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And both of you were faster than me ;). So Warcraft is down around 37%, still a good hold. And I think the real weekend number last week was actually lower than 440k because Warcraft had several Wednesday 23:59 shows which were not counted separately, so it's in fact better than -37%). Alice 2 is the biggest surprise to me. But WOM was pretty ok so... The weather is too good ;). Where I live its mixed and warm. With the football/soccer EM starting next Friday all movies will suffer massively next weekend. And maybe the EM has already an effect on this weekend because everyone who is a football fan/EM fan will do outdoor things this weekend because then the TV is more important.

Surprisingly good hold in Germany. Will for sure stay #1 and according to our first trend it should have around 300k admissions this weekend (-31.5%). Including this weekend's numbers, Warcraft will have earned over 10M in 11 days (around 10.5M I guess but I don't know the exact ticketprices during the week).

How true. I remember an evening where ARD or ZDF broadcasted a CL football match/soccer game and it had fantastic TV ratings around 40% (or even 50%?). Directly thereafter they broadcasted a Fifa-corruption-documentary and ca. 9 of 10 viewers shifted to another station and the ratings plummeted to 3.9% I think ;). @Aristis I say, give it a chance. Definitely. But I hope that I don't advice something to you which you don't like then ;). Before watching it I had mediocre expectations. Some good reviews from moviegoers I often agree with vs. the first bad ones from US-critics. And I feared that Warcraft is only for „nerds“ and overall had no idea what to expect. One of the reasons I decided to see it was that I wanted to know what Russians and people from China love so much about the game(s). If you or somebody else is interested, I wrote a little review in the Warcraft thread (page 171). And there are already some other reviews which could help too (page 166 e.g.).

Yes, it is ;). Our tickets costed 13 Euro = 14.44 US$. In 3D but no IMAX. I'm not even sure if it was with or without a student discount but I think without. By the way, the film or event or whatever you call it is great and I'm no gamer. This is mainly adressed to the US-citizens: The reviews for Warcraft from critics here are mostly not overwhelming but solid or good (except some, but only some, from newspapers). And the reviews from German moviegoers are (and it doesn't matter which film-website you visit) surprisingly good. It's pretty much the same feedback as from France or Russia (7.4/10 moviepilot, 4.1/5 filmstarts or even 4.5/5 from some others). So don't trust the US-critics ;).

I'm sorry, still no second trend. Perhaps there won't be one at all today. So at least these are the Friday ESTIMATES via insidekino.de (forum): Warcraft: 123.5k (almost identically to the Thursday estimates, but I don't dare to hope that it had again 160k in actuals on Friday. It was just too sunny everywhere. But either way, this looks good). Alice 2: 36.5k (meh, the only film with an estimated decrease) Money Monster: 33k X-Men: Apocalypse 49.5k Bad Neighbors II 16.5k Captain America 3: 13k The Jungle Book: 12.5k The Witch: 5k Edit: boxofficemojo reports 3.5M after 2 days for Warcraft. 3.5-2.2=1.3M. That means Warcraft had at least 100k visitors on Friday. Still I hope this is only a first estimate and the number goes up ;). Could the jump to 160k moviegoers on Thursday be a result of that they included the 23:59 shows on Wednesday to the Thursday number? It's only a guess...

The Thursday estimates via insidekino.de (forum): New Releases: Warcraft (plays in 600 theaters): 123.5k Alice 2 (530): 45k Money Monster (425): 28.5k Holdovers: X-Men: Apocalypse: 33k (last Thursday: 42k but last Thursday was a normal Thursday and no half-holiday like yesterday) Captain America 3: 10k (14k) Bad Neighbors 2: 9k (15k) The Jungle Book: 5k (10k) The Witch: 4k (5k, a fine hold) If these numbers hold it's not looking bad for the bigger new releases. Money Monster surprises me and Warcraft is hopefully not too frontloaded which would also lead to a successful weekend. Alice has to improve but with the most of the weekend still coming it's at least a better number today than I thought. Edit: Yes, they did hold :). These are the actual numbers - almost everything improved: Warcraft: 160k (!) Alice 2: 50k Money Monster: 25k X-Men: 40k Angry Birds: 27k

Yes it's true, there's still hope ;). I also included the afternoon reservations but as you said family films don't have much reservations. We will see. I also can't believe that there's SUCH a low interest after Alice in Wonderland had 3M admissions.

