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Very simple. There have been a host of new Super Hero films. From Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Avengers, ect, ect, ect. Each success with a local audience would chip away at any regional stigma. Trek has had one film, four years ago to really attempt to reach a larger scale overseas audience. Thats only one film to fight any stigma the brand Star Trek has.

Did we ever get any numbers for New Zealand or Singapore? That number for Mexico is nearly the full run of 2009 Trek (3.416 million), have know idea what it opened to. I would be very curious to see market by market changes, especially in areas that have had massive growth or have historically no interest in Trek.

Did it really though. Trek 2009 was an event, and that's been a hard feat to happen with the various Trek shows airing for free throughout the world. Insurrection and NEmesis were already showing massive drops, each scoring dramatically worse then the previous film. But percentage wise its overseas audience stays rather close. Typically a third of a trek's income is from overseas (really only Khan and Search for Spock did worse). The last successful Trek film (and one that was really the last to feel anything special, was First COntact. It's overseas numbers would put it close to 100 million, and did it when there were two other tv shows producing new Trek episodes. Seriously think what would First Contact have done. If there was no DS9 or Voyager out, and that it had the last year with no new Trek. I think it would have easily done much larger numbers in the US, and I could see it doing also a bit better overseas. In fact I think there is a good shot that the Motionless Picture actually had a bigger market then what Trek 2009 had (heck it just barely did better then the Motionless picture domestically, and Voyage HOme wasn't terrible far behind that).

Really teh biggest factor in films US performance is when both films and new original tv shows. Star Trek 1 - 4 all aired when there was no free original trek on tv. And those four had a US (still performed equally poorly overseas) ranked each year between 2nd and 9th. Trek 5 - Nemesis all aired when 1 or two other Trek shows were airing new episodes. Certainly over saturation of one franchise didn't help. Of course Insurrection really hits not only after the TV shows started dropping, but also had a huge drop from the previous film, without being an utter wreck of a film (though it isn't a good film, really feels like a two hour average episode of The Next Generation. I think , not only the change towards action and newer style certainly played a big change in Trek 2009 doing so well, but I also think the absence of new free Trek on TV certainly also helped.

First what expanding markets as this hit? As far as inflation, god only knows as for each nation it can be widely different. Inflation true (to what extent depends on each place, and of course price of 3D, and the % of its use in each nation is also a big factor.

And super heroes have had their own issues (though I don't think they generally were as bad as Trek), but there have ben many, many, many superhero films to help change that. In the last ten years it's only been Trek 09, and the current Into Darkness. Thats a rather daunting task to place just on the strength of one full release. My upper celling for this film (with nothing extraordinary happening) was 650 million. 350 for the US, and 300 overseas. But what I honestly thought would occur (and how I predicted was 550 million. 300 for domestic, and 250 for overseas. I think doubling it's previous gross isn't out of the question. But that's what I want to occur, it certainly wouldn't surprise me to be lower in either.

Fire deep I think is insane at times. If this does just a little better then the first there will be a sequel. The brand is too valuable. And yes they pushed for growth overseas will see eventually what it gets and what it delivers in the US. If worse comes to worse just make it cheaper.I remember when Trek was had the largest budget of all time. What did they do next produced on for less the. Third the best Trek film to date.

1) Will Gatsby open to more than 35 mill?Yes2) Will Gatsby open to more than 40.5 mill? Yes3) Will Tyler Perry open to more than 20 mill? No4) Will IM3 drop less than 55%? No5) Will IM3 have a Friday increase of more than 130%? YES6) Will Tyler Perry drop by more than 7% on Saturday?No7) Will Tyler Perry have one of the three best theater averages in the top 15? Yes8) Will IM3 make more than than the next three films combine (slots 2-4) Yes9) Will Gatsby's weekend gross be more than IM3's Friday and Sunday gross? Yes10) Will Mud drop less than 30% Yes11) Will Pain and Gain drop more than 47%? No12) Will Oz stay in the top 10? Yes 10/12 300011/12 400012/12 5000 What finishes in spots 4 - Pain & Gain5 - 429 - Mud13 - G.I. Joe 2000 each 3000 bonus for all four correct Bonus 1: What will the top 10 cume be? 4000 - 153 millionBonus 2: What will IM3 gross this weekend? 4000 - 71 millionBonus 3: What will IM3's WW total be after Sunday's estimates (not actuals, estimates) 4000 - 950 million

Not surprised, didn't you have 80 million as your original high end for Trek in 2009?

