George Parr

Actual numbers always take a while. From what I have seen it isn't in the top 10 in the estimates for Austria, but I don't think that it was a really wide-release anyway. It's rare for a movie that gets shown in the original language with German subtitles to get a lot of shows.

Last statement by corpse was 7b Yen, which is about $60-65m. Currently it's about 0.5b Yen behind FB1 at the same point in their run, and in Dollar it's about 45m to 49m. FB1 finished with 7.3b Yen ($64m), but the exchange rates seem to be a bit better this time around, giving FB2 the chance to maybe even match part one in terms of Dollar even if it falls short in Yen. it definately should be in the same region as the last one.

Weekend estimates: #1 Aquaman 350k / 377.5k with previews #2 The Grinch 317.5k (+19%) #3 Mary Poppins 192.5k / 210k with previews #4 100 Dinge 155k (+10%) #5 Bumblebee 137.5k / 155k #6 FB2 135k (-16%) #7 Bohemian Rapsody 75k (-1%) #8 Mortal Engines 65k (-40%) #9 Tabaluga 55k (-2%) #10 Spider-Man 47.5k (-30% / -34.5% with previews) Fantastic Beasts 2 is only about 75k behind Infinity War for top movie of the year. It should either pass it by Wednesday or sometime during the upcoming weekend. Afterwards, the only remaining question will be whether the holidays are helping enough to push it to number 1 in terms of Euro as well. Should need something like 3.8m admissions for that. 2018 should still end up with the lowest no.1 ever. A record currently held by 2016, with Rogue One sitting a few k below 4m. Which isn't meant to be a criticism of FB2, the movie did increase over part one after all, making Germany one of the few places were the franchise didn't lose steam. It is however a sign of how putrid the year was. Especially when you consider that 2016 saw another four movies between 3.91 and 3.83m admissions behind Rogue One, plus FB at around 3.5m, while this year only got three movies above the 3m mark, with just FB2 likely getting past 3.5m.

I think that would also be the case even with a Star Wars movie around. Movies held excellently against all three Star Wars christmas releases AND other new releases at the same time. Yes, all songs got a German version. I think that was standard for all Disney movies back then. They wouldn't really let a movie have so much english in it. In this particular movie, the German voice was split into one for dialogue (Uta Hallant) and one for the singing (Monika Dahlberg). And you can definately hear the difference between the two

3rd trend is up, Aquaman is down quite a bit, everything else sees limited changes: #1 Aquaman 370k #2 The Grinch 310k #3 Mary Poppins 210k #4 Bumblebee 155k #5 100 Dinge 150k #6 FB2 135k #7 Bohemian Rapsody 70k #8 Mortal Engines 65k #9 Tabaluga 52.5k #10 Spider-Man 45k

Nice for the holdovers, absolutely awful for the starters...

Things look ugly in Germany as well. The latest trend has it at 60k admissions for the weekend, which pales even when compared to Mortal Engines' bad opening (100k). It's at about 1/3 of the size general expectations appeared to be at. As of right now, Spider-Man starts in 7th place, even behind the 7th weekend of Bohemian Rapsody. Not sure how expensive tickets are, but I doubt that this movie will finish its run with more than maybe $2-3m or so unless something truly unexpected happens.

At this point it feels likely that FB2 will win the year, or at least top Infinity War should another movie surprise and beat them both. Talking admissions of course, money should likely stay in favour if IW. IW's lead should be down to about 60k after this weekend. With the latest weekdays being in favour of FB2 100k+ to 87k, and the third weekend going to FB2 260k to 185k. IW's upcoming weekdays stayed about flat, and the movie actually went up slightly from 4th to 5th weekend, but the combined total of those two weekends still only amounts to about 150k, something that FB2 could best just with its 4th weekend as it would need to drop 40%+ to drop below that total. Though even if it were slightly below that, the 5th weekend alone should still make up the entire difference between the two movies. With the holidays coming up, FB2's legs should be better than what IW could offer, even with plenty of new movies arriving.

Per Variety, Nick Nolte has joined the cast of The Mandalorian. While not directly announced by Disney/Lucasfilm, the ones that have been claimed by the media as definately being part of the cast are Pedro Pascal, Nick Nolte, Gina Carano and Carl Weathers. There are further news about the Cassian Andor show as well: As per deadline, Stephen Schiff (The Americans) will be the showrunner, while Jared Bush (co-writer and co-director of Zootopia, writer of Moana) created the project, wrote the script for the pilot and a general 'bible' concerning the show.