I hope that I can report the Thursday numbers tomorrow :). Tomorrow is Fronleichnam – a holiday in half of the states which means that a lot of people will use Friday as a bridge day. At the moment in mathäser and some other cinemas I looked at Warcraft is outpacing Alice 2 by far. Also the midnight presale numbers for Warcraft look very good – in contrast to the numbers of Alice 2. I don't know if this is the case only in the male-dominated mathäser or if the interest in Alice 2 in general is so low. For the rest of the weekend the presales for Warcraft are ok/good but not overwhelming so far and for Alice 2 just bad. Both have a lot of playtimes. It's true, the buzz around Warcraft in the last weeks was surprisingly bad. But now it improves with the help of the fine presale number reports from several countries and the first nice reviews from fans. I doubt that the so far not very good american reviews will become a factor. The worse factor could be the weather which is predicted to be pretty good.

Jepp, after a pretty grey and rainy week the sun appeared here in Bavaria in the late afternoon too. And the weekend weather is said to be sunny in most parts of Germany and Austria which is nice or not ;). (I really smiled when Aristis posted a comment a few days ago about how he hopes for bad weather and his family thinks he's crazy, because this sounds familiar to me.) Maybe The Witch - which is projected to have around 40k admissions - is a bit too special for a bigger audience. At least the reviews from critics and moviegoers are really good. But I don't know if this will translate into good legs. And the film started in only 173 theaters. Bad Neighbors 2 and The First Avenger - Civil War should be #3 and #4 with each 90k moviegoers and The Jungle Book will become #5 with 60k. That's ok charts-wise but it's also a minus of more than 50% for each film, not good.

The second trend is done pretty fast. Exactly nothing changed. The weather everywhere is still perfect and the weather service predicts this will continue on Sunday. PS: The second new release "Triple 9" which started in 176 theaters should have 40k admissions. Fits to the very modest numbers all around this weekend.

I found a German review (it's released here on Thursday) from a very reliable site (moviejones). It got 60%. Because the reviewer also criticizes the German dubbing which is of course irrelevant to US-moviegoers the score would actually be a bit higher. Strange, I saw that a reviewer from The List also gave it 60% but the review sounds completely different. Anyway, the review I try to translate is from someone who is a big fan of the games and says that most videogame-movies in recent years were disgusting. That's what he liked and disliked: Cons: - the movie is addressed to a really young audience (under 15 years) and older moviegoers could feel unchallenged because the story is too simple - the film can't denie its small budget and so the animation is only mediocre (- the new dubbing is good but the reviewer would have preferred the original dubber by far). Pros: - you don't need to be a gamer-nerd to like the movie and it's a film for the whole family. OTOH fans of the videogames will recognize many popular elements - it has a lot of charm and stays true to the spirit of the games - the transformation from a videogame to an animated film worked very well. So overall it seems that it could have been a very good film if it would have had a bigger budget and a deeper storyline. (...)Rein unter dem Standpunkt seiner Herkunft betrachtet, handelt es sich bei Ratchet & Clank durchaus um die beste und authentischste Videospieleverfilmung, die es jemals gab. Doch als reiner Film lässt Ratchet & Clank leider noch viele Wünsche offen. Die Story ist zu sehr auf ein junges Publikum ausgerichtet und unterfordert damit gerade die älteren Fans, denn auch Animationsfilme sollten inzwischen eine höhere Komplexität und Tiefgang bieten als ein simples Gut-Böse-Schema. Da auch die Animationsqualität nur solide und nicht auf Höhe der Zeit ist, spricht weniger für einen Kinobesuch und mehr für einen launigen Nachmittag vorm Blu-ray-Player(...).

As I said, this guy from cine-directors.net is a very good predictor ;). Now the prediction for TJB in its first week is 1.36M admissions. And WOM seems to be very good (according to allocine.fr → 4.4/5 from 1238 Spectateurs). Ratchet & Clank is #11 of the charts with estimated 105.000 admissions in its first week. WOM seems to be ok but not overwhelming.

So that's why it said „avp included“. And of course I didn't know that there are partly holidays in France. But usually this guy from cine-directors.net is a very good predictor and so I have full confidence in his TJB prediction ;). Especially since Germany is such a let down once again... WOM seems to be very good according to allocine.fr but I have no other sources.

@George Parr I couldn't have said it any better ;). I read four times a year or even more, right? In earlier years I was surprised too how often somebody mentioned the weather conditions but over time I got it. Spain and France just have a longer summer. We here in Germany/Austria/Northern and Central Europe always don't know how many weeks the summer will stay. In some years three or even four good months can happen in Germany, but it also can be over in the middle of August and not start before June or July. So we use every weekend we can. Every café is crowded then and so on... But that doesn't mean that a eagerly-awaited film isn't a big hit over the weeks. It will always be very successful (unless there is a football/soccer WM or EM). But it has an impact if people are unsure if they should go see a film or not. At least The Jungle Book is now presented the whole day in the biggest cinema-halls in mathäser and the cineplex cinema chain, but presales still leave much to be desired.

