James

Books: 1. Deathly Hollows 2. Order of the Phoenix 3. Goblet of Fire 4. Prisoner of Azkaban 5. Half-Blood Prince 6. Chamber of Secrets 7. Philisophers's Stone Movies: 1. Deathly Hollows Part 2 2. Order of the Phoenix 3. Goblet of Fire 4. Prisoner of Azkaban 5. Deathly Hollows Part 1 6. Chamber of Secrets 7. Half-Blood Prince 8. Sorcerer's Stone Movies no. 5, 6, 7 could change places depending on my mood.

It did: Initial theatrical run[edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1997_film)

Wow, so much bigger than here. There's no specific data about the number of screen anywhere, but the widest release was the second Hobbit movie on 99 screens. Since it will be the biggest movie of the year I'm curious to see on how many screens Hobbit 3 will be and how the market has grown.

An prediction on Top 3 for the year?

The fact that a generic movie universe like MCU will soon pass HP as the biggest franchise globally is just sad, but with 2-3 movies a year it's not really that surprising.

So boring numbers again... ugh, Maze Runner can't come soon enough.

I seriously don't see how TA 2 (or any 2015 movie for that matter) will beat Maleficent. Is the Venezuela market expanding at such a rapid pace to make a 100% increase possible, since no other Marvel movie even passed TA since 2012?

How many screens are there in Poland?

Make it 5. I found the first HG movie boring, the second - decent. Liked the second Hobbit more than the first.

Twiligh made 200M OS. It was in no way huge. And was the beginning of the YA revolution (you could count Potter, but that's way above the YA level). I wasn't talking about a select country, but in general results. Of course you have Russia, that's so rapidly expanding HG was bound to beat the first Twilight). We're talking like the first HG was some huge success OS, when in fact it was not. TMR will probably make more than the first Twilight, but considering the expanding markets it is no surprise (that's why it's useless to compare the first twilight with pretty much anything from 2014). It's all about perspective.

But Hunger Games did quite bad in most Eastern European markets. Even Divergent beat it here, despite the HG books being way more popular.

I'm surprised by how much I liked this episode. It felt like Doctor Who again, after 2 seasons: scary, exciting, thrilling, fun. The next episode looks good as well.

I see that's a general trend in Eastern Europe. A few very big movies and a lot of medium sized hits.

For real? YES! How much can it make? Any chance it gets 45m so it can pass 700M WW?

In the end, he won an Oscar for his work so he knows his shit. And he's a brilliant cinematographer: TDK, TDKR and especially Inception showed that. Maybe he's not that good of a director (yet), but it doesn't change the fact that people are butthurt when they hear something bad about a movie they like. Avengers had A LOT of problems and cinematography wasn't the worst one, not even by far. But again, I'm no professional like Pfister is. Looking at the comments for the article, you can see only fanboys talking shit about how successful TA was without having absolutely no clue about how things work.

But TF will still lead in $$$ right? I imagine QecqoafaBD lacking 3D keps it's gross lower. What about HTTYD2?

A perfect example is Maze Runner that managed to look expensive on a 40M budget, just because the director has a history in CGI and knows how to put things together. Some mega budgeted movies deserve their money, but others...

My main problem with the MCU. It really depends on one's taste for spectacle. I liked but TF3 and MOS action scenes way more. They just left my staring in disbelief.