Second trend has almost everything down a bit, apart from FB2: #1 FB2 600k #2 Bohemian Rapsody 210k #3 Nutcracker 90k #4 25 km/h 72.5k #5 Spider's Web 60k #6 A Simple Favor 52.5k #7 Der Vorname 45k

"Making good movies" has little to do with it. The development of a franchise depends on where a franchise is coming from. Big franchises have little room to group, long-standing franchises can at times make a big splash again after a long break, but generally they aren't trending upwards. Franchises that start relatively small can indeed grow, something that is especially likely if the first movie is a sleeper hit that caught on after its theatrical release. In the case of the MCU, you have a unique situation, with various factors coming into play. You have the central movies around the Avengers, and then you have the (mostly) smaller ones about the individual heroes. It's The Avengers that gave the other movies a big boost, and the same continues now with further releases of that kind. Even "less interesting" heroes benefit from the general Avengers-hype. Though one has to mention that these smaller MCU-movies are quite a bit smaller than the regular movies of the other big franchises, which means they have a larger chance to grow than movies that already have a larger audience. That simply isn't a situation that you can apply equally to other franchises. In most franchises you have the main storyline that drives everything, there isn't this whole set of different characters that are mostly independent from each other. You might get the occasional spin-offs, but those are rarely mixed in between, they are more likely to follow after the main franchise is done. And on top of that, spin-offs don't have quite the same effect of playing a role in the grander scheme of things. In the MCU, all movies can work on their own, but they also can add weight to the grander story of the whole universe, which isn't something spin-offs (or prequels) can do in the same way. E.g. Fantastic Beasts can add to the lore of Harry Potter by telling a story from an earlier time, but that doesn't affect Harry Potter, because Harry Potter is already finished. The MCU, on the other hand, can have their heroes do things in their own movies that play an immediate role in the Avengers-story. The one franchise that could - in theory - try something similar, is DC. It has the same setup of individual heroes that can also team up. Problem is, DC hasn't managed to get the ball rolling right away, getting a negative vibe early on, turning that into an overwhelmingly positive opinion (as is the case for the MCU) isn't all that easy. Not to mention that the MCU already kind of fills that role, and being the second one to do something popular is in many ways unlikely to repeat the success.

Looks like Pedro Pascal will indeed play the main character, per Variety. https://variety.com/2018/film/news/star-wars-pedro-pascal-mandalorian-series-1203023818/ I'm a bit confused by what the article says though. It claims that he has been offered the role and negotiations are currently under way, which is kind of odd for a show that has already been shooting for one month.

Awesome news, Rogue One was a great movie. Far more interesting show to me than The Mandalorian. Not that I won't watch both if they are good There are so many opportunities to bring in characters or refer to them in some manner. Getting Diego Luna back is excellent news, and I guess K2 will make some appearance as well. Maybe they could even get Ian McDiarmid to return as Palpatine in some fashion. That would be cool.

I don't know if the tactics really don't work anymore, it's more like the players that are needed for it are mostly gone now without a proper replacement. It used to be that there was a strong central defense that had good speed and could deliver long-range passes, allowing for quick movement up the field to prevent the opponent from setting up a tight defense after being on the offense. Followed up by a central midfield that worked both ways and a center forward who could score and who had strong instincts for passing-plays into the box. That has basically stopped, with Hummels being somewhat slow and lacklustre in his passes, and Boateng being a walking muscle-injury. The midfield stopped working, mostly because Kroos is devoid of speed and defensive abilities, which requires a strong defensive midfielder to clear up behind him. Khedira stopped being that player because for some reason he started to think of himself as a box-to-box player, which just doesn't work when Kroos cannot cover for him. The only player who has looked pretty good in the needed role was Rudy for 30 minutes during the World Cup, until he had to leave the game due to an injury. He never got another chance afterwards, and no one like him was tried either. Moving Kimmich there is just desperation. Losing Klose might have been the biggest blow though. He was a very good goalscorer, excellent at give-and-goes, with a strong backcheck. That was the perfect fit for the German system. There is no one like him around, and a huge lack of forwards in general. It seems like the German youth system has led to a shortage in certain positions, creating tons of jack-of-all-trades instead of making sure all kinds of players existed. With Löw's stupid handling of the Wagner-situation, there isn't really anyone remotely resembling a physical striker anymore either. Not that Wagner was particularly good, but he had his advantages and was suitable for a specific role. And then there is the issue of Löw seemingly not training specific set-plays going into the box. It's like everyone knows how to move up the pitch, but once they arrive near the box there isn't really a coherent plan, so everything runs on players improvising. That only works if the players think very similarly and/or if you have someone so brilliant that it doesn't really matter because they will score in bunches anyway.