The prediction for the first week of TJB improved a lot, no? Cine-directors.net (via Twitter) predicts now 1.4M admissions. And the 277.612 admissions mean yesterday/Wednesday I think.

I'm really curious about the performance of The Jungle Book. Sadly presales look surprisingly low in several theaters at the moment but at least the weather is doing a fine job. It changed here in Bavaria within 30 minutes from sunny and warm to cold with hefty rain and wind. And the weather service says this will mostly continue over the weekend. There's an interesting aspect: TJB got the biggest cinema-halls in the afternoon but not in the evening at mathäser (and some other big theaters) which means that they think it's more of a parents-with-(little-)kids film. But from bookings it looks more like this will be an evening/event film for groups and couples (reminds me of the Ice Age crowd) and not primarily a film for the whole family with kids. Perhaps this is only the case in „my“ theaters and maybe Saturday and Sunday will give a different picture but my guess would be that TJB is not „sweet“ and harmless enough looking (especially Shere Khan) to attract that many moviegoers with little kids. But this is only my first impression and there is almost no WOM so far which could cause a different situation. Hopefully.

Maybe because of the Easter holidays which started in most of the federal states on Monday. So no school classes on Thursday and Friday. For example at mathäser, they canceled all evening and afternoon shows after one week and it had only daily shows at 11am. Plus it could have lost a lot of of theaters as BOM claims (-205). But according to insidekino and filmstarts it still has 380 or 383 copies. But either way the film had very few playtimes last week because of the bad average. Room's topic is probably just too dark to attract many people. Without the Oscar and the very good reviews almost nobody would have seen it. I don't know what to do with 10 Cloverfileld Lane. Good presales for today but very bad ones for the weekend. WOM has to spread fast. At least the reviews from critics and sneak-moviegoers are very good. I'm interested.

And Dirty Grandpa had again 55k admissions (still #8 of the charts) this weekend! Which means that it will have earned around 10.6M US$ in Germany this Monday (the best result OS by far). With no end in sight. Must be a special phenomenon ;). I saw several trailers in front of other films and thought that this could work with a lot of beer but the reviews from moviegoers are only mediocre too...So where does this great WOM come from? But as a fan of most of DeNiro's films I accept it ;). PS: The estimated results of some other fims with under 100k admissions: Allegiant (week #2): 70k / 250k total London has Fallen (week #3): 62.5k / 280k Greek Wedding 2 (NEW): 60k / 67.5k Deadpool (week #7): 52.5k -> 2590k The Revenant (week #12): 27.5k / 2735k

Well, there can be a big difference but I don't know how to explain that to somebody who doesn't need dubbing. No, not the East Frisian dialect which is spoken in Northern Germany. Even if someone from Bavaria would almost think that it is a seperate language (and conversely) ;). I do not mean the original Frisian which is extremely rarely spoken in the Netherlands and which is maybe understandable by Germans who live in (Eastern) Friesland but not from all German speaking people. Boy, this is a more difficult question than I first thought... Edit: I considered to write Low German/plattdeutsch instead of East Frisian but everyone in Germany knows what is meant. And I don't know how much blend exists between Low German and the original Frisian language.

And it's also not easy to explain what I mean ;). The regular actors have mostly(?) some experiences but are no professional dubber. They are probably not bad but I doubt that they are as good as the really fine normal dubber. I remember some films where the method to hire regular German actors/comedians/singers did not work. Sometimes the timing just didn't fit perfectly and we are used to hear perfectly fitting dubbes and as I said above often with very charismatic voices too. But OTOH sometimes it works. For example in „How to Train Your Dragon“ the dubber were partly regular German actors who did not only a good job but also let the Vikings speak an East Frisian dialect and I liked it a lot. Ice Age is another example for a successful mix: Sid is spoken by somebody who is mostly known as a comedian (Otto Waalkes) but the rest of the crew are professional dubber (who are also actors). So let's see. When this was discussed on German websites the reactions were very mixed: Some said give them a chance, some said this lessens their interest in the film. Especially many said they would have loved to hear the German voice of Bill Murray as Balu/Baloo. By the way you made the 3000th post in that tread ;).

