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So maybe our distributors just borrowed the title from them. Funny thing that we have a TV channel called 1+1. Actually from French films this year only Asterix and Obelix should make good money. Probably with good marketing Marsupilami also has a chance.

There is a widespread stereotype among young people here. You go to theaters mostly for blockbusters with cool visuals. Or sometimes you can go with your friends to see a comedy to have a good laugh together. With a good company and possibly a glass of beer. Other films can wait for DVD ... or can be downloaded illegally.

Our theaters lost middle aged and old people many years ago. They don't know how to bring them back to theaters and some even don't care. The King's Speech grossed $6.2 mln in Poland and only $1.6 mln in Russia. The Artist was very lucky with good timing, clever marketing and all Oscar buzz to gross $2.6 mln here.Kids with parents, teens and young people - they all make Russian box office. The rest of the audience mostly don't exist for our distributors. it is not worth the efforts they believe. And general awareness level is usually very low. So Intouchables can make 80mln in Germany and 50 times less in Russia.

Russian title for 21 Jump Street you can translate back as "A Macho and A Nerd"And Intouchables called "1+1" here. They coulnd't translate it directly here because the other recent French movie already took that title in Russia.

They believe that a cool local title it's a perfect way to attract the audience. Even if it has nothing to do with original title.

The same day. But don't expect a wide release here. It will be picked only by a handful of art house theaters. Ukraine market is very complicated and kinda backward because of dubbing issue and some other other problems. Overwhelming majority of movie theaters are in Russian speaking regions. But Russian dubbing was simply banned in 2008 and many people just stopped to go to movies anymore. Our dstributor apparently has no idea. The only tagline they managed to provide is film sensation. But no one is trying to explain what is so sensational about it. Or tell about it huge success in other countries.

His cumulative total for calendar year is around $1600m vs $1160m last year. Here's a link with his prediction for all main releases till the end of year.http://kinobizon.ru/2012/04/23/these-heavy-film-packaging/ But it is really hard to read without good knowing of Russian language. Our Russian names for Hollywood movies very often make no sense.

Les Infideles has really bad word of mouth. People were lured by The Artist's Oscar success and Jean Dujardin. And most of them never expecteed what they got.

That idiotic poster was scrapped after three of four days. People were laughing or even offended.Some of our writers call The Intouchables a real test for our market. For its adequacy and maturity.

Early estimates1. Battleship $11.2 mln2. 21 Jump Street $1,04 mln - $4,31 mln total3. Titanic 3D $1,01 mln - $12,53 total4. American Reunion $0.75 mln - $11,22 mln total5. Les Infideles $0.58 mln

Yeah. And I forgot to mention Breaking Dawn Part 2 with 1300 mln RUB ($44 mln) and The Expendables 2 with 1100 mln RUB ($37 mln). A very optimisitic guy.

You will definitely like that guy. A fiend of mine, a former chief of our Russian film magazine, on his new independent site predicts 1500 mln RUB for The Avengers ($52 mln), 1350 mln RUB for Men in Black 3 ($46 mln), 900 mln RUB for The Amazing Spider-Man ($30 mln), 1000 mln RUB ($33 mln) for Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises, 1700 mln RUB for Hobbit 1 ($57 mln). Also 2 bln RUB for Ice Age 4 ($68 mln) and 1700 mln RUB for Madagascar 3 ($57 mln). And 1200 mln RUB for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ($41 mln).

Usually we get estimates for top 5 around 18-19 o'clock. Full board with some actuals somewhere around midniight. Complete actuals on Tuesday evening.

Weekend 10-13.05 will bring three french movies in a wide release. Can't remember anything like this before.

Updated release schedule with expected screen count26.04 The Intouchables 250+ Safe 540 Twixt 154 Pirates: The Band of Misfits 737 Streetdance 2 800+ The Babysitters (RUS) 850+ Le Skylab (limited) Take Shelter (limited) Somewhere Tonight (limited)1.05. The Match (Rus) 800+ 3.05 ATM 100 White Tiger 550+ Friend with Kids 250+ The Avengers 1200+ Food Fight 170 A Few Best Men 500+ Detachment (limited) Transit (limited) Gamer (RUS) (limited) Cafe de Flore (limited)10.05 Tom Sawyer 200+ L'amour dure trois ans 100+ Dark Shadows 900+ Madangeul Naon Amtak 100+ The Olympic Village (RUS) 100+ Emilie Jolie 65 Hunter 50 Comme un Chef 150+

Star Wars had a pretty good excuse for everything ""A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away". You can't have anything against that. By the way Universal reported $10.7 mln for Battleship. 76% of the total market gross. 21 Jump Street on 2nd grossed around $1.1 mln. Next week hiolidays will be decisive. If Battleship will survive against 6 or even 7 wide openers it can make at least to $25 mln total.