3rd trend has a few movies up slightly, but no big changes either: #1: Venom: 450k #2: Incredibles 2: 260k #3: ASIB: 155k #4: Klassentreffen: 120k #5: Ballon: 90k #6 Werk ohne Autor 52.5k #7 The Nun 45k #8 Pettersson & Findus 25k #9 The House with... 25k http://www.insidekino.com/News.htm

You know, if Disney really wanted to troll people, they should have gone with a first season of nine episodes, announcing that Taika Waititi would direct Episode 9

As long as you take the positive approach and just go with "not as bad" instead of "not bad", 2019 should be fine 😛

3rd trend is seeing quite a few changes. Klassentreffen, Pettersson und Findus, The House..., and HT3 are all up quite a bit, while Book Club keeps dropping: #1 Klassentreffen 1.0 200k #2 The Nun 110k #3 The House With a Clock in its Walls 75k #4 Pettersson und Findus 65k #5 Searching 60k #6 Das schönste Mädchen der Welt 55k #7 HT3 55k #8 Book Club 50k #9 Predator 45k #10 Mackie Messer 30k

Not a whole lot of change with the second trend, biggest changes ae Book Club and Predator dropping a bit: #1 Klassentreffen 1.0 175k #2 The Nun 110k #3 Book Club 60k #4 The House With a Clock in its Walls 60k #5 Searching 60k #6 Das schönste Mädchen der Welt 55k #7 Pettersson und Findus 50k #8 Predator 50k #9 HT3 40k #10 Mackie Messer 30k

Monday Numbers: #1 HT 3 115k #2 Sauerkrautkoma 105k #3 The Equalizer 2 102.5k, #4 Bad Spies 82.5k (60k without previews) #5 M:I 6 75k #6 Mamma Mia 2 70k #7 Christopher Robin 57.5k #8 Meg 55k #9 Safari 52.5k (32.5k without previews) #10 BlacKkKlansman 42.5k

It's kind of funny, the new Terence Hill movie on its own will probably not interest many people at all, but combine it with a visit from Terence Hill himself and the roof blows off. I guess the chance to actually see a legendary actor / childhood hero is too unique to ignore. Reminds of the time when Bud Spencer visited bookshops to present his autobiography, you had people queueing up ten hours before he was supposed to arrive, clogging the whole area. I think in Berlin they even hadto shut things down because there were way too many people around, and they also ran out of books, even though they had more than 1000+ at the store. And this wasn't the usual hype-crowd, it was grown men and women of all ages, from the entire social spectrum. *Sigh* the good old days

Now the 3rd trend is up, and the top movies all drop. The only movie to rise a bit is The First Purge: #1 Ant-Man 205k with previews #2 Mamma Mia 2 195k (-43% / -55% with previews) #3 HT3 190k (-47% / -68% counting Mon-Wed as previews) #4 Catch Me 40k #5 JW2 37.5k (-49%) #6 The First Purge 37.5k (-52%) #7 Skyscraper 32.5k (-59%) #8 Adrift 25k

First trend is up, and it looks like a three-way competition for first place at this point: #1 Ant Man 200k / 225k with previews #2 HT3 200k (-44% / -67% if one counts the Mon-Wed numbers as previews) #3 Mamma Mia 2 200k (-42% / -54% with previews) Nothing else above 50k, Tag / Catch Me is on course for 37.5k so far.

Not that weather can truly be predicted more than 3-6 days in advance, but the trends for the next few weeks are truly bonkers. The "worst" day in my city is predicted to be at 28° celsius while being somewhat cloudy, every other day over the next 16 days sits at mostly sunny to sunny, ranging from 29 to 36°, with just one further exception at 27° and sunny! Summer up to now was truly nice. It was often sunny but not too hot, and even the few bad days had nice temperatures, but what is happening now is really too much. It's too hot to do anything outside, and inside it tends to be even worse. Mostly sunny and temperatures in the low to mid 20s is pretty much perfect, this however is not. This might lessen the impact on the box office though. If it's too hot, people might prefer to be inside, and if the weather is great all the time, you don't really need to take advantage of the good weather anymore, because you have it every single day anyway. And at worst, there won't be any huge drops, because all weekends prior to that already had great weather 😁

International starts don't happen on a Friday everywhere, in many European countries it is Thursday or even Wednesday. So you are comparing 2-3 days to 2 days, which makes it much more even. Especially when opening day + eventual previews can be pretty big. Then there is also the possibility of the weather influencing things in such a way that Saturday and Sunday are being smaller than expected, putting them on more equal footing with the earlier workdays which may have had more fitting weather. Or much of the respective nation is on summer holiday, in which case the weekends are of lower importance as well.