Bob Violence

I dunno about that. Skyfall had an awards screener that leaked in December, and the retail DVD/BD leaked at pretty much the same time the Chinese release hit theaters. But awards screeners are a non-factor in the summer and FF6's retail discs won't be out until the beginning of October, which means they should hit P2P sometime in September. There will probably be some watchable cam copies by the time of the Chinese release (if there aren't already), but this is true of virtually everything that comes out in China. I don't think cam copies are a big threat to a film's theatrical take in China.Now maybe a high-quality screener could leak before July 26th, but that's hardly guaranteed given that there are still no non-cam copies of movies like Oblivion, GIJ2, and Olympus Has Fallen. There seem to be some non-cam copies of IM3 kicking around, but those are from Chinese sources--surprise, surprise. IMO the main problem with such a late date is that the free publicity from the international release will have long since dissipated, plus some people will already be burned out from earlier summer releases (foreign and domestic). Being sandwiched between White House Down and Pacific Rim won't help either.

I don't buy this for a second. Either somebody in Japan is overstepping their boundaries and the Japanese release is going to get moved back to summer, or Disney's planning to move it up everywhere and we're just hearing it first from Japan.

Where'd you hear that? Last word I heard was it had been pushed back to late July and its previous date (6/20) given to Man of Steel.

A bunch of new dates, per Mtime: MOS - 6/20 After Earth - 7/12 White House Down - 7/22 FF6 - 7/26 Pacific Rim - 7/31 JP3D - 8/20 (lol) They must be a little worried about FF6, shoving it between two other imports like that. (It also doesn't get a proper opening weekend, since July 26th is a Sunday.) I'm sure some of these dates won't stick, but so far it seems July won't be the dead zone it was last year.

How many Hollywood films have to "underperform" before it becomes less a question of over-/underperforming and more a question of revising expectations?

Not so great in absolute terms, but then ST '09's final total was only about 43% of the first G.I. Joe. If STID actually finishes with 60% of GIJ2's total, that would be a bit over $30m, which again isn't impressive in and of itself but would be a nearly 3.5x increase over ST '09 (for comparison, GIJ2 increased by around 2.5x). Or STID could be more frontloaded, not that GIJ2 had great legs either. There are some Chinese Trekkies, but their numbers are so tiny that I don't know how much they would've affected the midnight figures.

So is After Earth pulled too, or are we going by the strict definition of "summer" (June 21 on)? And I take it "no Hollywood summer release" means no animated films as well? Good news for Tiny Times and Badges of Fury (and I guess Man of Tai Chi, now the closest thing to a "Hollywood" film China will get this summer). Shit news for exhibitors unless all three of those do $200m each or some crazy magic number like that. And if November is a blackout month now, that means Hollywood movies are effectively barred for six months out of the year.

Jack the Giant Slayer was WB and it got a Chinese release as well (though I could understand why it might be forgotten). I'm pretty sure there's no set per-studio quota.

If TH3 keeps going at this pace, they won't want to call it Hangover 4.

Dug up some female critics' takes on Blue Is the Warmest Color: Jessica Kiang, The Playlist (A) Wendy Ide, The Times (5/5) [note: paywall] Fionnuala Halligan, Screen Daily (positive) Manhola Dargis, New York Times (negative) The critic for Le Monde (Isabelle Regnier) seemed to like it, but I don't know for sure, since most of her review is behind a paywall and the opening paragraphs aren't unambiguous. The tone seems favorable, though. Over on Twitter, Stephanie Zackarek (Village Voice) likes it and Karina Longworth (LA Weekly) likes the second hour but not the rest. Except twenty minutes of the last hour. Maybe some other parts too once people remind her about them.

I'm seeing 5/24, I guess it got pushed up there too? Are there any Thursday numbers yet? Maybe WB is keeping them under wraps...

I think she just means "taking off" in the sense of "being released." In Australia it's down from the second film ($1.75m versus $2.1m), and that's with no competition from FF6--plus STID is old news, since it came out two weeks ago over there. Not a great start. It comes out today in the UK, so unless Nikki has midnight numbers she's not telling us about, she doesn't know how it's doing there.

