xiao2000

I was wrong and Maoyan's prediction was right. TWE did 98 million, just below 100m for Saturday. TWE now only needs to do 63% of ORS's gross from the comparable day on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 33% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion. It did about 59% better than ORS on the comparable Saturday. (TWE 98 million vs ORS 61.4 million) Given the weak upcoming competition, this shows that 4.75 billion RMB is probably locked. 

TWE grossed 60 million RMB on Friday, increasing from Thursday and exceeding my expectations (and beating Maoyan's prediction by 50%!) Coupled with its large mid-week drops, this is confirmation that TWE's audience is skewed towards kids and family. While Maoyan has adjusted its predictions upward to just below 100 million RMB for Saturday, I believe that this is still too low, not taking into account the family nature of TWE's audience. Instead, I believe that TWE will increase by around 70%, and reach above 100m RMB. Due to today's increase, TWE now only needs to do 77% of ORS's gross from the comparable day on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 37% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion. It did 55% better than ORS on the comparable Friday. (TWE 60 million vs ORS 38.7 million) This shows that 4.75 billion RMB remains very likely (if not locked).

I'm not sure. It really depends on how it holds this weekend. I do think 4.7B is very likely.

After Thursday's 54 million RMB gross, TWE needs to do 84% of ORS from the comparable day on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 39% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion. It did less than ORS on the comparable Thursday because the latter was on International Women's Day, a half-day holiday for women in China. (TWE 54 million vs ORS 68 million) I believe that Maoyan's prediction of merely 40 million RMB for Friday is an underestimate. Its algorithm overestimated TWE earlier in the week because it did not take into account schools opening mid-week, and Wandering Earth is a relatively family-friendly movie among Chinese New Year releases. Now it's overcompensating by overestimating TWE's drops for today.

Some evidence on the impacts of school holidays ending: On Monday, Boonie Bears had a gross that was 2 million yuan above the Valentine Day love flick, while by Wednesday it dropped to 0.25 million yuan below.

I just found out about another interesting fact: the vast majority of kids are back in school by Feb 21. Here is a list of cities and their last day of winter vacation in China: February 17: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Nanjing, Changsha, Suzhou, Wuxi, Dongguan, Kunming February 19-20: Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, Hefei, Shijiazhuang, Ningbo, Nanchang February 24 or later: Beijing, Chongqing, Nanning, Guiyang, Shenyang, Changchun This could mean that next week's drops are not as bad as we might think based on this week's drops. I guess we'll have to see.

I would be very surprised if TWE doesn't reach 700m USD: that corresponds roughtly to 4.7 billion RMB using today's exchange rate, since it only needs to match ORS's drops when it normalized after the Lantern Festival. ORS dropped around 55% week-over-week with heavy competition, TWE's competition will not be as fierce. With today's drop, TWE only needs to do 83% of what Operation Red Sea (ORS) earned from the comparable day on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 31% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion, and 79% better to reach RMB 5 billion. The latter is unlikely to happen. It did around 62% better than ORS on a comparable Wednesday. (RMB 65 million versus RMB 40 million)

With today's holiday-boosted gross, TWE only needs to do 89% of what Operation Red Sea (ORS) earned from now on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 33% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion, and 78% better to reach RMB 5 billion. Yesterday it did more than 2.5 times as much as ORS on a comparable Tuesday. (RMB 111 million versus RMB 43.7 million) Another interesting fact from ORS' run is that from this comparable weekend on, every weekend it faced a Hollywood action blockbuster that got 50% or more of all seats available on its first day (Black Panther, Tomb Raider, Pacific Rim 2, Ready Player One). This severely cut into ORS' legs. At first glance, TWE's future Hollywood competition doesn't look to be as fierce, so it will be interesting to see whether it can hold up any better.

Thanks! I've been following China's box office for a while now, now I'm really excited to track TWE's gross (since I really loved the movie) and see whether it can reach RMB 5 billion.

It seems that TWE just need to match ORS from the third week on to reach RMB 4.5 billion. It needs to do about 40% better to reach RMB 4.75 billion, and 83% better to reach RMB 5 billion. Yesterday it did twice as much as ORS on a comparable Monday. (RMB 99 million versus RMB 49.4 million)