Mrstickball

Question: How/where can we track midnight/OD sales for a movie? Where is your source data coming from?

Looks like XXX is going to have a darn good launch this weekend. KFY continues its great run.. At this rate, it may end up beating JTTW2.

LTTP, but I think it has a shot at doing pretty well in China.. Where's consensus on if it surpasses the previous franchises' $198m OS haul?

I think a lot of it has to do with the potential cultural disconnect of audiences with the Pacific Theater of War during World War 2. The Brazilians, in their limited engagements of WW2, were focused entirely in Italy and the European region. Inversely, its why Hacksaw Ridge has done really, really well with audiences in countries where Japanese atrocities were known.. Most notably, its the highest rated live action movie in China... Ever. If you didn't know about the war and what actions were like against the Japanese, then I am sure it would come off as bitterly pro-war, trying to demonize the Japanese as mercy-less killers. However, for those that study the Pacific War, or, in some cases, had family that were involved in direct actions against the Japanese know that the portrayals are mostly correct... Historically, during the Philippine campaign (which was just before Okinawa, where HSR took place), the Japanese employed horrific strategies against the American and Philippine Army that assisted them. The Japanese were infamous for fighting to the last man, or using their capture as a strategy for suicide bombing.. The American forces killed ~400,000 Japanese during the entire action, while only 10,000 or so were captured. If you study war, those numbers are insane... A similar action against (even) the ruthless Nazis would probably find maybe 400,000 killed and as many or more captured/surrendered, but the Japanese code made them fight, kill, and use deception in some terrible ways. On Desmond's dad, and how he was a drunk/ect - I fully expected Hugo Weaving's character to act that way.. He was a soldier in the trenches during WW1. Many, MANY soldiers came back from that war with unfathomable levels of PTSD - probably beyond that of what most experienced in World War 2. Its a very bitter thing that can make good men evil.. My dad still has some vestiges of PTSD from his experiences in Vietnam (he survived an NVA rocket/RPG/mortar attack on his base, and was nearly killed during it, and was also a medic during it in '70)... And that is probably a light case by comparison of what Desmond's father had. So to me, as a kid of someone that was in a war, I sympathize with Desmond and his bitter relationship with his dad, and why he's a crazed pacifist. To a Brazilian - it probably is understandable how his actions seem less understandable. Back to the movie ratings - it was very good. CGI took me out a few times, and the Garfield's accent was just... Strange. I know it's close to the real accent of IRL Desmond Doss, but its just so strange, even as an American. I'd give it a B or B+. My dad would give it an A though.. 2nd favorite war movie next to Saving Private Ryan.

When is it releasing in China? In Hong Kong, it's already overtaken JTTW2's gross.

With KFY taking out JTTW's daily in 4 days.. It makes one wonder who's going to win in the end. Duckweed > BII is hilarious... Talk about a huge drop.

Did the Mermaid numbers include midnights? Its exceeded Mermaid by at least 10%... Wow!

$644 million RMB is the current single-day record, correct? Do midnights get included in that number? One would think that with the pace of JTTW2 and other movies, there's a good shot at the market hitting $700 million RMB today.

Very surprised it kept pace with Mermaid. I guess the question now is how it can do through CNY as opposed to the opening. The Buddies in India number looks extremely good, too.

Happy Chinese New Years to all of the Chinese posters. What do you plan to do over the holiday?

Looks like Firedeep is going to be right about JTTW2.

As a side question for the Hong Kong/Chinese posters: What's your favorite food to eat at the movies? Least favorite?

I still can't wrap my head around pitting 2-3 major movies against each other on one weekend.. Even if you look at Christmas in the US with Rogue One v. Sing, they knew that they had to use counter-programming to stand a chance against Rogue One. Best of luck to the competitors.

Here's the pertinent quote about Mermaid's presales.. 100m yuan in OD pre-sales. That was en-route to a 281m OD, for a 2.8x PS multiplier it seems.

