April 5 Weekend/Actual Totals

1 Battleship - $1,232,073 (weekend actual)
2 Titanic 3D - $1,179,777
3 Love In The Buff - $3,284,446
4 Mirror Mirror - $978,858
5 The Hunger Games - $2,422,861
6 The Lorax - $601,848
7 Wrath Of The Titans - $1,433,294
8 Man On A Ledge - $256,189
9 A Simple Life - $3,418,547
10 Nightfall - $2,264,871

Battleship does have the biggest OW of the year although it is with an asterisk. That number also includes the Wednesday previews.

Everything else in the top 5 went down from estimates as well.


A Simple Life has gained new life from theaters after ticket sales went up because of its sweep in the major categories at the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday. I think 3.5m is a certainty now.

I want to see A Simple Life, Let the Bullets Fly and You Are the Apple of My Eye. Some critics joke A Simple Life should be renamed as The Boring Nursing Home Diaries of An Old Woman. Let the Bullets Fly is a joint production and was released in mainland China. How its obvious allusion to the 1989 Democratic Movement managed to get past the censors intrigued me. You Are the Apple of My Eye was the only one Taiwan release that became a hit in Hong Kong in the last two decades or so.

I've seen A Simple Life and Let the Bullets Fly. A Simple Life is the best movie of the year so far. It deserves all the success it gets. Let the Bullets Fly is OK but I think the movie is tailored more to mainland tastes rather than HK tastes. Some of the humor is not funny and the movie almost felt like a satire at points. I also heard really bad WOM coming out of my theater.

	Monday adm.				April 16
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Battleship	--	10,134	--	-75.2%
2	Titanic 3D	10,840	3,472	-68.0%	-61.8%
3	Love in the Buff	21,868	3,384	-84.5%	-58.5%
4	Mirror Mirror (Eng.)	15,737	1,764	-88.8%	-73.1%
5	The Hunger Games	10,345	1,103	-89.3%	-75.2%

The Monday number for Battleship is only 44% of its opening day. Horrible. Good hold for Titanic. Everything else crumbled.

Tuesday:
A Simple Life resurfaces and cracks the top 5.


It looks like there will be no openers that will contend for #1 this week. Battleship will easily repeat. Out of all the openers, Machine Gun Preacher stands the best chance of making the top 5. Titanic and Love in the Buff will duel for spots in the top 3.

Next week should be fun.

	Wednesday adm.	(so far)			April 18
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Battleship	4,345	2,875	-33.8%	-43.3%
2	Titanic 3D	3,422	2,036	-40.5%	-24.5%
3	Love in the Buff	2,866	1,406	-50.9%	-29.1%
4	Mirror Mirror (Eng.)	--	646	--	-40.4%
5	The Lorax (3D Eng.)	--	490	--	--

Battleship is falling like a ton of bricks. Decent for Titanic. Love in the Buff might be stabilizing.

Nice for Titanic. WOM is kicking in for Battleship?

No. The Wednesday number for Battleship last week is from previews so it means that Battleship's going to decrease from its Wednesday previews last week. Not good.

Blue after following all your posts it was obvious that the movie decreased. That meant that the WOM for Battleship is not-as-good and thus the falling by ton of bricks.

Records and schedules all updated.

BIG news coming out today. The Grand Master starring Tony Leung Chi Wai is getting a December 18th release.

	Wednesday adm.				April 18
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Battleship	14,305	8,073	-43.6%	-45.3%
2	Love in the Buff	8,251	3,676	-55.4%	-26.5%
3	Titanic 3D	6,005	3,519	-41.4%	-20.6%
4	Mirror Mirror (Eng.)	5,990	1,904	-68.2%	-28.9%
5	The Hunger Games	--	1,192	--	-32.2%

	Thursday adm.	(so far)			April 19
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Titanic 3D	2,848	2,120	-25.6%	+4.1%
2	Battleship	9,293	1,150	-87.6%	-60.0%
3	Love in the Buff	2,149	972	-54.8%	-30.9%
4	Machine Gun Preacher	--	625	--	--
5	A Simple Life	--	578	--	--

Very good for Titanic. That is horrible for Battleship. I've never seen such erosion...not even from Clash of the Titans IMO. Not very good for Love in the Buff. Terrible for Machine Gun Preacher. Excellent for A Simple Life. This might have a shot at the top 5 this weekend.