The point is that you don't need to be a scientist to know now that people can't breath on Mars. Or that you can't find there all those fantastical creatures. It could be acceptable in time of Edgar Rice Burroughs but for now it is a pure fantasy world. There is nothing scientifical here. For our audience Barsum works pretty much like the universe of Middle-earth.

Fantasy and comic books are quite different things. Fantasy books are very popular in Russia. They are in big nimbers in every bookshop. Tens and even hundreds of foreign and local authors. About comic books know only fanboys and a part of hardcore inernet crowd. Fantasy movies are always easy to sell. Some cool guy, cool fantastic creatures and scenery, usual love story. You don't need anything else. Just show that and some cool visuals and people come in droves.But The Avengers? Who the hell they are and why anyone should care? What they need to avenge? You can't provide a reasonable and easy to understand plot. From the outside it looks like a bunch of weird random characters for no reason put together. I can't see it beating John Carter. Probably 3 mln admissions will be the top.

The main factor still remains the same. If the people are not interested in a particular movie, story or characters even 1200-1500 screens wouldn't help much. Spider-Man was strong even in 2002. The others not so much.

Thor is #73 with 455.049 mln RUB or $16,422 mlnIron Man 2 is #80 with 431,854 mln RUB or $14,699 mlnSpider-Man 3 is #101 with 358,952 mln RUB or $14,370 mlnThat's why I'm rather sceptical about The Avengers. Spider-Man was the most popular comic book character and still managed only about 2.8 mln admissions.

Top 50 movies in Russia (1997-2012) in mln RUB and USD.1. Avatar 3599,860 $119,201 2. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 1782,764 $63,5573. Shrek Forever After 1579,472 $51,4494. Puss in Boots 1529,739 $50,030 5. Ice Age 3 1394,353 $44,705 6. Transformers 1265,395 $45,0647. Alice in Wonderland 1253,508 $42,0508. The Irony of Fate (Rus) 1222,985 $49,4539. Madagascar 2 1101,105 $42,01110. 2012 1052,505 $36,673 11. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Part 2 1050,656 $37,17812. John Carter 991,565 $33,56713. The Twilight Saga. Breaking Dawn. Part1 978,949 $31,74314. Day Watch (Rus) 919,111 $34,90715. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows 907,780 $28,58816. Kung Fu Panda 2 899,260 $31,575 17. Admiral 2 (Rus) 876,149 $33,428 18. Vysotskiy (Rus) 867,307 $27,58619. Yolki 2 836,639 $26,232 20. The Twilight Saga. Eclipse 823,376 $26,42421. Fast Five 806,952 $29,12122. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Part 2 798,675 $25,476 23. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 794,342 $31,799 24. Ivan Tsarevich and The Grey Wolf 787,244 $24,91025. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 739,642 $28,09126. Tangled 731,130 $23,366 27. Clash of the Titans 729,600 $24,995 28. Rio 702,581 $24,897 29. Yolki (Rus) 700,942 $22,817 30. How to Train Your Dragon 686,943 $23,53431. Company 9 682,468 $23,913 32. Megamind 676,723 $22,13733. The Very Best Film (Rus) 672,643 $27,31034. Prince of Persia 667,557 $21,29435. Nasha Russia (Rus) 660,845 $22,25836. Inception 660,485 $21,719 37. Tron: Legacy 650,280 $21,16838. Mummy 3 646,113 $27,55339. The Inhabited Island. Part 1 (Rus) 644,224 $21,92040. Wrath of Titans 635,830 $21,86441. Real Steel 627,637 $19,22942. Wanted 618,056 $19,22943. Resident Evil: Afterlife 611,761 $19,805 44. Hancock 610,613 $26,08345.Shrek The Third 602,637 $24,10946. The Chronicle of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader 600,089 $19,075 47. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince 595,428 $18,578 48. Black Lightning (Rus) 595,321 $19,687 49. Taras Bulba (Rus) 575,267 $17,21850. Tri bogatyrya i shamakhanskaya tsaritsa (RUS) 574,494 $18,923

1st May is always a National Holiday. This year it fell on Tuesday. So Saturday is a working day instead of Monday to get people three straight holidays in a row. Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday would be kind of inconvenient. It's a usual practice here. After that again Saturday, May 5th, is also a working day. And 4 days are holidays from May, 6 (Sunday) till May, 9 (Wednesday).May, 9, is a Victory Day. Still the most celebrated holiday here. So don't expect fresh box office reports on next two weeks. But box office grosses should be huge.

