China Box Office Thread | Oppenheimer-August 30

[Issac Newton]

3 minutes ago, Toruk Makto XXR said:

 

So does this mean a release is confirmed for A2 or is there still some doubt?

 

Release is confirmed. Just Dates are looking weird. WED OD will really be odd if it doesn't meant previews... Not saying anything bad but somehow just do not want to see a weekend getting inflated due to WED OD... 

[XXR vs XXR]

Just now, Issac Newton said:

Release is confirmed. Just Dates are looking weird. WED OD will really be odd if it doesn't meant previews... Not saying anything bad but somehow just do not want to see a weekend getting inflated due to WED OD... 

 

I see. Well at least if it released on Wednesday then we have a direct comparison to Endgame.

[porginchina]

2 minutes ago, Issac Newton said:

Release is confirmed. Just Dates are looking weird. WED OD will really be odd if it doesn't meant previews... Not saying anything bad but somehow just do not want to see a weekend getting inflated due to WED OD... 

I just want to know what day it comes out so I can take inform my employers that I'll be at the movie theater and not the office. With that beefy runtime, not sure I'll be able to squeeze in four showtimes on opening day, but I can sure try. PANDORA HERE I COME.

[keysersoze123]

if it opens on a working day I wonder how high it can go. what is single day BO record in China. Saturday would be in play for A2 for sure. 

[XXR vs XXR]

23 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

if it opens on a working day I wonder how high it can go. what is single day BO record in China. Saturday would be in play for A2 for sure. 

Detective Chinatown 3 grossed $163M / ¥1.05B on its first day. 

[NCsoft]

50 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

if it opens on a working day I wonder how high it can go. what is single day BO record in China. Saturday would be in play for A2 for sure. 

China isn't in a position to create any sort of record right now.

[porginchina]

4 hours ago, keysersoze123 said:

if it opens on a working day I wonder how high it can go. what is single day BO record in China. Saturday would be in play for A2 for sure. 

The next contender for a single-day box office record is The Wandering Earth 2 on Jan. 23 (Spring Festival). Generally, you need the combination of a holiday and massive hype… I actually don't think Wandering Earth 2 will be able to take the record due to a) Covid b) the movie won't have the same must-see-at-once factor of Detective Chinatown 3, which promised answers to mysteries set up in the second part.

 

As an aside, my optimism for Disney's abilities to release movies in China increased massively in the last five minutes. Welcome back, Iger.

[xieh tie]

 

[porginchina]

6 minutes ago, xieh tie said:

 

Seems like box office goes up when you release new movies, who knew? November to date stands at a soft ¥454 million ($63.3 million USD) with ten days to go; November will join March 2022 (¥912 million), April 2022 (¥566 million), and May (¥716 million) 2022 as the first months* in a decade** where the aggregate Chinese box office fails to hit ¥1 billion.

 

No new releases of note confirmed beyond Friday's Where the Crawdads Sing (which feels unlikely to score huge).

 

*not counting 2020 when theaters were totally shut

**November 2012, ¥975 million; March 2012, ¥833 million

[ZeeSoh]

With the return of Bob Iger I could see a small increase in the probability that more Disney and Marvel movies could return to Chinese theatres. 
 

This is good news for Avatars prospects. 

[porginchina]

3 hours ago, ZeeSoh said:

With the return of Bob Iger I could see a small increase in the probability that more Disney and Marvel movies could return to Chinese theatres. 

I think it's more than a small increase… Iger's got actually good relationships with China (including a record of meeting one-on-one with Xi Jinping) and Chapek's a political moron who failed in Florida and managed to piss off Beijing during earnings calls.

[Sophia Jane]

OD record is impossible,Dc3 have 150m dollar and Avatar probably release on working day

Actually AEG not beating China OD record either (held by monster hunt2),so for A2 is normal

 

[porginchina]

10 minutes ago, Bruce said:

OD record is impossible,Dc3 have 150m dollar and Avatar probably release on working day

Actually AEG not beating China OD record either (held by monster hunt2),so for A2 is normal

Plus it's incredibly likely that more than 40% of theaters in China will be closed with the remaining theaters at a maximum of 50-75% capacity and also watching a movie entails scanning a health code and you get locked down or quarantined if big data shows that you were too close to a confirmed positive case or close contact of a confirmed positive case (in other words, going to the movies, like doing literally anything else in China right now, comes with an element of risk).

[eridani]

So... are you suggesting that actual earnings potential for any movie that opens in mid december in china is going to be at approximately 30% of what it would have otherwise earned, if there was no covid situation?

