Prove that studio coming to Italy for shooting was really not for money. And the two highest grossing film of 2023 in Italy have nothing to do with Italy at all.
Italian aren't very responsive to the movie that shoot on location. JW3 had major shooting in Paris but neither France responded a lot to that selling point.
I seriously doubt so, the 5 days trend doesn't scream any major breakout sign. Barbie had a insane jump from Fri-Sat and another jump from Sat-Sun, that form the foundation for the 2nd weekend increase. Not to mention there are three local film coming this weekend, one of which are selling pretty good in presale.
But when a "supposed" niche event become this huge, it is hard not to expect the buzz start spilling over to the more general audience who are caught in the hype.
When a marvel movie is short, they generally pointing to a less-satisfying quality.
Thor 2 (112 min), Antman 3 (124min), thor 4 (118min) , iron man 2 (124min)
Sony probably make a right decision to move GT to this weekend. Without NCD, GT would still make like $17-ish OW but with NCD, they can keep that $17m OW but with far higher admission they would never get otherwise. Sunday alone was 1.1m admission for GT and that is $16m by normal ticket price.