Bluebomb

December 13 Weekend Actuals 1. The Hobbit - $1,488,931 (weekend actual) 2. Life of Pi - $4,598,397 (~ $335,000 this weekend, -54.5%) 3. My Sassy Hubby - $913,486 (~ $290,000 this weekend, -29.0%) Back to 1942 - $296,754 (~ $74,000 this weekend, -53.3%) Cold War - $5,416,406 (~ $53,000 this weekend, -70.0%) Penance (Part 1) - $9,031 (weekend actual) All About My Wife - $2,838 (weekend actual) Others Skyfall - $4,806,125 A Ghost of A Chance - $64,511 Rurouni Kenshin - $91,606 Rise of the Guardians - $317,397 The Fierce Wife - $85,155 The Hobbit just missed 1.5m this weekend. I could have sworn Life of Pi made just over 4.6m this weekend. In any case, it has already passed 4.6m on Monday. 5m still unsure. My Sassy Hubby had a wonderful hold. Will pass 1m by Wednesday. Cold War stumbled 70% this weekend. 5.5m is gone. Penance Part 1 scored a $9,031 weekend from 1 theater. All About My Wife slumbered and opened very poorly. Skyfall's time is just about up. A Ghost of A Chance, Rurouni Kenshin and The Fierce Wife won't make much more before leaving next week. Rise of the Guardians will be gone from the remaining theaters next weekend. December 20 Predictions

I think both were affected. SARS would have made a bigger impact on ROTK though because tourism would be well down, theaters would shut down due to loss of business, people would still be weary about going to the theater and sitting next to others, etc.I think only the tail end of TTT's was affected. TTT didn't make much more after February, right when the first case of SARS in HK was reported.

FOTR made 3.1m. TTT made 3.4m. ROTK made 4.9m. TTT and ROTK were both affected by SARS. I consider them as big movies. TH1 had a so-so opening but it does not mean it will have an average final gross. I expect a nice perk up for The Hobbit next weekend. Regardless of my initial predictions for TH1, I still think it will pull out a very good gross.

First off, you're comparing a gross from 2003 and before to now. There's no way that if ROTK were to be released today, it would make only 4.9m.LOL at LotR series never being big. ROTK was the #1 film of 2003. Let's not forget that SARS crippled the industry in 2003 and ROTK still increased from TTT by 1.5m.

Opening week(end) comparisonFOTR: No dataTTT: $1,806,454 (7 day week + previews)ROTK: $1,762,788 (7 day week)Hobbit: $1,500,000 (4-day est., 7 day over 2m -- 80-85% 3D)I'd say that's an OK start for The Hobbit.

Not sure yet. Even though it'll be a little more than $400,000 away after this weekend, I fear it might not survive the onslaught that is coming next week.A 55% drop this weekend isn't bad at all despite The Hobbit starting with a whimper. But it really needed to hold better if it wanted to convince theater chains of keeping it another week. I think it will get squeezed out next weekend. It's got The Hobbit, Jack Reacher, Twilight Breaking Dawn 2, Les Misérables, Wreck-It Ralph, CZ12 all getting screens. That leaves it without a screen. Now CZ12 might get a smaller release but I could easily see another screen going to The Hobbit/Twilight/Jack Reacher. It's all very up in the air right now but I think Life of Pi will lose out on a respectable hold next weekend and 5m overall.

Sunday December 16 Rank Title LW (adm.) TW (adm.) % chg (adm.) QD % chg (adm.) 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 32,628 -- -5.2% 2 Life of Pi 29,320 12,277 -58.1% +3.0% 3 My Sassy Hubby 19,260 11,903 -38.2% +2.6% 4 Wreck-It Ralph -- 6,578 -- +55.3% 5 Back to 1942 6,894 3,377 -51.0% +16.3% 8 out of the top 9 films increased on Sunday except for The Hobbit. Still, that number is OK for The Hobbit. Underwhelming hold for Life of Pi. My Sassy Hubby held well. Massive Sunday increase for Wreck-It Ralph. It even beat Rise of the Guardians' biggest admissions day with just its Sunday previews. It will see a huge spike next week when it opens for good. It will at least quadruple Rise of the Guardians' final gross. Back to 1942 posted a solid Sunday increase as well. Weekend adm. Dec 13-16 Rank Title LW TW % chg 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 108,090 -- 2 Life of Pi 83,104 36,666 -55.9% 3 My Sassy Hubby 60,519 40,119 -33.7% 4 Wreck-It Ralph -- 10,813 -- 5 Back to 1942 22,506 10,588 -53.0% Weekend Estimates December 13 Rank Title TW % chg Total 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey $1,500,000 $1,500,000 2 Life of Pi $320,000 -56.5% $4,585,000 3 My Sassy Hubby $260,000 -36.0% $885,000 4 Wreck-It Ralph $80,000 $80,000 5 Back to 1942 $75,000 -52.6% $298,000 Not much change with estimates except for the bottom 2 which saw double digit increases on Sunday.