								Apr. 12 WKD
Rank TW (LW)	Film Title/Origin	Distributor	Weeks	Weekend BO	Screens	Per Screen Average	% change	B.O. Cume
1 (-)	Battleship (US)	Universal Pictures International	NEW	1,229,915	41	$29,998		$1,229,915
2 (3)	Titanic 3D (US)	20th Century Fox	2	308,343	29	$10,633	-35%	$1,178,535
3 (1)	Love In The Buff (Chn, HK)	Gala	3	245,339	40	$6,134	-72%	$3,288,348
4 (2)	Mirror Mirror (US)	Pan	2	194,623	32	$6,082	-65%	$976,724
5 (4)	The Hunger Games (US)	UAF Emperor Motion Pictures	4	122,910	29	$4,239	-66%	$2,427,822
6 (5)	Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (US)	Universal Pictures International	2	111,491	32	$3,485	-67%	$605,423
7 (-)	Sunny (S Kor)	Pan	NEW	47,542	13	$3,658		$47,542
8 (-)	Shame (UK)	Golden Scene	NEW	44,694	7	$6,385		$44,694
9 (7)	Man On A Ledge (US)	Deltamac	2	37,043	23	$1,611	-76%	$255,448
10 (9)	A Simple Life (Chn, HK)	UAF DW	6	36,566	21	$1,742	-66%	$3,411,986

To sum this all up: Battleship good. Titanic great. Rest of the holdovers bad. Shame meh. Sunny flop.

Battleship drops to #3 with Thursday midnights factored out.

Battleship is falling way faster than I thought. I think the movie is bad but WOM cannot be the only factor here plus the competition this weekend in HK is kinda weak.

I really can't explain it. It's not like any other films are benefiting from Battleship dropping so much.

More on the The Grand Master, this has been a film which has been sidelined for a year. To get a prime release date near Christmas shows the confidence that the studio has with this movie. If this gets a Cantonese dub, this could be one of the biggest movies in the winter.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter moves back to June but gets a new release date of June 28.

I did say B-Ship is going to have terrible legs in the other thread, didn't I? There's really not a single damn thing you can recommend to someone. It's bad, but not bad in a funny and enjoyable way. The only great scene is when they actually emulate the game on screen. When a buoy grid with pulsating red dots is the most exhilarating thing in the movie that copies modern sci-fi video games when it comes to alien design and Transformers when it comes to battles you know this shit is going to sink itself.

That bad, huh? Guess I will go to the theater tomorrow and find out for myself.

Meanwhile, The Hobbit won't be affected too much by this development.

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 might though. If they are aiming for another Christmas release with the last film, they are putting themselves in the line of fire with The Hobbit, Grand Master and Life of Pi all coming out.

	Thursday adm.			April 19
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	Battleship	23,029	3,344	-85.5%
2	Titanic 3D	5,036	3,035	-39.7%
3	Love in the Buff	5,893	2,884	-51.1%
4	407 Dark Flight 3D	--	1,847	--
5	Machine Gun Preacher	--	1,625	--

I am floored. I thought Battleship would get it into the low 70's for the day. That's just plain ugly. 86% drop. Titanic had a good hold. Love in the Buff did OK. Weak for 407 Dark Flight. Machine Gun Preacher is not making $80,000 this weekend. Yikes.

	Friday adm.	(so far)			April 20
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Titanic 3D	3,472	2,567	-26.1%	+21.1%
2	Love in the Buff	3,652	1,863	-49.0%	+91.7%
3	Battleship	10,791	1,521	-85.9%	+32.3%
4	407 Dark Flight 3D	--	862	--	--
5	A Dangerous Method	--	796	--	--

Solid for Titanic. Buff is coming back. Battleship continues to slide into oblivion. 407 Dark Flight did small numbers. Respectable for A Dangerous Method with only a limited release.