God, I remember when we had like 11 or 12 questions a week.... 1) Will The IM3 make more than 62 mill OD? 5000 Yes, Hell Yes 2) Will IM3 make less than 55 mill OD? 3000 No (Could you imagine the forum, explode) 3) Will IM3 make more than 71.167 M OD mill OD? 3000 No 4) Will IM3 make more than 15 mill OW in Russia? 2000 Yes 5) Will IM3 make more than 8 mill OW in Germany? 2000 Yes 6) Will IM3 make more than 1 mill OW in Poland? 2000 Yes 7) Will IM3 have a Saturday drop of more than 15%? Yes 8) Will IM3 make more than 16 mill at midnight/thurs? Yes (start those showing early) 9) Will IM3 make more than 12.5 mill at IMAX domestically? Yes 10) Will IM3 have a per theater average of more than $37,200? Yes 11) Will IM3 have a cinemascore of A or better? Yes 12) Will IM3 fall less than 33% on Sunday? Yes 13) Will IM3 make at least 140 mill more than positions 2 and 3 combined? Yes 14) Will IM3 make more than 145 mill OW? 2000 Yes 15) Will IM3 make more than 155 OW? 2000 Yes 16) Will IM3 make more than 165 mill OW? 2000 Yes 17) Will IM3 have a world wide weekend of more than 300 mill? Yes 18) Will the top 10 films combine to make more than 205 million? No 19 Will Pain and Gain drop less than 55.5%? No 20) Will Pain and Gain have a Friday increase of more than 120%? No 21) Will Oblivion have a Saturday increase of more than 35%? Yes 22) Will Nikki's first Friday report come out before 1pm PST time (just go to deadline and see when she posts her tentpoles)? Yes 23) Will Nikki's first posting about IM3 contain the phrase "NOT A RECORD" anywhere in the post? Yes 24) Will Nikki's first "projection" about IM3 be higher than the number reported with official Friday estimates? 3000 No 25) On the first three days, will BKB post anywhere at anytime about how the film is not exceeding expectations from a box office standpoint, or at least how amazing the film is doing? Yes (Ha, HA...) 26) Will the Weekend Numbers thread (this starts with Thurs midnights and goes until Sunday estimates) reach 150 pages by 9AM on Monday morning? (I'll keep track...this would be our first enormous thread of the yr) Yes 27) Will The Big Wedding drop less than 45%? No 28) Will GI Joe drop less than 45%? No 29) Will any film in the top 12 drop less than 35%? YEs 30) Will Mud make the top 12? Yes 31) Will Jurassic Park drop less than 55%? No 32) Will Evil Dead and Scary Movie both drop more than 50%? Yes 33) Will IM3 drop less than 45% in UK? Yes 34) Will IM3 have an international weekend of more than 150 mill? Yes 35) Will The Croods have a Saturday increase of more than 98% Yes (kids movie of course) Bonus 1: What will IM3s weekend gross be? 5000 171.6 Bonus 2: What will Pain and Gain's weekend gross be? 5000 7.9 Bonus 3: What will The Big Wedding's weekend gross be? 5000 4.01 Bonus 4: What will IM3, Mud and Place BTP combined gross be? 5000 178.4 Bonus 5: What finishes in spots: 6 Croods 8 Mud 10 Place behind Pines 11 Scary Movie 13 Evil Dead 2000 each and a bonus of 5000 if all correct Bonus 6: According to the International Report in the International section (first report will be the one we go by), Internationally, what finishes in spots: 3 Oblivion 4 GI Joe 2 6 OZ, weak and awful And I still can't believe I couldn't find this thread before the deadline on week one. Idiot!