The Hobbit will generate a 3D market share of about 80-85% this weekend. Weekend Projections December 13 Rank Title TW % chg Total 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey $1,500,000 $1,500,000 2 Life of Pi $320,000 -56.5% $4,585,000 3 My Sassy Hubby $260,000 -36.0% $885,000 4 Wreck-It Ralph $75,000 $75,000 5 Back to 1942 $72,000 -54.5% $295,000 Breaking Dawn Part 2 grossed $35,000 in sneaks. A slow-ish start for The Hobbit. But if we compare its projected HK gross to other places, 1.5m isn't bad at all. I expect a slight increase over the Christmas holidays. Life of Pi is capsizing due to weaker Saturday/Sunday admissions. 5m is a toss up. My Sassy Hubby will have the best hold of the top 10. Likewise with almost all holdovers this weekend, its best days were Thursday/Friday when it only dropped 20%~. It'll pass 1m next week. Wreck-It Ralph sneaks were decent. The sneaks will help bring in more awareness before next week's official opening day. Early reviews are looking good. Back to 1942 was looking at an OK hold before dipping quite hard on Saturday. $400,000 is out of the picture. Sunday adm. (so far) December 16 Rank Title LW TW % chg QD % chg 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 16,525 -- +2.0% 2 Life of Pi 14,168 5,382 -62.0% +24.0% 3 My Sassy Hubby 3,967 2,828 -28.7% +22.4% 4 Wreck-It Ralph -- 2,473 -- +56.2% 5 Back to 1942 2,131 1,244 -41.6% -- Not bad for The Hobbit. Life of Pi is still feeling the weight of lost Saturday/Sunday showings. It'll increase today. Great hold for My Sassy Hubby in pre-sales but it'll fall about 40% on Sunday. Huge increase for Wreck-It Ralph. It'll make close to 10,500 admissions in 2 days. Decent pre-sales hold for Back to 1942 but it will give way to a larger drop, possibly over 55% today.

Thursday actuals (December 13) 1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - $255,627 (opening day) 2. My Sassy Hubby - $50,350 (-20.5%)/$675,217 3. Life of Pi - $45,186 (-43.6%)/$4,309,513 4. Back to 1942 - $12,910 (-50.8%)/$236,261 5. Cold War - $10,199 (-59.4%)/$5,374,626 Others Skyfall - $4,785,909 The Fierce Wife - $67,134 Rurouni Kenshin - $2,582 (-67.8%)/$77,462 A Ghost of A Chance - $2,065/$50,350 All About My Wife - $516 (opening day) My Sassy Hubby held well. Ok for Life of Pi. Back to 1942 had an average hold. Cold War is fading. Saturday December 15 Rank Title LW (adm.) TW (adm.) % chg (adm.) QD % chg (adm.) 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 34,430 -- +52.4% 2 Life of Pi 29,638 11,919 -59.8% +62.7% 3 My Sassy Hubby 19,945 11,604 -41.8% +29.7% 4 Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 -- 6,292 -- -- 5 Wreck-It Ralph -- 4,235 -- -- Decent increase for The Hobbit. All holdovers today saw steep drops compared to Thursday and Friday. Life of Pi went down 60% today because of Hobbit/Breaking Dawn Part 2/Wreck-It Ralph combo. My Sassy Hubby held the best of any holdover and only dropped 42%. Those are good sneak numbers for Breaking Dawn Part 2. Wreck-It Ralph unofficially opened to a fairly good number. It will increase on Sunday.

Opening day The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - $255,627 Much lower than what I initially predicted but higher than what its admissions and avg price suggested. It'll make about 1.5m this weekend, which is an acceptable gross for The Hobbit here. It still has a lot of work ahead if it wants to make 10m. Figures for the holdovers will be posted later.

Les Misérables sneaks begin Dec. 22 and will last until Christmas Eve.

