Bob Violence

One takeaway from all this is that there is basically no communication between Disney and DMG. I can just imagine the Film Bureau saying "okay, May 3rd it is, that's what you wanted all along, right?"

Okay, so now we have the possibility that the star's blog (I know big stars don't really run their own blogs) posted the wrong release date? Whatta country...

I never see box-office figures for Taiwan as a whole, just for Taipei. Why on earth is that? It's the same size as Maryland and they don't track the box office outside the capital?

I guess Deadline had a better fix on the situation than DMG (except for the whole "this is the date Disney wanted all along," that part was bullshit). See what happens when you do business in China?

IM3 confirmed for May 3rd, straight from Robert Downey's Chinese blog.

"It's dead, Jim" I'll see it out of curiosity but everyone who was even vaguely interested in the film probably downloaded an uncut BD-rip after it was banned the first time. Who's left?

Ugh. The 28th would be pretty good. The 29th isn't terrible but it would lose people going to the movies after work on Sunday.

Practically everyone else is getting the film before the U.S. because May Day is a holiday in most other countries. If Americans want this stuff to stop happening, they need to move Labor Day from September to May

Not confirmed. Here's an article from Mtime, who have been insisting on a late April release all along: "According to several reports in the foreign media, the Robert Downey Jr. superhero blockbuster Iron Man 3 will be released in mainland China on May 3rd, but this morning staff at mainland partner DMG said the film 'will be released at the end of April.' A specific schedule has not been announced."

Prediction: When IM3 does open in China, IM2 will be used as the basis of comparison, even though the market has expanded at least 70% since then. We saw the same thing when Skyfall opened and it was compared with Quantum of Solace.

It'd be weirder to see them championing local films over Hollywood ones. Local films have a lousy reputation overall, even big hits like A Simple Noodle Story were mostly despised. 2013 is pretty remarkable because there's already been 3 or 4 local movies so far with genuinely good word of mouth, but we're not at the point yet where domestic films are perceived as superior to Hollywood, even though the domestic films make more money.

See page 332.

Looking forward to seeing how Deadline walks away from this if true.

The Deadline piece is pure spin. Disney is trying to put a brave face on it because they sunk so much effort into this pseudo-co-production deal--which didn't play well overseas, where it was widely interpreted as Disney kowtowing to "Chinese censors" (cf. this largely inaccurate Daily Mail hit piece). And for all that effort they won't even make as much off it as they did on The Avengers last year. So they feed some bullshit to Nikki and Co. ("Oh, it's great, we got everything we wanted") and they swallow it hook, line and sinker. Look forward to more of this when the movie actually opens, just like how foreign media outlets dutifully reported on Skyfall's "record" opening in China. And to elaborate more on why the The Avengers was a completely different situation: the only competition TA had to deal with was Design of Death (which opened on April 27th) and Guns and Roses (which opened all the way back on April 23rd). Design of Death barely made $3m and finished outside the annual top 100; Guns and Roses ended up with a bit over $24m and was #31 for the year. (Mea culpa: in my comment on Deadline I described Design of Death as a "mildly successful local film." I was actually thinking of Guns and Roses.) So Young will outgross both of them put together in a few days, if not less, and will probably land a top ten spot. And that probably would've happened even if it opened on the same day as IM3. Obviously a very different kind of competition.

It'll hurt it if it misses the holidays. Lots of people will go to the movies for the May Day holiday and those same people aren't likely to see another movie just a week or two later. That's why it needs to come out on the 29th or earlier, ideally on the 26th so it can still get evening viewers before the holidays (this Saturday/Sunday are working days and the holiday runs Monday-Wednesday). If it comes out on the 3rd or 4th, it still won't have any Hollywood competition until Oblivion on the 10th, but it'll have missed the best possible date. Fast Six won't be out until late May or possibly June.

$340m on the dot

firedeep suggested a week or two back that Disney waited too long to submit it for final clearance, so it basically depends on whether they have enough pull to short-circuit the usual import process. I don't know if that still holds true at this point. In any case there's wide speculation that So Young will beat IM3 even if they both come out on the 26th. SY is definitely getting more advance buzz.

Also, Mtime is now doubling down on late April and claiming (from "reliable and up-to-date" sources) that the May 4th date is wrong. It really needs to come out on the 29th or earlier, it can't afford to lose a single day from the holiday.

I read the comments on Mtime back when it was announced that Fan Bingbing was only in the Chinese version. Something like 7 out of 10 commenters thought the whole thing was a dumb idea. Chinese viewers know when they're being pandered to.

Skyfall and The Hobbit were hurt somewhat by delays (= piracy), but Cloud Atlas overperformed despite having the exact same problem. Oz was weak and DH5/GIJ2 haven't lit the world on fire either (GIJ2 will be lucky to do what Battleship did last year). IM3 has gotten virtually every possible advantage so far--it's being marketed so extensively you'd think it was a local film--but people are still wringing their hands about competition from So Young.

The market's as big as you're told it is, they're just spending their money on local movies.

I know we all have low expectations for Hollywood movies in China now, but a $10m first week would've qualified it for bomb of the year. (For comparison, Oz--which had basically zero name recognition in China--made over $9m on its first weekend.)

Just Harvey Weinstein's ideas of what American audiences want. But then about half the movies on that list got dumped anyway (the only reason Tears of the Black Tiger was released at all is because the Weinsteins left Miramax and the new management sold it off to another distributor), so the whole re-editing exercise was pointless. Hopefully Bong has final cut and the wherewithal to resist any ridiculous demands.

They're legendary for it. Especially (though not exclusively) with Asian movies. Pretty much all of the Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies released through Dimension were cut. Plus Farewell My Concubine, Iron Monkey, Tears of the Black Tiger, Shaolin Soccer, Hero, Tom Yum Goong, Wu Xia, the list goes on. That said, I've seen nothing indicating that Snowpiercer will be cut, I'm just making a cynical assumption. But don't be shocked if I'm right.

The Weinsteins are probably trying to figure out what they're going to cut out