IndustriousAngel

7.5million at the least I would say.

Actually these are two completely different kinds of fantasy. GoT is "modern" writing, with believable characters, understandable emotions and motivations and so on - it's just set in a kind of medieval setting plus some fantastic elements, otherwise it could as well be historic fiction. Tolkien on the other hand is far from modern; the stories and especially the philosophy have more in common with greek or norse myths and sagas - the protagonists in LotR don't act as people usually do. Maybe the best piece on what's special about Tolkien is from one of my favourite writers, Gene Wolfe: "The best introduction to Mountains". If you don't know Gene Wolfe yet, you should get to know him. Maybe the most clever writer working today.

Concerning Hobbit vs LotR:I wouldn't dare judge that before we have not seen the whole product. Sure, LotR is more epic, more tragic, plus there are some women involved, but "The Hobbit" can be made into a very attractive story too I think, on a lighter tone. atm we only have the introduction, same as LotR with "Fellowship". The big difference imho between H1 and LotR1 is the sightseeing-factor - that's why for many viewers "Fellowship" is still the most beloved of the 3 parts. We get The Shire, Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, the Caradhras Pass, Moria!!!, Lórien and the Argonath. That's a lot of sightseeing factor, much more than in the following 2 parts. In H1, we have: The Shire - but less than in Fellowship - , a bit of landscape, Rivendell (already known from Fellowship) and Goblin Town, plus a glimpse of Dol Guldur. So, while both H1 and LotR1 can't stand on their own storywise, H1 has the additional disadvantage of a much reduced Middle-Earth sightseeing factor. But in the end we will have to wait until "The Hobbit" is complete to see if it works or not.

I think 7mil is in play with the strong weekends until Jan 6th. Not locked or anything, but possible.6mil is as good as locked, it's already at nearly 3mil today, with the strongest weekend yet coming.

Hobbit with about 1,02 million admissions this weekend in Germany - that's about a 5% drop, and came out of nowhere - in Austria, which usually is very similar, H1 dropped about 27% which is also good, but in no way spectacular, and more in my line of reasoning (hectic christmas shopping weekend). Next weekend is where H1 should show its real strength.

On 24th, most theaters close at 5pm in Austria and Germany (latest show at 3pm), so yes, that's a horrible boxoffice day (although with high PSA). 25th is a good day, and 26th a bank holiday again leading this year into a very long weekend.

note:dye skin blue when cruising the Portugese nightlife for enthusiastic girls ...

While the majority of films are in 2D, most of the top earners are 3D.And taking a single film where those calculations work seems a bit far-fetched - what's with Batman Begins / The Dark Knight? With a very stable franchise, like Harry Potter, this might work (and still they decreased). With others, it just gives you a range.Predicting Hobbit was not that difficult, you could start with FotR or RotK and end up with 362mil (FotR) or 415mil (RotK); then add a bit of caution because Hobbit really isn't that epic, and so I came to my range from 350 to 400 which seemed sensible for me. Now it looks as if it's disappointing (from my POV) but it's really not that far behind those numbers.

And that's the next "mistake" - you can't just adjust receipts. Look at the following list:http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/You'll see that from 2003 (RotK) to 2011 (we dont' have numbers yet for 2012) the market expanded by nearly exactly 10%. That's about the maximum factor you should apply when adjustung numbers. The same applies as with 3D: The more expensive the tickets, the fewer admissions. Otherwise (using your adjustment) 2011 should be up about 126% from 2003. It doesn't work that way.

What I don't understand: Skyfall and Hobbit nearly flat, and WiR crumbles?! Usually it's the other way round and kid's films get a push that weekend while parents go shopping. Really strange weekend ... but good base for next weekend where everything should go up a bit!

You can't just calculate 3D receipts from 2D ... there's bound to be less admissions, at least among people I know (= people who have to pay for their tickets themselves). I don't understand why theater managers put 3D on their biggest screens and best showtimes and 2D on small screens in the afternoon or late night; a sold-out 8pm 2D show will make as much $$$ as a 2/3 full 3D show, but sell nearly double as much in concession.

Yep, best 3D easily (Avatar not excepted). I'm still no fan of 3D but if you want to watch it in 3D, make it HFR. I'd like to see 2D 48fps but that's not approved by PJ it seems.

