Quigley

That midnight number for China is wrong. In the China forum they say it made 20.5M yuan / $3.3M. Still a record for midnight (prior record is IM3 at 12.4M yuan / $2.1M). Nevertheless, I think it is a foregone conclusion that $1B is out of the question. NA will drop at least $100M from TF3, my guess is $115M drop (total will be $237M). China may earn $50M more than TF3. It must lose another $60M from the rest of the world to drop below $1B and I think the World Cup can make that happen, because Europe would decrease anyway and now there are many Latin American countries still playing in the World Cup so Latin America will also see a decrease (in some countries it opens on the weekend of the World Cup final and third place match). Asia is not enough to compensate. In the countries that it opens after the World Cup finishes, it will be too close to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which I believe will be very successful.

This single-digit drop is back to "normal". I wonder if it will maintain this momentum from now on.

I think Godzilla's performance will be critical to your argument. Besides, 47 Ronin tanked pretty much everywhere, not just Japan.

If there is one thing that studios learned from Frozen, that is how they SHOULD handle overseas releases. No other American studio has ever made a film that earned so much in Japan (in dollars, which is the currency that American studios care about). If anything, Frozen is an example to imitate (although it is probably impossible for other studios, because the Japanese love Disney films, which other studios obviously cannot produce). I agree, although the chances of this factor being insignificant are as much as it being significant. Depends how the characters are portrayed.

Frozen was doing very well. Then Titanic realised that Frozen was earning too much money but Titanic wanted to stay on top, so Titanic decided to sink Frozen's ship. I imagine the whole scene went like this:

We can only hope that the WC match was the main reason for the drop last weekend. An increase this weekend will confirm this explanation of the big drop of last weekend.

I still think Maleficent can reach $50M if it opens to $20M, because there is a chance that Godzilla and EoT might lose their screens instead.

Maleficent was actually first overseas this past weekend, now that actuals have come in, with $39.2M. http://www.deadline.com/2014/06/intl-box-office-godzilla-thrashes-again-with-38m-weekend-led-by-china-how-to-train-your-dragon-2-fires-up-24-8m-more/

Alice made $33-34M. Don't know about Snow White, but definitely less than that, if it was ever released.

X-Men: DofP needs about $485M overseas to surpass Cap 2 worldwide (maybe even less). With the China gross as close to zero as it could possibly be (the film only earned $2.1M last weekend), I'm not expecting that market to greatly affect its drops from now on. Previously the film had very steep drops in the market, from $21.8M on its second wknd to $7.8M on its third and to $2.1M on its fourth. Similarly the OS wknd dropped from $95.6M to $41.2M and then to $18.2M. However, next weekend will probably not see such a big drop, although the World Cup will be in full effect and that is bound to have some impact. If it can manage a respectable hold next wknd (a drop less than 50%), then it has chances of reaching $485M. But that is its only chance cuz the week after sees the release of Trans4mers, so X-Men is guaranteed to drop steeply from that wknd onwards.

Finally! That's why the BOM gross was different from all other websites (and also, the only one that is accurate). Thanks for this!

I still found World War Z much more visually stunning than Godzilla (but I haven't seen Pacific Rim)

Wow, TFIOS actually decreased on Saturday and it ranks fifth for the day, behind Maleficent and EoT... HtTYD2 also dropped. I think those were the most unexpected twists to the Saturday numbers. 22 Jump Street might have fallen slightly more than expected as well, but Maleficent and Edge of Tomorrow had impressive increases.

Either way, Cap 2 is winning at the domestic BO this year and no summer film will dethrone it, or rather, it is extremely unlikely.

Hobbit 3 is defo reaching $1B. Trans4mers is (sadly) the next most likely although i doubt it. The third most likely is Hunger Games 3, but this is almost impossible. However, these will be the three highest-grossing films of the year. Beyond that, I don't think any other 2014 movie can even get past $800M.

Where did you get this number from?

On another note, this means HtTYD3 ain't popular enough to compete with Finding Dory, so expect DWA to retreat very soon and change the release date. Also, DWA annnounced Croods 2, Puss in Boots 2 and Madagascar 4. I almost puked. Should I commit suicide now or do you think there is still hope left for this world?

Well, it is headed for ~$53M and the weekday grosses will be strong. Regardless of the low opening, the multiplier will be quite big in my opinion cuz of the absence of competition for the next 4 weeks (maybe we should start considering that Planes 2 can open higher than $30M actually...) In any case, OW for most summer animated films have accounted for about 22-28% of the total. Using a range from 22-25%, due to the absence of competition, and taking into account that this weekend will be inflated due to Father's Day, a range of $200-230M is likely.

The funny thing is that now, even with a $450M total outside North America, HtTYD2 may still end up below Cap 2, making the latter the biggest film of the year worldwide so far (Transformers will most likely change this of course, and I say most likely because I too was expecting Dragon 2 to be way bigger than this and reach at least $850M worldwide, but it turns out dramatic things are happening very frequently)

In my opinion, HtTYD2 is disappointing because everyone has been expecting it to earn at least $300M at the North American BO. Now even reaching $250M looks like a stretch. I just find it inexplicable. No animated film has been released for two months (please don't mention Dorothy), the first Dragon film was highly acclaimed by critics and audiences, the trailers and screenings have been very positive, yet it fails to open above Madagascar 3? What? How can this be? But I don't like DWA as a whole so I am slightly satisfied with this outcome. It's not like they deserve any better because they manage to make ONE good movie every 5 years.

22 Trump Street #1 How to Spill Your Flagon #2 (you know the rest) Notably, nice hold for Maleficent and X-Men: DofP. The rest crumbled as usual.

I don't know if anyone has realised but if Maleficent maintains an average 42% drop throughout this week, it will have earned $29.4M during its third week and $175M by Thursday, making it practiaclly impossible to miss the $200M mark by the end of its run. That essentially means it will end up higher than TASM 2 and Godzilla. If it continues to have strong holds it can even surpass X-Men: DofP which is headed for around $220-225M.

To be fair, the later in its run, the more likely a film is to out-gross it on its opening weekend

Opening Fridays for other 2014 Hollywood films in China please?

I want to cry... Literally. DreamWorks Animation just announced release dates for Croods 2, Madagascar 4 and Puss in Boots 2. There is clearly no hope left in this world.