Top 15 DOM 1. Iron Man 3 - $436.1 million 2. Star Trek Into Darkness - $339 million 3. Man of Steel - $309 million 4. Monsters University - $289 million 5. Hangover 3 - $268 million 6. Fast & Furious 6 - 246 million 7. Despicable Me 2 - $245 million 8. Pacific Rim - $197 million 9. Wolverine - $165 million 10. THe Lone Ranger $152 million 11. The SMurfs 2 - $146 million 12. World War Z - 1$35 million 13. Great Gatzby - $134 million 14. White hOuse Down - $119 million 15. Grown Ups 2 - $105 million International Flair #1 (WW) 1. Iron Man 3 - $1.105 billion 2. Monsters University - $789 million 3. Despicable Me 2 - $743 million 4. Fast & Furious 6 - $693 million 5. Pacific Rim - $667 million 6. Man of Steel - $615 million 7. Star Trek Into Darkness - $613 million 6. Man of Steel - $670 million 7. The Hangover - $581 million 8. World War Z - $531 million 9. The Smurfs 2 - $486 million 10. The Lone Ranger - $480 million International Flair #2 (WW Weekends) 1. Iron Man 3 2. Fast & Furious 6 3. Pacific Rim 4. Man if Steel 5. Star Trek Into Darkness Opening Weekends DOM 1. Iron Man 3 - $164.9 million 2. Star Trek Into Darkness - $104.3 million 3. Man of Steel - $95.2 million 4. Monsters University - $91.7 million 5. Fast & Furious 6 - $91.6 million 6. The Hangover III - $73.5 million 7. Pacific Rim - $51.9 million Lowest Grossing Films DOM 1. The To-Do List 2. The Purge 3. Planes 4. Paranoia 5. We're the Millers 2) The Purge Bonus: $19 million Second Bonus Question: Tell me which of these will be the highest grossing film of the summer: ABSTAINING Bonus ABSTAINING Third Bonus Question: Tell me, of these five films, which will be the highest grossing INTERNAIONALLY (NOT WW, ONLY INTERNATIONALLY....ALL FIGURES ACCORDING TO BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM)? 5) Fast and Furious $503 million For 15,000 bonus points, call the correct film within 25 mill. TRIPLE BONUS Question 1: no Question 2: NO Question 3: YES Question 4: YES Question 5: YES Question 6: YES Question 7: Yes Question 8: NO Question 9: YES Question 10: 4) Grown Ups 2, Heat, Pacific Rim, World War Z, Man of Steel Question 11: YES Question 12: Abstain Question 13: YES Question 14: NO Question 15:YES Bonus Question of all Bonus Questions: This is a four parter: 1) YES 2) YES 3) YES 4))YES NEW QUESTION: This is a four part question. Again, you have choices. Answer any part of the question. Each answer you get correct you will receive 7000 points. Each answer you get wrong, you will lose 7000 points. If you go for all four parts of the question, you must get all four parts correct. If you get even one wrong after going for it all, you will lose 7,000 points. You can go for all of it, none of it and some of it. Choice is yours. 17) A) Abstain Abstain C) Abstain D) Abstain

It has t started yet?

Thanks for the info, and Can I just say I utterly agree. I have no issue with people having different opinions (hello we each have one), but I have never understood the rancor that some fans have towards others, and other's opinions. Obviously with some reservations, I do have issues with people having views that I just can't even fathom. But I still try not to treat to those with anything besides being calm and rational. I almost always stayed away from the Hobbit thread, because I just couldn't understand some of the views being expressed.