 

So, for example, if Avatar 2 was to earn 500 million if there was no covid, it is on track to earn around 150 million now?  (figures are just illustrative, i don't mean to prejudicate how much it would have earned)

[XXR vs XXR]

36 minutes ago, eridani said:

So... are you suggesting that actual earnings potential for any movie that opens in mid december in china is going to be at approximately 30% of what it would have otherwise earned, if there was no covid situation?

 

So, for example, if Avatar 2 was to earn 500 million if there was no covid, it is on track to earn around 150 million now?  (figures are just illustrative, i don't mean to prejudicate how much it would have earned)

Not necessarily, just that capacity will be reduced to those levels. 

[porginchina]

1 hour ago, eridani said:

So... are you suggesting that actual earnings potential for any movie that opens in mid december in china is going to be at approximately 30% of what it would have otherwise earned, if there was no covid situation?

 

So, for example, if Avatar 2 was to earn 500 million if there was no covid, it is on track to earn around 150 million now?  (figures are just illustrative, i don't mean to prejudicate how much it would have earned)

I don't know how heavily the seat restrictions per theater actually matter; closing about half the theaters nationwide is a pretty big deal. Restrictions look like they're going to get a LOT stricter in the weeks to come— within the past hour, Shanghai (where I live) announced massive limits on any fool who tries to enter the city from another province. So regardless of the seats available… I'm expecting dampened grosses.

[eridani]

And the restrictions are looking to stay in place for a few months, until the situation subsides?

I wonder if there are higher chances for A) A2 to get released in mid december

B ) A2 to get released after more theaters open, with the distributor hoping several months of delay won't impact sales as much as a release in the middle of a covid stricken market would?

or C) A2 wont get a wide release at all. Not due to politics but due to simply not making financial sense to try and market a wide and expensive release in such covid constricted and unstable market?

[porginchina]

52 minutes ago, eridani said:

And the restrictions are looking to stay in place for a few months, until the situation subsides?

I wonder if there are higher chances for A) A2 to get released in mid december

B ) A2 to get released after more theaters open, with the distributor hoping several months of delay won't impact sales as much as a release in the middle of a covid stricken market would?

or C) A2 wont get a wide release at all. Not due to politics but due to simply not making financial sense to try and market a wide and expensive release in such covid constricted and unstable market?

My (imperfect) understanding is that it's mid-December or nothing for Avatar; as a foreign movie, they don't have the negotiating power to wait until after theaters reopen. There's no political pressure to maximize Avatar grosses in the same way that there's political incentive to maximize The Battle at Lake Changjin grosses. Marketing in China is relatively inexpensive as China's a very digital-forward society, so that's not going to be a huge factor in the decision they make, especially for a non-Chinese movie (remember that Fantastic Beasts and The Batman both came out in similar circumstances earlier in 2022). With all that said, if things get really dicey, I could see Avatar being denied a release to keep people from crowding movie theaters.

[Arian1010]

8 hours ago, porginchina said:

My (imperfect) understanding is that it's mid-December or nothing for Avatar; as a foreign movie, they don't have the negotiating power to wait until after theaters reopen. There's no political pressure to maximize Avatar grosses in the same way that there's political incentive to maximize The Battle at Lake Changjin grosses. Marketing in China is relatively inexpensive as China's a very digital-forward society, so that's not going to be a huge factor in the decision they make, especially for a non-Chinese movie (remember that Fantastic Beasts and The Batman both came out in similar circumstances earlier in 2022). With all that said, if things get really dicey, I could see Avatar being denied a release to keep people from crowding movie theaters.

 

These cases still amuse me, they gave FB3 and The Batman long release times in China but at the same time the gov still locked people down left n right because of covid,  I know even tho some people in other cities didn't have to suffer it but the fact that the Chinese general audience wasn't interested in DC brand as a whole, the quality of the wizarding world films had been downgraded lately couldn't help WB either. So it's still a lose-lose situation for the film market.

[The GOAT]

8 hours ago, porginchina said:

My (imperfect) understanding is that it's mid-December or nothing for Avatar; as a foreign movie, they don't have the negotiating power to wait until after theaters reopen. There's no political pressure to maximize Avatar grosses in the same way that there's political incentive to maximize The Battle at Lake Changjin grosses. Marketing in China is relatively inexpensive as China's a very digital-forward society, so that's not going to be a huge factor in the decision they make, especially for a non-Chinese movie (remember that Fantastic Beasts and The Batman both came out in similar circumstances earlier in 2022). With all that said, if things get really dicey, I could see Avatar being denied a release to keep people from crowding movie theaters.

Why are they still pretending COVID is a thing? You can’t stop the spread forever. At some point, it doesn’t really matter.