I'm not a purist by any means, but the action scenes in TA did not look like the 220M budget mentioned on Mojo. It was ok and enjoyable? Of course. But you live in an age where other directors can create action spectacle way above the one in Avengers with the same or a smaller amount of money.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE Well, I thought that this weekend would be decent...boy, was I wrong! We just had the second worst weekend of the year, despite 4 new releases. - Into the Storm opened on top with 11.860 admissions. I expected it to at least be over 15.000. No such luck. It's better than 'The Giver' last weekend, but that's not saying much. It will finish with maybe $250K and around 50.000 admissions if lucky. - As Above, So Below opened with 8.725 tickets. That's worse than 'Deliver Us From Evil' that opened to over 10.000 a few weeks back. Looking in perspective though, it's not a beyond horrible result simply because horror movies don't do well here. Unless you count 'I, Frankenstein', 'Deliver Us From Evil' is actually the highest grossing horror for the year, with around less than 200K. 'The Purge' is second with 110K, so 'As Above, So Below' will become the second biggest horror of 2014 . - In third place, If I Stay opened with a bit less than 8.150 tickets sold. That's not surprising. 'TFioS' also bombed here with a bit more than 11.000 adm on OW. - The fourth movie opening was The Crypt, a local film. I have no data for it, but it bombed for sure. The local market is dead. The highest grossing local movie of the year is '#Selfie', a comedy that made around 350K. To figure out how bad things are, you gotta know that '#Selfie' is actually the second highest grossing local movie ever, behind only 'Pozitia copilului', that made a bit more than 370K last year. And the trend will continue. It's a huge difference from 2002 for example, when a local movie ('Garcea si oltenii') won the year with over 250.000 admissions, beating the likes of LOTR, SW or Spider Man. An interesting point to make it's that it actually made less than 250K, so the average price of a ticket back then was less than $1, a huge difference from the $5.5 today. Back to this weekend, once again, the real story was about the holdovers. - Let's be Cops dipped only 21% and became the highest grossing comedy of the year. It has enough gas in the tank to finish with over 700K (maybe even 750K) - an excellent result. - In fifth place, The House of Magic is probably one of the most surprising things to see. The positive side of having weak openers is that little, unknown movies tend to do good and this is a perfect example: it is slowly turning into a little animated hit. It only fell 10% this weekend and will likely finish well above 500K and 100.000 admissions. It already has an over 4x multiplier (that is the average for this market) and a lot of fuel left in the tank. With no huge brands opening, this was a slow year for animations. The top looks like this: 1. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 730K 2. The Pirate Fairy - 650K 3. The Nut Job - 485K (LOL... and still in theatres... more LOL ) 4. The Lego Movie - 416K 5. Mr. Peabody & Sherman - 404K 6. The House of Magic - 373K 'The House of Magic' should end up on no.3 before 'Penguins of Madagascar' arrives. - TMNT fell 26% and should end with over 500K --> decent for a new franchise. - GotG also fell 26% and that has a lot to do with the absurd number of theatres it is on. It is actually the second widest movie in release, after only 'Into the Storm' . Still, it will probably hit the 1M mark next weekend, becoming the 10th movie this year to do so, and thus tiying the 2010 record. With 'Hobbit', 'Penguins', 'Exodus', 'Interstellar' and 'Mockingjay 1' still to come, we could have 15 1M+ movies, almost double the 8 last year. - Lucy had another beautiful drop, easing just 23%. In the process it passed 'Transformers', becoming no. 7 for the year and it should have no problem ending on no. 4, ahead of 'Maleficent'. It's already no. 4 in terms of admissions, with over 200.000. - The Giver dropped a huge 60%. - And finally, The Expendables 3 can't seem to catch a break. I dropped another 50% and it will even have trouble getting a 3x multiplier. That is absolutely horrendous for this market. Here is the top 10: The overall 2014 box office is still running 20% ahead of 2013. Next week's openers: - The Maze Runner - Life of Crime - America, venim! (America, here we come! - local movie) 'The Maze Runner' is the first high-profile movie since TMNT a few weeks ago and with an empty market place I fully expect it to open with at least 20.000 adm. 'Divergent' opened with a bit over 19.000 and legged it's way to over 100.000 and $540K. 'The Maze Runner' should do more than that . Also, 'Life of Crime' seems the kind of comedy audiences here dig, and having Jennifer Aniston certainly doesn't hurt. If it opens with over 10.000 admission it should have very good legs and end up being a success. The local movie will likely bomb.

1. Spider-Man 2 A+ 2. Spider-Man 3 A 3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 A- 4. Spider-man B+ 5. The Amazing Spider-Man B

Thanks. The percent has little to do with the actual number. For instant you have 'Hotel Transylvania 2' that will increase but it's easy to see, comparing it to other animations, that it won't be enough to make 1M. Then you have 'Mad Max', that is a completely unknown property but has those elements that made NFS a big success so it's chances are bigger than Hotel's. The movies that have over 80% are pretty much a safe bet for 1M. And yeah, for the movies I predicted over 1M is pretty much senseless to put the chances since they are locked for that, but I felt like having a pattern haha.

That seems a bit high for GotG, especially given the release date and competition. TMNT seem ok on the low end. Hercules is too high IMO. It's fantasy and this is China, not Europe. I think Lucy can go a bit higher than that.