It opened at 80% of TH2, not 80% over TH2. In other words it dropped 20%. That was apparently better than projections, but still not a fantastic result when you consider its only real competitors are the leftover STID and IM3. In other markets it's either going head to head with FF6 or opens just one week later.

The numbers we have now are from the one of the tiny handful of markets where FF6 hasn't opened yet (and won't open until June 6th). In most other OS markets there's a one-week gap in the opposite direction (FF6 first, TH3 after), but unless FF6 underperforms, I don't see TH3 breaking out anywhere else outside maybe a couple of freakish exceptions.

Having a two-week breather before FF6 helps. Too bad TH3 doesn't have that in most markets.

Few more (I'm too lazy to do excerpts, so I'll just sum them up): Hollywood Reporter - Mild proThe Independent - NegativeThe Playlist - BScreen International - ProThe Times - 3/5Variety - Negative Also, in the interest of accuracy, this isn't an American film, it's a French-Danish co-production.

The HK/SK date is based on the Chinese calendar (8th day of the 4th month). In Malaysia/Singapore/Thailand it's based on the Buddhist calendar (the full moon of Vaisakha, the second month).

This was never going to be a summer release in the U.S. Yeah, Deadline's "sources" said it was, but a summer release in the U.S. would require something close to day-and-date with the South Korean release and that was never in the cards. (In fact the film still doesn't have a locked date for South Korea, though this isn't abnormal--only a tiny handful of post-June releases have already set dates). Edit: Of course it could still be a summer release in the U.S., if by "summer" you mean "summer 2014."

Disconcerting news from Cannes: TWC showed a "sizzle reel" (short previews) of their slate for this year, and Snowpiercer wasn't even mentioned. It's a good bet this is being held back for 2014, which would be unsurprising given past examples like Hero, This Must Be the Place, Undefeated, Princess Mononoke, Butter, Fanboys, The Yards, Everybody's Famous, and sundry other films that had to wait at least a year for Miramax/TWC to finally given them a U.S. release. There will probably be foreign DVD/Blu-rays available by the time this hits U.S. theaters.

It's not up to WB in China. The government sets the release dates, not the studios. As for Russia, is MU expected to be so huge there? Pixar movies don't do well in China, but I have no idea about Russia.

I don't think there was anything random about LoP not getting an extension. December is a traditional protection month and an extension would've let it run the entire month instead of just most of it. More importantly, the end of its 30-day run coincided with the release of three big local films (CZ12, The Guillotines and The Last Tycoon), the last two of which needed all the help they could get (and more or less tanked anyway). And CZ12 was distributed by the very powerful Huayi Brothers, who already resented Pi for cutting Back to 1942 off at the knees in November.

Jesus Christ, that movie is going to spend as long as post-production as The Grandmaster spent in production.

I forgot about After Earth. Looks totally bland but normally I would give Big Willie the benefit of the doubt (box-office-wise, not quality-wise). Head to head with FF6 would seriously hurt it, but they're only one week apart in the U.S. too. I assume it's not clear yet how close is "close." If TLR/PR in late July is true, they're really easing up this summer--last summer it was nothing but cartoons and buyout films from late June to the end of August. Probably a good move, since it looks like the local studios are no more prepared for this summer than they were last year and exhibitors surely don't want another long drought. Plus MU and Epic aren't going to do anything near Ice Age 4 numbers (am I right or wrong to guess that both of them are possibilities for the summer?).

FF6 dated for June 20th--for now, anyway. Downsides: No Dragon Boat holiday; only one weekend in theaters before Tiny Times comes along. Upsides: comes out closer to the beginning of the summer holiday and will therefore run longer into the holiday; may well have no competition from any other quota films (except perhaps a cartoon or two), since July will almost definitely be a "domestic protection" month; won't have to share IMAX screens with STID and JP3D, though Monsters University might come out in IMAX around the same time (I'm guessing MU won't get an IMAX run in China, but it could happen). Tiny Times will be huge, but I don't think this is too bad. Of course they could always surprise us and announce something like Man of Steel for the same week...

Sorry, that was overly hasty reading and/or Gatsby overexposure. Or subconscious refusal to accept the possibility of "Palme d'Or winner Paolo Sorrentino."