That's pretty much what I think. 5M are not impossible if the film lives up to the high expectations but I wouldn't bet on it. I also wouldn't compare it completely to Maleficent or Cinderella because I think The Jungle Book is a draw for both genders and all ages. And Alice was a bit weird IMO, but that's very subjective. Perhaps „Life of Pi“ with its 2.23M admissions is a good comparison, plus the still very well known, almost mystic brand name Jungle Book still has. But two things worrie me: The first one is the PG rating. Yes, Life of Pi had the same rating and some hefty scenes but I'm not happy with it because I fear that it just could become too soft and seen as a „family with (little) children“-film. The trailer which I saw at hsx looks that way too. Not at all so sweet as the film from 1967 but also not gritty. Too much in-between for my taste, but of course that's only my taste. And second, the animals get the voices of well known German actors and not the German voices of the American stars. IMO almost all of our dubbing voices are really good and charismatic and I'm not sure if all German actors are able to deliver the same quality. So my very conservative prediction for the moment is 2-3M admissions. It's a bit early to gather how much interest exists but I was suprised that it's released so soon because I didn't realize it from the hype. But as I said earlier that can change very fast nowadays (in Germany).

There were some questions concerning the German and Austrian Easter Holidays. Perhaps this is a little help at least from the dates :). Osterferien 2016 Baden-Württemberg 24.03. / 29.03. - 02.04. * Bayern 21.03. - 01.04. Berlin 21.03. - 02.04. Brandenburg 23.03. - 02.04. Bremen 18.03. - 02.04. Hamburg 07.03. - 18.03. Hessen 29.03. - 09.04. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 21.03. - 30.03. Niedersachsen 18.03. - 02.04. Nordrhein-Westfalen 21.03. - 02.04. Rheinland-Pfalz 18.03. - 01.04. Saarland 29.03. - 09.04. Sachsen 25.03. - 02.04. Sachsen-Anhalt 24.03. Schleswig-Holstein 24.03. - 09.04. Thüringen 24.03. - 02.04. Austria: 19.3.2016 - 29.3.2016 (Vorarlberg 28.3.2016).

Hoppla, you are absolutely right! It indeed has 525 screens. I didn't look for its number of screens and only saw that it got one of the smallest cinema halls in „my“ theaters. I think that's the normal case: many screens but (very) small cinema halls given that many other films will attract more moviegoers. But still that's really a bad start. By the way Zootopia has 622 screens and 13Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 247 screens (still too many as it seems). No second trend so far, sorry. Edit: Second trend from Mark G./insidekino.de. Everything improved :). Zootopia: 575-700k Der geilste Tag: 310k Deapool: 200k Dirty Grandpa: 125k The Revenant: 85k Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank: 65k Spotlight: 60k Bibi & Tina: 50k 13 Hours: 50k Hail, Caesar: 45k

Since IndustriousAngel is in China and no one has posted it so far ....That's the first trend: -Looking good for Zootopia with 550-675k admissions and WOM should help too -the second place goes to Der geilste Tag with 300k -Deadpool should be in third with 190k and estimated 2.24M admissions till Sunday -The Oscar-winning films The Revenant (80k) and Spotlight (60k) will increase -Dirty Grandpa is still holding well with 110k moviegoers this weekend and will be close to 1m admissions after this weekend -I see no weekend estimate for Hail, Caesar! but with a Thursday number of ca. 6k, it should hold well too -And finally we have two other bigger new releases: Anne Frank which will have a quite nice start (despite mediocre reviews) with around 60k admissions and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldier of Benghazi which struggles with only around 4.5k admissions yesterday. So overall a (very) good weekend!

The Thursday estimates via insidekino.de (forum): And it's really not looking good for most of the new releases: Hail, Caesar!: 7.5k (Edit: first I thought this is not a good start given the many interviews I read and the fine reviews but it started in only 156 theaters, so it's pretty ok) Colonia Dignidad: 7k (pretty much what was expected but with D. Brühl as a leading actor it should have gotten more attention too) The Boy: 6k (could have been worse) Zoolander 2: 3k (really bad) Concussion: 2.5k (oh boy) Reviews did probably neither help nor hurt because none of the new movies was highly praised or doomed by critics: Zoolander 2 and The Boy have mostly lukewarm reviews, Concussion has good ones but not overwhelming and about Colonia Dignidad there's no consensus - some critics say it's a very exciting film with good actors, other criticize that it's too insubstantial. Holdovers: Deadpool: 84k (last Thursday (actual numbers): 110k, a very good hold) Dirty Grandpa: 12k (l.T. 30k, so not a good hold) Tschiller: Off Duty: 2k (l. T.: 10k, terrible) The Hateful Eight: 18k (l. T. 25k) The Revenant: 10.5k (l. T.: 17.5k) Edit 2: According to the actual Thursday numbers it looks much worse for Deadpool („only“ 65k), and better for Hail, Caesar! (11.5k) and Dirty Grandpa (17k). The rest looks like posted yesterday.