2015 FORECAST This is my 2015 forecast. Like any prediction, nothing is really bound to happen, but I tried to keep my predictions as objective as possible. Of course, there will probably be a few original movies that will surprise. It happens every year (examples: 'Last Vegas', 'Lucy', 'The Three Musketeers' etc.), but I tried to talk about every film that seems (at the moment at least) to have a chance to be big. I'll update the post if new movies are set for 2015. The list below contains the CHANCES for a movie to hit $1M (that is the mark to hit for a theatrical release to be considered a big success). After that you can find my PREDICTION for each movie. It's important to note that the "chances" are not directly equivalent with a higher box office revenue. For example, some movies, especially franchise ones, are easier to predict. It's easy to predict that no Pixar movie will hit 1M in 2015 because almost all Pixar movies bombed/flopped here. So an original movie, like Tomorrowland, may have a bigger chance of hitting the mark (because SF movies tend to do at least decent business here), despite the fact that it's revenue might actually be lower than 'Inside Out' 's for example. In the end, it's a matter of how likely it is for a movie to break out. That being said, let's begin. 1. Bond 24 (October 23) ‘Skyfall’ was very big here (1.55M). I don’t know if this will make past that, but given the market’s growth since 2012, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance. (chances: 100%; prediction: 1.8M) 2. Fast and Furious 7 (April 3) ‘Fast & Furious 6’ made 1.3M. With the death of Paul Walker and the franchise’s increasing popularity this has a decent chance of winning the year. Top 5 al least is guaranteed. (chance: 100%; prediction: 1.7M) 3. Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1) ‘The Avengers’ made 1.2M in 2012. Iron-Man 3 also made 1.2M and Thor 2 – 1.45M (both 2013). ‘Captain America 2’ barely made 900K. ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ will probably pass the 1M border. The Avengers: AOU has Thor, even though it is not a fantasy. But a final gross north of 1.5M is locked. (chances: 100%; prediction: 1.65M) 4. Star Wars: Episode VII (December 18) This is difficult to predict, and not because it won’t make over 1M (it would be the disappointment of the year if it would fail to hit that), but because there are a lot of things to consider. First of all: the other movies were never so popular here to begin with. ‘Revenge of the Sith’ topped the year in 2005 but that’s not saying much, considering 2005 was dissmal (in 2004 ‘LOTR: Return of the Kind’ and ‘Troy’ sold over 2x more admissions and in 2003 ‘The Matrix Revloaded’ did the same; even ‘Matrix Revolutions’ sold more). But let’s compare it to the first prequel. That made actually more admissions than ‘Sith’, but was also beaten by ‘The Mummy’ and every other movie I mentioned above, exept for ‘Revolutions’. That’s just the first part of the problem. Then you have the fact that during the past decade the driving force for movies shifted from adults to younger audiences, that are not familiar with the SW universe. The fact that I haven’t seen them on TV even once, despite seeing LOTR or Titanic even 2-3 times a year doesn’t help also. And in the end, it’s biggest problem is competition. The movie opens the same weekend as ‘Inferno’. It’s worth noting that in 2006, ‘The Da Vinci Code’sold more ticket and beat ROTS by far, being no.1 for the year. In 2009, ‘Angels and Demons’ was no. 11 for the year, despite making the same money as ‘Da Vinci’. In the meantime, inflation became a huge factor and the Dan Brown brand grew immensly (‘Inferno’ was the best selling book in the country in 2013 and that despite the fact that it was released only three months before the end of the year and it’s currently in Top 20 bestsellers for 2014). SW will probably be bigger than Inferno, but not by a huge margin. On the bright side, even though ‘Inferno’ will be big, at least there’s no mammoth like ‘The Hobbit’ to suck all the air fom the market. In the end, I see it at around 1.5M, maybe a bit more or less (more likely). (chances: 100 %) 5. Jurassic World (June 12) Well, Godzilla made over 1M this year. The market was very small back in 2001 when JP3 opened, so that’s no indicator. But a final north of 1M seems like a safe bet. (chances: 100%; prediction: 1.2M) 6. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (November 20) Simillar to Potter (though on a much smaller level), ‘The Hunger Games’ books series were enormous here, but that didn’t translate into a big box office revenue like for ‘The Hobbit’ for example. ‘Catching Fire’ did 855K here. There is a chance that ‘Mocking Jay Part 1’ crosses the 1M border (although being less action packed will hurt it). As for the last part, 1M is locked. (chances: 100%; prediction: 1.2M) 7. Fifty Shades of Grey (February 13) This… this is such a wild card, but not because it would have problems making over 1M. No, that’s locked and loaded. The real question is how much higher can it go. One thing is certain: it will be among the biggest movies for the year. (chances: 100%; prediction: 1.15M) 8. Inferno (December 18) I explained pretty much everything above. (chances: 95 %; prediction: 1M) 9. Cinderella (March 13) Live-action fairytale movies are locked to be successful here. ‘Oz’ made 850K in 2012 and ‘Maleficent’ – 1.1M and still going. (chances: 95%; prediction: 1M) 10. Taken 3 (January 9) The first ‘Taken’ made around 133K here, the second - 692K. With the market rapidly expanding and little competition (‘The Seventh Son’ and ‘Into the Woods’ open the week before; they are both fantasy movies opening in the shadow of the final ‘Hobbit’ movie, another fantasy; but ‘Into the Woods’ has Johnny Depp, so it should at least do decent), ‘Taken 3’ should be able to cross the 1M border. (chances: 80%; prediction: 1M) OTHER MOVIES, in no particular order: - Kung Fu Panda 3 (December 25) ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ did good here, especially for 2011 (745K), so this has a good chance at hitting 1M (chances: 80%; prediction: 975K). - Minions (July 10) ‘Despicable Me 2’ did decent (840K). It has nothing next to ‘Ice Age’ for example, but this will still do good. (chances: 85%; pediction: 950K) - Hotel Transylvania 2 (October 23) The first one did quite good (625K) and was well liked. This will increase. (chances: 40%; prediction: 850K) - Big Hero 6 (January 23) This is a bit harder to predict, mainly because it opens so much later than in the US. Usually, we get the movie the same week or a week later and the reason for that is simple: piracy here is almost an industry. Till it opens here, ‘Big Hero’ will likely be on torrents with a very good quality. But even so, it is the first animated movie of the year and has little competition so a final tally of close to 1M should be in the cards. (chances: 70%; prediction: 800K) - Ted 2 (June 26) The first one made 520.000K here. Decent for a comedy, but nowhere near ‘We’re the Millers’ or ‘The Hangover’. Still, it’s locked to have a healthy increase. (chances: 50%; pediction: 800K) - The Jungle Book (October 9) With next to zero competition, this should do good. (chances: 30%; prediction: 800K) - Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15) This is pretty much unknown here. The original trilogy was never in theatres, but here’s the thing: it looks like ‘Fast and Furious’ or ‘Need For Speed’ (meaning cars centered movies). We love that. The FF franchise is huge and NFS is currently no. 9 for the year with almost 1M. It opens 2 weeks after the second ‘Avengers’ movie, but unless you are ‘The Hobbit’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or ‘Ice Age’, you are not a danger for a movie that opens two weeks after you. (chances: 65%; prediction: 750K) - Terminator: Genisys (July 3) ‘Terminator 3’ was very successful back in 2003, but ‘Terminator: Salvation’ disappointed. (chances: 60%; prediction: 750K) - Ant-Man (July 31) The nearest comparison is ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ that had the SF look to it and it helped a lot. (chances: 30%; prediction: 750K) - Jupiter Ascending (February 6) We like big visual feasts and we still see movies in 3D. With no big action spectacle before or after it, JA could make 1M, even though it has no major stars. (chances: 50%; prediction: 700k) - Peanuts (November 6) Well, anoher animation in an already crowded year. (chances: 20%; prediction: 700K) - Inside Out (June 19) Pixar is no brand here. ‘Toy Story’, ‘Monster University’ and ‘Cars 2’ all flopped-bombed. ‘Brave’ did decent. (chances: 20%; 600K) - The Good Dinosaur (November 27) Pixar… (chances: 20%; prediction: 600K) - Pan (July 17) Live-action fairytale. (chances: 50%; prediction: 600K) - Assassin’s Creed (August 7) The game is popular here and if the movie is a visual fest then it’ll do good. (chances: 40%; prediction: 600K) - Tomorrowland (May 22) Not much to say about this. It all depends on marketing and how good the visual spectacle will look. It’s SF, but it has no big stars attached. (chances: 40%; prediction: 600K) - The Fantastic Four (June 19) ‘Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer’ bombed here in 2007 and the market is not that crazy for superhero movies anyway. Plus, it opens on the same weekend with ‘Inside Out’. (chances: 5%; prediction: 400K) Thinking about it, I might've gone a bit high on anmations, especially on 'Big Hero' and the Pixar ones. But oh well, being a little optimistic is not that bad.