Peludo Seriously though, does anyone know the change in admissions between Star Wars and Phantom Menace, and Raiders and Indy IV, I am actually really curious and besides Trek, I never followed the movies of the 70 and 80's in great detail.

Peludo Another way that makes it really difficult to compare LotR verses others is that its literally one movie, one story, just released in three parts. You knew after each one, roughly the quality of acting, directing and script that would be in each movie, and each release just feed into each other. Now that isn't the case with other sequels to date, as the story is all conceived later (Heck even Potter wasn't finished when it started the movies), you usually have different writers, different directors, and in many cases huge changes behind the scenes in other parts of the film making process of which can impact the finished look and quality of a film. To my knowledge the only major change in the LotR films is that each film had a different editor. And thats about it.

The one thing I am really disappointed with Box Office wise is that it wont beat the awful ALice (God how I hated that movie). In the US was the film ever released to dollar theaters?

Rudolf There is a big difference between the various Potter films of the last 4 years. I didn't mean to imply that none would watch, just that it wasn't going to equal the the best of the series. I don't even know if it would match the worst of the series. Still would be successful, but that still leaves a lot of room in-between. As fads, go give it ten years, interest might pick up for a new book release (obviously something that doesn't apply to the Hobbit which was older release then LoTR), and it could also have significant migration of people who have moved away from that universe.

PeludoYou compare final entry versus years later new additions, but fishnet was talking how bad it was that the Hobbit couldn't beat Fellowships adjusted. For that comparison whats the attendance difference between the adjusted Star Wars and Phantom Menace, and Raiders of the Lost arc versus Indy IV, I think in both cases the drop is far, far larger (but I easily could be wrong), certainly for Indy, and still considerably larger for Wars to Menace (factor out the rerelease, which was far larger then the rerelease on Indy).And really I think its odd that people would compare direct sequels to (Pirates, HP, ect) when so little of the elements of the original film is what is part of the newer film. At least with Reboots you get a considerable amount of new actors that can change how people react to the film. I mean I wouldn't expect a story about Dumbledore youth to do anywhere near the range of the end of the harry Potter Saga, and Imagine Pirates doing a sequel years later without its primary star, say with Orlando headlining it, with five or so small characters who were typically in only say five or ten minutes of the earlier films. I don't think anyone would expect that movie to take off.Star Wars Prequel is a pretty close comparison as it primaryly features minor (screen time wise) players from the previous films (Vader, Obiwan, C3po, R2) with the rest being new characters from the original films.I mean Gandalf (big name character), but absent through huge big sections of Fellowship, is a rather small character in Two Towers, and a important yet still fairly small part of Return of the King, is the primary returning character.I don't think any of the franchise's mentions in your second part when talking about Japan, would have held up anywhere near how they did by not having the primary stars continue as the stars of the sequels.

If Fishnets was talking domestic, then it really makes no sense, as teh number of tickets sold yearly have typically decline throughout time, and have certainly dropped since 2001. Enough so that films even with getting a bump from limited Imax, and for partial higher prices for some tickets due to 3D still don't equal the sales of that year. And in at least modern film, where returning to a property is common, what film with a ten year gap as beat the adjusted number of its original? I Seriously I can only think of Trek,a nd the neither of the Trek films in question were blockbusters. But by the same token I didn't understand why anyone thought the Hobbit should score outlandish numbers. Most of the markets the LotR films did great in, weren't the markets that saw growth overseas, so I certainly saw no pattern for truly out of the world overseas performance. And even more to the point, the source material is known, is well known, and is not considered anywhere near the quality of work as Lord of the Rings (and its still considered quality, but not one of the most important works of the 20 century). I wasn't that surprised by Japan, as many US films have lately done almost nothing there, and looking back at several other places like South america, it hit about 10% less then I was expecting there, but thats about it. I mean China is going to do what, six times what Fellowship did. I only expected 5 times better. I already stated my guess was 1.05 billion, and I will be about at the end of the run about 45 million off. But my range, was 900 million to 1.2 billion (and that is if the markets that I didn't expect anything from actually did do some real business). I thought that upper range was very unlikely. Just as I thought 900 would be really hard to do.