Sunday trend Germany:H1 1.000kPP 225kJLM 130kSF 130kBD2 115kWiR 95k, might reach 100k with a strong Sunday - weather's rainy, good for theaters

That goes without saying. It's just not the disappointment of the year. There were worse runs. Even much worse.

Not really - there were some real flops around. H1 will win its budget back with its theatrical run and that's something not granted with these kinds of budget. And I think the fans feel good about it too; it's just not as attractive to the general audience.

The opening was much lower than expected - everybody expected lower admissions than LotR, but not that low (barely 1,1mil) - so in a way the 2nd weekend is making up for the 1st one. But let's not forget that H1 opened 1 week earlier than the other LotR-films, if it's a disappointment or not can only be said after Jan 6th.

Germany seems to be about flat from last weekend, France -15% ... maybe the LotR-franchise is just branded as "the christmas holiday event" and not the "middle-of-December-event" and WB might think again about those release dates

well, it's a lot of digital and mechanical hi-tech in there and a lot can go wrong ... mostly it works quite good actually; maybe some here don't remember the days of 35mm film and what could go wrong with those. I remember a show (don't remember which film anymore) where sound and picture slowly drifted apart ... first everything was in sync, but after a few minutes there was a distinct difference between the words and the lip movements which was quite annoying, and it got worse. They stopped the projection, fiddled with the equipment and started again from minutes before the stop.Also, there was one show of Avatar where the 3D wasn't working (I guess again the polarization unit) but they happened to have another, smaller screen free and asked us if we wanted to switch to the smaller theater or watch it in 2D - good management there.

Yep, crazy. I was expecting a drop similar to the other films ... as I see it, either this has fantastic WOM or people refrained from buying "cheap" seats and rather postponed their Hobbit shows. I've already mentioned that "The Hobbit" shows very strange behaviour for a franchise-blockbuster - nearly no rush effect, no sellouts, but very stable weekend and evening numbers. The very first sellouts here were Sat evening (after a Wed opening). Now, the really crazy thing about this hold is: An increase for the weekend after is nearly locked - 26th is a bank holiday, and though 27th and 28th would be usual workdays, in fact nearly everyone has those days off. So, a 5-day-weekend where I expect about a 20% increase. The weekdays and weekend after New Year's Day are very strong too, I expect no more than a 30% drop. So, more than 5mil admissions in the bank after the holiday weekends - better than it looked after last weekend. Still a long way from LotR-numbers: Fellowship was the most successful one with 11,8mil admissions, and RotK the least successfull with 10,4mil. Fellowship was at 7,4mil admissions after the holiday weekends, so it made 4.4mil after that - we can't expect similar legs from H1, especially since it had one whole week more to burn demand. RotK had the shortest legs, it was at 8,2mil after those weekends and went on to collect an additional 2,2mil - even that seems a bit much for H1, but 7mil admissions total are very much in play imho.

Friday trend for Germany:H1: 1.050k (after 1.085k last week nearly flat - )Pitch Perfect: 250kJesus liebt mich: 140k (really a surprise her, at least for me, but the comedy market is hungry atm)BD2: 125kSF: 110kWiR: 85kGood holds from SF and BD2 and WiR, but The Hobbit with a no-drop is really good; WOM seems to be excellent.

Has now crossed 410mil OS and 420mil WW; currently #147 on BOM all-time worldwide list!

Hope your next theatrical "adventure" will be a better one :cheekkiss:Most 3D theaters nowadays work with a single projector; I suppose it's just the polarization element that became defective.

He basically did the directing for the mo-cap team. Since his own scenes were shot at the beginning, he was free for extra work after and Jackson put him where he could bring in all his experience.

For this weekend I have my doubt's too (I would see a weekend drop <30% as ok) but the weekend after is a loong weekend, it has to do a complete implosion not to increase on that weekend.

Yep, that was one of the moments where everybody laughed. Some other highlights: The secretary goblin; Gollum putting his chin on a boulder eager for his 1st riddle; many bits of the Trolls scene (especially the bits about dwarf-seasoning and parasites). I really liked that they were able to keep the light, fun-adventure tone of the book instead of going all LotR (which they could have done easily). I guess that as we reach the climaxes, the tone will get much darker (as it does in the book) but there should be some room for humour too: Thranduils kingdom, barrel-riding, the machinations of the Master of Laketown. And having seen the Rhosgobel Rabbits, maybe we can expect something similarily fanciful from the Beorn encounter (keeping my fingers crossed).