Next weekend will be kinda funny. Saturday will be a working day and from Sunday tiil Tuesday three days are holidays. Some movies can make on Monday and Tuesday more than in entire 4day weekend.

All of those + E.T. were never released theatrically in USSR or Russia. Not so sure about Godfather though. I can't remember anyone having tapes with them either till probably start of 90-s. In very late 80-s also came the age of videorooms. Just imagine a TV with video recorder and about 15 or 20 seats around. They were private and possibly not quite legal. And tickets were not very cheap. But every kid wanted to go there. The quality of recording was not very good and translation was provided with one voice only. It was a way to show a movie that wasn't available in theaters.I remember I saw Over the Top and Commando in a such videoroom. The crowd was mostly kids and teenagers and we all went really excited. It was like a complete madness. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Sсhwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan and Bruse Lee were real icons for our generation. Terminator 2 came a bit later but probably also made tremendous money in such videorooms.

I made a list for top Hollywood movies in USSRThe Hurricane (1937) 15.2 mlnOne Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) 17.1 mlnThe Man in the Iron Mask (1939) 17.2 mlnSpring Parade (1940) 18.6 mlnJungle Book (1942) 18.9 mlnI Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) 19.1 mlnThe Sea Hawk (1940) 20 mlnSun Valley Serenade (1941) 20.7 mlnCaptain Blood (1935) 21.3 mlnIt Started with Eve (1941) 21.6 mlnFun with Dick and Jane (1976) 22.1Oklahoma! (1955) 22.3 mlnThe Stunt Man (1980) 23.9 mlnIt's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) 24.1 mlnEnemy Mine (1984) 24.3 mlnHurricane (1979) 25.3 mlnDesire Under the Elms (1958) 25.5 mlnRhapsody (1954) 25.5 mlnThe Great Waltz (1938) 25.7The Day of the Dolphin (1973) 26.2 mlnWaterloo Bridge (1940) 26.6 mlnThe 300 Spartans (1962) 27.1 mlnThe Bedroom Window (1986) 27.1 mlnOnce Upon a Time in America (1983) 27.6 mlnScaramouche (1952) 30.2 mlnCarrie (1952) 30.4 mlnShort Circuit (1986) 31.7 mlnThe 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) 32.3 mlnRomancing the Stone (1984) 32.7 mlnCleopatra (1963) 33 mlnOrca, the Killer Whale (1977) 33 mlnTootsie (1982) 34.8 mlnStarman (1984) 35.7 mlnConvoy (1978) 35.9 mlnThe Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) 37 mlnThe Deep (1977) 37.9 mlnTarzan Finds a Son! (1939) 38.6 mlnTarzan's New York Adventure (1942) 39.7Tarzan Escapes (1936) 39.7 mlnStunts (1977) 41.9 mlnTarzan the Ape Man (1932) 42.9 mlnSome Like It Hot (1959) 43.9 mlnKing Kong (1976) 47.1 mlnKing Kong Lives (1986) 53.6 mlnSpartacus (1960) 63 mlnMackenna's Gold (1969) 63 mlnThe Magnificent Seven (1960) 67 mlnSome quick notes. Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller movies were very popular in late 40-s and 50-s. The biggest years for moviegoing were 60-s and 70-s. The biggest hits of that period are The Magnificent Seven (1962), Mackenna's Gold (1974), Spartacus (1967) and Some Like It Hot (1966). I give the year of our release.Two King Kong films were not very liked in US but became the biggest hits of the late 80-s here. Both were released in 1988. Also in late 80-s were very popular and much loved two Crocodile Dundee movies (24.8 + 45.8 mln admissions). They were released here in 1988 and 1989. I saw all them plus Short Circuit and Enemy Mine as a kid with my mother.Also some of those films were released in two parts. The number above is mostly an average number for two parts.