Dec. 6 WKD Rank Movie Distributor Weekend BO Weeks Engmnts Eng. average % change B.O. Cume 1 Life of Pi Fox $736,015 3 62 $11,871 -35% $4,040,277 2 My Wife Is 18 (2) Gala Films $406,323 1 39 $10,419 $406,323 3 Cold War Edko Films $177,595 5 39 $4,554 -51% $5,300,127 4 Back to 1942 Lark Films Distribution $158,350 1 21 $7,540 $158,350 5 Code Name: Geronimo Intercontinental Films $65,240 1 14 $4,660 $65,240 6 Skyfall Sony $64,564 6 18 $3,587 -52% $4,762,129 7 Rurouni Kenshin Panasia Films $47,354 1 12 $3,946 $47,354 8 Fierce Wife: Final Episode, The BVI $44,306 1 11 $4,028 $44,306 9 Rise of The Guardians Intercontinental Films $39,010 3 17 $2,295 -51% $307,269 10 Sutekina Kanashibari (Once in the Blue Moon)(Ghost Of A Chance, A) Golden Scene Co $34,217 1 6 $5,703 $34,217 Good hold for Life of Pi. Good start for My Sassy Hubby. Cold War just missed being the first film in a while to drop less than 50% for 4 straight weeks. Exceptional total, however, and it will pass 5.4m. Back to 1942 opened OK. Code Name Geronimo blew up. Skyfall is dying now that Life of Pi and My Sassy Hubby have taken over. Ruruoni Kenshin, Fierce Wife both had dismal openings. Rise of the Guardians couldn't drop under 50% despite falling less than 50% on Sunday. A Ghost of a Chance put in a decent performance. Friday December 14 Rank Title LW (adm.) TW (adm.) % chg (adm.) QD % chg (adm.) 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 22,592 -- +22.5% 2 My Sassy Hubby 11,450 8,948 -21.9% +16.8% 3 Life of Pi 14,703 7,328 -50.2% +42.5% 4 Back to 1942 4,328 2,448 -43.4% +31.7% 5 Cold War 6,314 2,290 -63.7% +38.1% Hobbit isn't doing so great. I am still a believer that it will do great things this Christmas. It looks like this will start off with 1.5m. Saturday and Sunday should pick up a bit but not too much considering the holidays are just around the corner. Before anyone calls it a flop, please remember that ROTK made only 1.76m from 7 days so it will still gross more in 1 week than ROTK. And it will still beat ROTK's final gross. My Sassy Hubby had an outstanding hold. Of course, it won't hold as well on Saturday and Sunday but it should be able to get $275,000 this weekend. Life of Pi held OK but its Saturday and Sunday drops will be larger so the drop isn't anything spectacular. Back to 1942 is showing signs of a decent hold. Cold War is almost dead. The 50% drop last week was the beginning of the end for it. It'll still leave theaters with 5.4m, far above what anyone expected from this movie. Saturday adm. (so far) December 15 Rank Title LW TW % chg QD % chg 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 16,202 -- +57.2% 2 Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 -- 5,282 -- -- 3 Life of Pi 11,416 4,341 -62.0% +81.6% 4 My Sassy Hubby 3,940 2,310 -41.4% +34.9% 5 Wreck-It Ralph -- 1,583 -- -- Still not that good for The Hobbit. I expected a huge jump and it didn't materialize. Let's see if it picks up with walk-ins. Twilight got off to an early start thanks to Saturday night previews. Only 10 PM shows were scheduled throughout the city so this is a pretty nice start. I don't want to say it's outstanding because Twihards love to come out on opening day and then start to disappear afterward. Let's see how much this will help with its opening weekend next week. I think it will get to $900,000 including these previews but I think 1m will be a stretch because it will be fighting for the female demographic with Les Miserables and The Hobbit this year. It had the female demographic to itself last year when Sherlock Holmes/Mission Impossible clogged up the majority of the screens and in 2010 when Eclipse opened against Shrek 4. The only time it faced a movie with a female demographic was Avatar in 2009. Avatar killed everything and New Moon fell from Twilight by $300,000 (1.89m total for New Moon). Twilight has never hit #1 ever in HK and next week will be no different. The Hobbit will beat it; Jack Reacher could do it. To this day, Twilight remains the biggest film of the franchise in HK. Notice the increasingly bigger drops for Life of Pi this week? Good because The Hobbit is snatching away its weekend screens and as a result, it doesn't have the showings to maintain the business it did last weekend. It is pursuing a $350,000 weekend and a total of 4.6m. My Sassy Hubby has pulled off very strong performances the past few days. Although it slid a harder 41% with pre-sales on Saturday, it is looking at a very strong hold of just -30%. Wreck-It Ralph also got the special screenings treatment on Saturday. Theaters have given it different showtimes. Some have given it only 1 morning showing while others have given it 5, 6, even 7 showings. While this is only pre-sales for previews, it nearly matched Rise of the Guardians even though it had less showtimes and awareness. It'll stomp all over Rise of the Guardians and crush its total with just its opening weekend.

Yes. So does Wreck-It Ralph.