JTTW and BII sound amazing for pre-sales. If you look at the pre-sales thread, the comps are fantastic. If those numbers are for Midnight+OD for JTTW, then its somewhere near Warcraft's +14 day pre-sales number. As an American BO enthusiast, its great that China has these festivals during times of drought in the American box office... Gives me something to look forward to and excited about other than Resident Evil's run in late January :-)

Even then, what we do have #s for suggests that it punched way above its weight. As per The Numbers, it sold 1.1 million DVD/BR-DVD units. Here are some comparables: The Hateful Eight: 1,000,000 Jupiter Ascending: 800,000 Black Mass: 500,000 Need for Speed: 500,000 The Man From UNCLE (2015): 400,000 Sicario: 350,000 Insidious Ch. 3: 150,000 The Giver: 110,000 Only a Tarantino movie was close to John Wick in terms of DVD sales. I thought the closest would probably be Sicario, which isn't even close. We'll see if DVD/steaming revenues boost it, but it absolutely punched above its weight at Home Video.

Ah, I wasn't aware of a Korean release date. I assume it will do well there, given general Anti-American sentiments.

(I am being fanboyishly optimisitc - look at my avatar)

I expect it to hit $1 billion RMB.

Winona Ryder is in the 2nd most popular television show of 2016 and is probably going to have one of the most spectacular female leads in a TV series this side of Game of Thrones. For Sharon Stone, could you define her "Fall from grace"? She's had constant, consistent work, as per IMDB for the past 20 years. She has 7 different characters in pre-production for 2017. Are they massive roles? No. But I haven't seen any massive box office successes spearheaded by her in decades, so I need some help understanding that one. Can you explain J-Lo to me as well? I never had her pegged as being a major talent or star in movies. Maybe in singing, but her marketing properties always seemed to be a jack of all trades, master of none. IMDB says she still gets roles in movies, as if that was her major

I am curious: Other than the 2-3 bannable things in movies (Ghosts, mainly)... What else prevents a movie from releasing in China other than controversial content? Both Hacksaw Ridge and The Revenant are extremely graphic R-rated movies, and the Chinese seemingly enjoyed them a lot. It could be a smart market to leverage for upcoming high-quality R-rated movies in the future.. Could Deadpool 2 or Logan get released there?

I wonder where it'll end up with the following territories to release in: Chile 17 January 2017 Singapore 19 January 2017 Brazil 26 January 2017 Germany 26 January 2017 UK 27 January 2017 Ireland 27 January 2017 Italy 9 February 2017 Philippines 15 February 2017 I would think that the following should be reasonable: Chile: $250k Singapore: $1.5m Brazil: $1.5m Germany: $4m UK: $10m Ireland: $1m Italy: $2m Philippines: $2m (larger than average gross due to nature of film, much like China) Tot: $22.3m USD Still think this movie hits $200m worldwide.

You really should know more about Star Wars before commenting. The prequels only had success in the US because of the massive fanbase that had been waiting for a new movie for ~15 years. Bad movies don't do well in countries that don't have a built in install base. Mediocre movies can do well if they build up an install base, and Transformers as well as Fast & Furious prove that. To much of the world, Star Wars has way less brand power than either Transformers or F&F, so Star Wars is starting at page 1. Given its immense success and huge amount of cannon and non-cannon to build off of, it will be doing quite well in 10 years. Marvel movies are very comparable - no one cared about Captain America: The First Avenger, but by the time CA:CW rolled around, it did great at the box office, despite Captain America being one of the arguably less appealing Avengers.

Maybe RO is playing in China exactly like it did in the US: the conventional wisdom thought that the movie was going to drop like a rock after its 1st weekend, while others argued that since its a spin-off, no one would rush to see it at theaters, despite the IP being huge. Maybe China is not far off in that regard, and RO ends up a bit leggier than TFA, just like it has in the US.

Boyega was decent in TFA. Having said that, I have this feeling that Donald Glover as Lando is going to be far, FAR more endearing to the franchise. If Chinese don't want to like Boyega, they don't have to. However, it would seem that Wanda/Legendary aren't as hostile to him as these (alleged) average Chinese filmgoers, given that he's going to be in the new Pacific Rim.