Fishnets, and really anyone else, why on earth would you expect the Hobbit to best Fotr adjusted ww total? In the 11 years since FOTR, how much as the box office changed? Some markets have expanded, a bunch have also shrunk. Look at the decade decline in box office attendance since 2001 in its biggest two markets (US and Canada)? Its substantial. Not even Imax, and 3 D pricing can have the studios generate that much in sales, let alone in individual tickets. Then look at the data from the FOTR, what markets did it do great in, and what markets did it do ok in. It did great in markets that haven't been part of a massive expansion. Europe LOTR killed, but Europe hasn't seen a real expansion in the last decade, its been closer to the US which has shrunk. Even using the date of RoTK, its been 9 years since one of these Tolkien films have been released. What projects that have had that long between entries, manage to outperform the original in adjusted dollars? Besides films that weren't blockbusters, where its much easier to manage a big increase, I can only think of one film that has had a decade plus separating the first version, and its prequel, sequel, or reboot. And thats Star Trek, and while it was the #2 film the year it came out in 79 (Kramer vrs Kramer was bigger), it still wasn't a blockbuster. So what other properties with a long stretch between original entires has managed to best its adjusted value? What am I missing that makes the Hobbit missing it, so bad? I also never expected it to make over a billion overseas (that we agree on). I expected this number overseas (700 million), and about 50 million more US (I was expected higher then FoTR, and TT, but not RoTK). But for me, 50 million off of a guess of a WW total of 1.050 billion isn't that big of a margin or error.

So if I am converting this correctly, Monday and Tuesday added 5.232 million US? Film has earned in now 5 days 23.918 million US? Sound right?

Ha, Ha.. NO. I mean seriously Trek. I am a huge huge Trek fan back from 1966 and Trek would be lucky to get 250 overseas. If it did 350, that would be utterly surprising.

See that statement right there makes your other statements about Hobbit being the biggest Bomb, utterly meaningless. I expected the Hobbit to open stronger and perform lower based on admissions in most of the world, I expected a few places of growth, including China, based on their overall industry growth. Its based off of very known factors, one of the most read books around, and is considered vastly inferior to Lord of the Rings. It features only minor characters from the other film, and one major (though really he isn't that big of a character in either books, and that's Gandalf). Thus I really, really didn't expect it to behave like many a sequel, where the story is literally an unknown and often features many of the same actors in major roles. The Hobbit dud great in parts of the World, but it was easy to see that it wasn't doing it well in others. Add to that, we have seen a lot of US films doing not that well in China in the last year. You factor those two factors in, and you need to lower your expectations for films in your country.

DS9 - Easily, the most complex story telling and the deepest range of characters and supporting characters. TNG _ If not for the utterly awful seasons 1 and 2 and middlingly season 7, it might have given DS9 a run for the money. TOS _ First love, right out of the gate, but it was also very hit and miss and had very little depth to it. Of course it was first, from a truly different era of tv. And had two really strong seasons. But a the third season blew junks and right there thats a third of a series. ENT - Closest in spirit to TOS, but we already had 500 plus hours of Trek. Suffered from a lack of a driven lead character until season three. And a season four that had materials fans wanted but thrown together in a way that felt completely contrived. The only series that really tried to capture the AWE of being in space. VOY - If the show would have been set in the Alpha Quadrant, it would have been fine. But isolated, the show basically ignored its own on concept. Suffered its its first three years by the constant change of leadership. in the writing staff, with two primary writers who wanted to tell two different style of shows (Piller and Taylor). Two standout characters (who were used to much, but they did rock as characters), but more bland characters then any other modern Trek.

So we are going to need China for about 35 million or so to scrape up 1 billion. So what sort of range is expected for China, low to high?