtimes this weekend. Almost every holdover decreased from their Thursday week-to-week holds on Friday.

[TigerPaw]

23 minutes ago, Bluebomb said:

After Star Wars 7's midnights were taken out, it still lost admissions from Thursday. Yikes. Good opening for The Peanuts Movie. Strong for Ten Years. It will add showtimes this weekend. Almost every holdover decreased from their Thursday week-to-week holds on Friday.

 

The Peanuts OD is 24th Dec in HK right? Even though WMOOV did indicate this week but i thought it was for sneak previews. Many cinemas website such as UA stated that Peanuts opens on 24th?

[moudoudou]

On 12/16/2015, 2:59:10, Bluebomb said:

They began selling tickets for the 2D Star Wars version at Popcorn yesterday. Here's a tip: always wait until 2 days before release to see if they have 2D before buying because they always do that to get you into buying a 3D ticket. Theaters never release 2D pre-selling for blockbusters until 2 days before. If you check the theater chain's coming soon page, they will tell you if they will show 2D at this theater chain

 

They were straight with me. They told me I had to wait until two days before the 2D showing. But as I am flying to Australia beginning of next week, I preferred to book my tickets in advance for a 3D presentation ;-)

Very friendly staff in Popcorn! I get my free ticket every now and then thanks to MCL membership card.

[Olive]

So OD on par with JW?

Legs won't be as good  I suppose.

[Archerdude]

Boohoohoo, I feel bad the movie made only 6.2 Million HKD on the first day (with midnights) and will probably need another day to surpass the highest grossing installment in the series.

[Bluebomb]

Thursday estimates

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens - $717,840 (on 746 showings - 60 people per showing average, represents more than 85% of box office on Thursday)
2. Keeper of Darkness - $2,053,536
Point Break - $999,849
Port of Call - $512,743
Ten Years - $5,768
Love the Coopers - $4,486

Star Wars misses the top 10 opening days of all time. With that opening day number, it will crack 3m this weekend and become the biggest December opening of all time. It will also snag the largest December weekend on record beating Avatar's 2nd weekend record of 2.8m.

Great total for Keeper of Darkness. Good for Point Break. Port of Call rebounded a bit from its opening weekend performance. Solid opening for Ten Years. This will break a $25,000 PTA this weekend. Horrible for Love the Coopers.
_________________________________________________
Pre-sales for the sneak previews this weekend are on average solid.

Ip Man 3 leads the way with solid sneaks. A couple of showtimes are already 70% full, with one 80% filled by yesterday. Most showtimes are closing in on 50% filled capacity.

The Peanuts Movie/The Little Prince are behind but not by much. The Peanuts Movie is enjoying success in both rural and urban areas while The Little Prince is playing well in the business district and tourist areas.

12 hours ago, TigerPaw said:

 

The Peanuts OD is 24th Dec in HK right? Even though WMOOV did indicate this week but i thought it was for sneak previews. Many cinemas website such as UA stated that Peanuts opens on 24th?

Peanuts is opening on December 24 but this is Peanuts Movie's first day of sneaks action hence calling it 'opening'. Sorry for any confusion.

[Bluebomb]

6 hours ago, moudoudou said:

 

They were straight with me. They told me I had to wait until two days before the 2D showing. But as I am flying to Australia beginning of next week, I preferred to book my tickets in advance for a 3D presentation ;-)

Very friendly staff in Popcorn! I get my free ticket every now and then thanks to MCL membership card.

Different theater chains have different promotions. You should check all theater chains for their special discounts.

2 hours ago, The Good Olive said:

So OD on par with JW?

Legs won't be as good  I suppose.

OD is better than Jurassic World. Legs will be crap.

2 hours ago, Archerdude said:

Boohoohoo, I feel bad the movie made only 6.2 Million HKD on the first day (with midnights) and will probably need another day to surpass the highest grossing installment in the series.

Where did you read that? It made less than $6m HK with midnights.

[Bluebomb]

		Weekly Gross (Mon-Sun)							Dec 7-13
LW	TW	Title	Last Week (HKD)	This Week (HKD)	Days in release	% chg	Total (HKD)	This Week (USD)	Total (USD)
1	1	Keeper of Darkness	$6,084,803	$3,520,281	18	-42.1%	$15,137,302	$451,250	$1,940,387
2	2	Point Break	$3,452,832	$3,477,090	11	+0.7%	$6,929,922	$445,713	$888,317
4	3	In the Heart of the Sea	$2,640,774	$2,372,132	11	-10.2%	$5,012,906	$304,073	$642,583
5	4	Port of Call	$1,552,880	$1,813,709	11	+16.8%	$3,489,646	$232,491	$447,323
3	5	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	$3,335,108	$1,636,865	25	-50.9%	$25,279,061	$209,822	$3,240,416
--	6	Burnt	--	$1,215,920	4	--	$1,215,920	$155,863	$155,863
--	7	Go Lala Go 2	--	$562,887	4	--	$562,887	$72,154	$72,154
7	8	Spectre	$1,090,529	$537,268	39	-50.7%	$40,349,747	$68,870	$5,172,264
6	9	Victor Frankenstein	$1,497,864	$443,787	18	-70.4%	$4,213,931	$56,887	$540,166
--	10	The Crow's Egg	--	$437,425	11	--	$764,993	$56,071	$98,061

 

	Friday				December 18
Rank	Movie	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	--	41,669	--	+3.3%
2	The Peanuts Movie	--	2,286	--	--
3	Keeper of Darkness	5,479	1,973	-64.0%	+7.2%
4	Point Break	5,816	1,410	-75.8%	+17.4%
5	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	2,714	1,050	-61.3%	+27.3%
6	Port of Call	3,315	1,045	-68.5%	-2.1%
7	Burnt	3,523	936	-73.4%	+35.7%
8	Love the Coopers	--	899	--	+82.4%
9	Go Lala Go 2	1,401	822	-41.3%	+12.6%
10	Initiation Love	892	812	-9.0%	+43.2%

Though it seems it went up slightly on Friday, it lost 2,000 in admissions from Wednesday midnights. Peanuts Movie had decent sneaks. Bad holds all around from #3-#7. Love the Coopers might be gaining momentum. Good hold for Go Lala Go 2. Excellent for Initiation Love.
 

	Saturday adm.	(so far)			December 19
Rank	Movie	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	--	38,988	--	+36.7%
2	The Peanuts Movie	--	2,326	--	+28.1%
3	Ip Man 3	--	2,213	--	--
4	The Little Prince	--	1,160	--	--
5	Ten Years	--	611	--	+8.1%
6	Keeper of Darkness	1,624	464	-71.4%	+19.9%
7	Port of Call	1,438	437	-69.6%	+46.6%
8	Love the Coopers	--	426	--	+51.6%
9	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2	952	424	-55.5%	+48.3%
10	Burnt	1,377	387	-71.9%	+27.3%

One of the weakest increases I've seen for a December blockbuster. It should be able to get to 60,000 admissions today. 60,000 admissions on 782 showings would be 76 admissions per showing for the day. With showtimes spread out through 3 days, The Peanuts Movie had deflated admissions on Saturday. Good start for Ip Man 3. Ip Man 3 is right behind Peanuts Movie while having half the number of Peanuts' showtimes today (67 vs. 133). It will handily win #2 in admissions today. The Little Prince opens in 4th but with half of Ip Man 3's showtimes (33 in all). Love the Coopers led the top 10 increase thanks to proximity to the holidays and playing to families.