TServo2049

When's the last time The Rock has played the heel?

The Bollywood thing is scheduled for then. (But that film has been delayed at least twice before, so I would not be that surprised if it subsequently got delayed again and HTTYD3 got moved up into its slot. We shall see.)

BOM has the correct China numbers, I was saying in the Intl. thread that the original studio estimate and $57.11m cume announced on Sunday seemed to be missing at least $5M (and apparently it was; the subsequent China weekly wrap-up on ScreenDaily had a more accurate cume of $63.18M)The reason BOM doesn't have $600M yet is because they subtract Puerto Rico out of the OS total. (Not sure about other studios, but Fox International counts Puerto Rico even though it's already counted in domestic.)

Disney didn't "win," nobody "won," the film was never going to make the date. No big-budget animated sequel has ever been ready for release 2 years after the last one; the just under 3 years between the releases of Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2 is the shortest gap between release dates that's ever happened. (I'm not counting stuff like Planes 2 or The Nut Job 2, I mean the A-list major productions.)In this case, 1.) HTTYD3 was not in simultaneous production, and 2.) HTTYD2 had story changes involving taking stuff that had been planned for HTTYD3 and moving it into 2 (originally, Drago was either not going to show up until 3, or the climax of the Drago arc was originally in 3).I was already certain last summer that HTTYD3 was going to move - this was before the Dory move, and long before HTTYD2 underperformed domestically.

The director practically admitted HTTYD3 probably would NOT be ready for the original release date, in an interview before HTTYD2 was released. Even when there still seemed to be a chance the film could make $750M+ WW, DeBlois still said "You can't take those release dates too seriously" and estimated it would take three years for the third film to get from conception to completion.Even if HTTYD2 had been a smash hit domestically, this still would have ended up being delayed - and I am not being revisionist. I said this (on another forum) last summer, when it still had the original date to itself and DM2's breakout was causing people to start predicting a breakout for Dragon 2.

You forget, the second expanded OS. It's now on the level of Shrek/Panda/Madagascar. They aren't going to pass up that international loot.

In China, Need for Speed grossed as much as HTTYD2 will end up with. It's kind of like how the same U.S. moviegoers that made The Dark Knight a mega-blockbuster also made Transformers 2 a smash a year later. It happens. Some people just want to enjoy a movie, and will get as much pleasure out of something we here love, as something we here hate.

OK, I did kind of suspect that you meant Madagascar 3, but didn't want to sound like a smartass.

I still believe that Fox intentionally staked out more placeholder dates than they had movies in the pipeline, in case they had to move something. They have pulled SIX of them off the schedule so far, and only three were replaced with new films (Boss Baby and the initial Croods 2/Puss 2 dates), followed by three more replaced by moving existing films to new dates.

Only 1/3 right. Passing Madagascar 2 domestically is impossible, but OS it's already happened:Madagascar 2: $423,889,404HTTYD2: $424,882,285And over the rest of its OS run + it's U.S. dollar run, it's going to eke out the $5m it will need to pass Madagascar 2 WW as well.

I called the 2017 delay last summer - I was skeptical about the 2016 release even when Finding Dory was still in 2015 and HTTYD2 was pegged to be a big hit.On the one hand, glad to be hearing SOMETHING about HTTYD3.On the other hand...it still feels like the other studios are still learning NOTHING from WB and Disney's unorthodox scheduling successes. TMNT2 being "promoted" from August to June, HTTYD3 staying in June...the "May-July above all" dogma is going to die hard.

Hey, Super Girl, I feel bad being yelled at like that. I was just asking because I was confused as to why Apes seemed to be doing so well, and then turned out to have come in so far below the STUDIO estimate (as in, the $47m that was reported everywhere - I was not talking about YOUR numbers)I am not trying to criticize you at all - I was just surprised at how much the numbers changed from estimates to actuals.I really appreciate the work you've been doing. You and Olive (and sometimes efialtes76) are the only way any of us can get China dailies. I am not criticizing your estimate skills at all, so I apologize if I said anything you took the wrong way. I did not mean to offend you and I am sorry if I did.

So was Apes extremely overestimated? By those numbers its 4-day cume is below the $47m that the studio estimated for the 3-day! The heck?I have never heard of any other case of a film coming in so far below estimates as to require another TWO days for the actuals to match/surpass the 3-day studio estimate.

The section of the film where they break McCoy out and steal the Enterprise is great - I enjoy those "ensemble" moments of the TOS film series. Agreed that Lloyd is great, and Robin Curtis is serviceable as Saavik but her attempt at being Vulcan just came off a little too stiff.Besides that, not much else to say beyond what Jay Hollywood said. It does not deserve to be lumped in with the other "odd-numbered" films, even if it IS weaker than the three even-numbered original-cast films. B+

When I first read this, I thought you were saying it would make $90M from China and $90M from Japan. I was going to respond "are you insane, you think GOTG is going to double TA in Japan?!" but then I realized you meant $90M combined.

GOTG seems like it'll follow the general rule of Marvel Studios first installments (as well as other surprise domestic overperformer franchise-starters like Shrek, Pirates 1, Transformers, How to Train Your Dragon, and Despicable Me). Namely, the first movie does decent business OS, then the sequels increase (or in some cases, absolutely explode).GOTG2's OS run will be interesting to watch. (Same deal with Lego 2.)

Look on the bright side, this could take the route of the Jungle Book movies and cast A-list thespians for the voices. Perhaps Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Timothy, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Jumbo, and Morgan Freeman as the head crow (changed from a jive-talking racist black stereotype into a wisdom-spouting Morgan Freeman character stereotype). Or if that still comes off as racially insensitive, maybe make them English, and have the leader be voiced by Michael Caine......no, the movie would still be crap.