No it didn't. Stop being overdramatic.And what do you mean that The Hobbit only made half of Life of Pi's admissions?

No it didn't. Stop being overdramatic.

Friday adm. (so far) December 14 Rank Title LW TW % chg QD % chg 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 10,307 -- +18.2% 2 Life of Pi 5,835 2,390 -59.0% +54.5% 3 My Sassy Hubby 2,436 1,712 -29.7% +35.1% 4 Back to 1942 1,104 534 -51.6% +39.8% 5 Cold War 1,711 528 -69.1% +50.9% Not a great Friday start for The Hobbit. Huge crash for Life of Pi. My Sassy Hubby had another excellent hold. Back to 1942 is doing OK. Cold War is dead in the water.

How does The Hobbit's opening day fare compared to previous blockbusters? Movie OD admissions % diff The Hobbit 18,440 The Dark Knight Rises 38,750 -52.4% The Amazing Spider-Man 32,580 -43.4% The Avengers 47,317 -61.0% Transformers 3 44,161 -58.2% Harry Potter 7-2 62,089 -70.3% Toy Story 3 32,294 -42.9% Pirates 4 21,559 -14.5% Shrek 3 49,634 -62.8% Granted, everything else is from the summer. Still, The Hobbit should have done at least 20k. Life of Pi actually beat its opening day admissions by 7%. Before anyone chides me over the fact that it's a 3 hour long movie, The Hobbit is a blockbuster with a built in fanbase. Life of Pi had none. That doesn't mean The Hobbit can't recover from this setback. It can but it'll be a lot harder to increase over Christmas when you've did worse than theaters expected and with Jack Reacher, Twilight and Wreck-It Ralph all fighting for screens. I am still optimistic that The Hobbit will start to pull in admissions this weekend and it will spread over into Christmas but I'm definitely not liking this low start. If we put in Mission Impossible 4 into the blockbuster mix... Mission Impossible 4 24,390 -24.4% Not an encouraging sign for The Hobbit. Hoping for better from The Hobbit this weekend.

What do you mean by this? Pi only made 19,700 on opening day. Edit: And Hobbit is going to have a bigger opening day than Pi in gross.

Thursday December 13 Rank Title LW (adm.) TW (adm.) % chg (adm.) 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 18,440 -- 2 My Sassy Hubby 9,864 7,664 -22.3% 3 Life of Pi 9,443 5,142 -45.5% 4 Back to 1942 3,784 1,859 -50.9% 5 Cold War 4,386 1,658 -62.2% Disappointing. I was counting on it hitting 25,000 today. It'll make over $200,000 with actuals but this wasn't what I had envisioned for The Hobbit. My Sassy Hubby had an excellent hold. Looks like this will make about 1.5m even though WOM is only so-so. Very good for Life of Pi but actuals should have it dropping over 50% due to the loss of IMAX. Back to 1942 had a decent hold. Cold War did poorly.

Should be about 6m after Xmas and 7.5m after New Year weekend.

Ok, so after a few more hours of seeing where The Hobbit will finish on Thursday, I think I can confidently predict what will happen this weekend. Thu: $300,000 (25,000 admissions) Fri: $450,000 (+50%) Sat: $950,000 (+111%) Sun: $850,000 (-11%) Total: $2,550,000 (+45% from ROTK's 7-day week) The Hobbit should start off lower on Thursday but will pick up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday should see an enormous jump over 100% and weekend pre-sales are backing this scenario. Christmas weekend should see a very strong hold, still in the 2m+ range.

And so it begins... Thursday adm. (so far) December 13 Rank Title LW TW % chg 1 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- 8,719 -- 2 Life of Pi 3,486 1,547 -55.6% 3 My Sassy Hubby 2,016 1,267 -37.2% 4 Back to 1942 990 382 -61.4% 5 Cold War 1,048 350 -66.6% The low start isn't an encouraging sign for The Hobbit, however, it still has very high ticket prices to offset any low admissions. I'm not too worried about the slightly disappointing admissions just yet. Not a great hold for Life of Pi. It will fall about 55-60% for the day. It'll drop even harder this weekend. My Sassy Hubby had a good hold and could fall about 45% today. Back to 1942 and Cold War had poor holds although it is notable that Back to 1942 held a bit better than Cold War.

Good luck!

It's going to make more than Life of Pi. Don't worry. I can think of several. Very long runtime, very high ticket prices (don't forget that HK has one of the highest prices for The Hobbit), Christmas. It's not a terrible thing that The Hobbit won't have one of the biggest opening days of all time. It still has a lot of time to make money. No data for ROTK. I will get to that later.

Not a disaster.