Even adjusted for inflation, GOTG is the 5th biggest non-opener (and second biggest non-opener of the 21st century, and third biggest non-opener of the last 20 years).And I just realized that both of the other biggest non-openers were Disney, too.

I don't hate Sin City 2. I just think it's a good illustration of the "limited window of opportunity" principle for direct sequels (reboots don't count) in anything but the most enduring franchises. Anchorman 2 was lucky to pass AM1's ticket sales, and the original had a following. The Santa Clause 2 was the 2nd biggest film of the highest-attended November of all time, and the 4th biggest film of the highest-attended holiday season, and it couldn't pass the gross of the original even with 8 years of inflation. Likewise, I think Dumb and Dumber To will have its work cut out for it to pass the unadjusted gross of the original (doable, but $150M is probably the ceiling).I've mostly stayed out of the SC2 thing except for a couple of historical statistical observations. (Now, if Mike Myers actually makes the dreaded Austin Powers 4 he has threatened us with on multiple occasions, I will delight at seeing that go down in flames like the Hindenburg...)

Anchorman 2 waited the same amount of time and it increased from the first in admissions. Granted, it didn't increase anywhere near as much as people thought it would, but--actually, that just shows that even a film that maintained a sizable following over such a long gap has an uphill battle to expand as anemically as AM2 did (without the Christmas break it could have even dropped in ticket sales).Harvey...stop greenlighting sequels to 6+ year old movies. It didn't work for Scream 4 or Spy Kids 4 or Scary Movie 5 or Sin City 2. (Actually, I think Dimension has now run out of franchises to belatedly continue. Unless they somehow get Rob Zombie back to do a Halloween III rather than just re-rebooting the franchise...)

I'm not writing this out of any kind of perverse pleasure at Sin City 2's failure, but SC2 has the third fourth fifth worst drop from a 3-day OW to a Labor Day 4-day (behind Halloween II and the Last Exorcism). EDIT: And The Rocker, when checking BOM I missed that one because it was down at #22. EDIT 2: Shit, I forgot Marci X too, also because it was so low on the chart - that one's actually the worst drop, though unlike the others it was only in 1,200 theaters.H2 dropped 58% on the Labor Day 4-day from a $16.3m OW. TLE dropped 57% over the 4-day from a $20.3m OW. SC2 will drop 55%...from an opening of $6.3 million. And out of the three, SC2 will have the weakest Mon-Mon increase. I'm not trying to kick an injured dog or anything, but...wow.If the stars had actually aligned for SC2 to come out in 2007-08, after 300 but before The Spirit, I'm sure it would have done well.

Last Monday, BOM updated the OS total to $413.2M - adding up to a WW of $585m. That was a jump of $13m, and people here noted it.As I said in my last post, I now think that was a typo - not sure if BOM made the typo or if BOM's source did it, but I am now of the belief that someone typed a 1 when they should have typed a 0. That would explain it (though it wouldn't explain why the China total that's being reported is $5m less than the China totals coming from our sources).

For a Blue Sky film? It sure would. Only Ice Age 2-3 have grossed that much domestically. Heck, even adjusted for inflation, no Blue Sky movie outside of Ice Age 1-3 has made that much.As an aside: I hope this bucks the trend of past Blue Sky movies and actually gets a large-scale theatrical release in Japan. I know they're not very receptive to non-Disney/Pixar American animation...but I also know that they love Snoopy.

Deadline says: OK, now I'm really confused. On Monday, BOM updated the OS gross to $413.2M. Now it's $418.5M. (BOM subtracts out the double-counted Puerto Rico total). But if it made $10.5M OS over the weekend, and it was at $413.2M on BOM on Monday, why is the official total as of today, WITH PR double-counting, only at $420.2M?And the tracking in the China thread shows a USD total of $62.7M, not $57.33M. Also, are they saying it made $6.5M over the 3-day, or the entire week? Either way, there seems to be at least $5M missing, doesn't there? It just doesn't add up. Is this going to be like the $17M that was "disappeared" from TF4's China gross? What gives?EDIT: Looking back at the $402.3m cume that was reported at the end of last weekend, I'm now seriously wondering if the $413.2m that BOM had as of 8/25 was actually a typo, and it was supposed to be $403.2m. That makes more sense - a $10.5m weekend plus Tue-Thu grosses would probably add up to $15.3m, and thus to BOM's current de-PR'ed $418.5m. Still doesn't explain the China cume being over $5m less than our sources, though.

But the U.S. population was smaller, overall theatrical attendance was greater, and per-capita ticket consumption was definitely greater. Release windows were much longer, comparatively fewer people had home video and/or non-over-the-air TV, and the Internet as we know it didn't exist - even if tickets weren't actually less "expensive" relative to average income/consumer budgets (after all, people were talking about tickets getting more expensive even back them), there was still less stuff competing for those dollars. So while inflation is a good way to illustrate how much bigger older stuff was, it also downplays the success of something like Frozen or GOTG in a theatrical market that doesn't encompass as big of a slice of the population.It's a double-edged sword - it shows how huge older films would be if they were dropped into this market, but it also assumes all other factors are equal, and they're not. Inflation really shows how much smaller the theatrical market has gotten - those kinds of ticket sales are mostly impossible today. Look at something like Tim Burton's Batman - in the last decade, only FIVE movies have pulled in that kind of ticket sales.