Titanic is stretching its awesome legs now. Would be a huge surprise IMO if it wins this weekend, last weekend was supposed to be Anniversary but this weekend would just be amazing hold.

That would be great. I still have Battleship out in front to win a second time though because it is more of a weekend movie.

Odds of winning the weekend:
Battleship - 40%
Titanic - 30%
407 Dark Flight - 20%
Love in the Buff - 10%

I added in 407 Dark Flight because theaters are moving this up to the 2nd biggest screen. I could see this throwing a wrench in Battleship/Titanic's plans.

What are reviews like in HK for Battleship?

People are slaughtering the movie, calling it shit and worse than Cloverfield.

Well, looks like admissions are a problem again. Battleship led all releases with $79,229 (-61.3% drop) on Thursday and it's well out in front of all other movies. Battleship will repeat as the top choice this weekend. Rest of the top 10 to come.

Reviews aren't too bad in Japan.

On Eiga.com, the avg. rating is 3.5/5. And on Yahoo! Movies, it's at a 3.64/5 avg.

So good WOM there then? I've actually heard a bit of good WOM here but looking at the internet discussion, users are lambasting the movie. Maybe it wasn't up to their expectations.

Probably have to wait and see how it performed during the weekdays before deciding if WOM is good or not, but the online user reviews suggest decent WOM.

		Thursday Actuals						April 19
LW	TW	Title	Last Thu. (USD)	Thursday (USD)	% chg	Theaters	Days	Total
1	1	Battleship	$204,980	$79,229	-61.3%	53	8	$1,650,382
--	2	407 Dark Flight 3D	--	$31,871	--	21	1	$31,871
2	3	Titanic 3D	$57,006	$27,100	-52.5%	31	16	$1,322,644
3	4	Love in the Buff	$47,241	$21,320	-54.9%	38	22	$3,393,707
--	5	Machine Gun Preacher	--	$11,596	--	19	1	$11,596
10	6	A Simple Life	$5,815	$11,231	+93.1%	22	42	$3,460,321
5	7	The Hunger Games	$22,817	$10,414	-54.4%	23	29	$2,467,779
4	8	Mirror Mirror	$33,669	$8,547	-74.6%	31	15	$1,036,506
--	9	A Dangerous Method	--	$8,193	--	8	1	$8,193
--	10	Lives in Flames	--	$7,393	--	33	1	$10,306

Nightfall	$2,273,198
Wrath of the Titans	$1,438,744
The Iron Lady	$755,891
The Lorax	$615,828

So Battleship doesn't sink as low as most of us thought. Another week of screwy admissions. Battleship will pass 1.9m and could possibly steam past 2m this weekend. Nice surprise to see 407 Dark Flight claim 2nd place. Frankly, Hollywood should be ashamed of its horror films losing to a Thai movie playing in only half of Hong Kong's theaters. As for 407 Dark Flight, it might capture $150,000 this weekend. Not bad for Titanic. This will come close to 1.5m after Sunday. Love in the Buff had a better hold after last week's post-holiday tumble. It'll pass 3.5m this weekend and might overtake A Simple Life as the biggest local film of the year. Not a good enough start for Machine Gun Preacher. It'll miss $100,000. Possible 4-day total could be just $80,000. A Simple Life surged after winning the major awards at the HK Film Awards last Sunday. 3.5m will be achieved this weekend. The Hunger Games rebounded after a heavy dip last weekend. It'll lock in 2.5m this weekend. Mirror Mirror continues to bleed. It might barely hit 1.1m and then disappear. Trainwreck performance for Lives in Flames. $40,000 might not even happen.

	Friday adm.				April 20
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Love in the Buff	8,294	4,954	-40.3%	+71.8%
2	Battleship	25,616	4,655	-81.8%	+39.2%
3	Titanic 3D	5,762	3,931	-31.8%	+29.5%
4	407 Dark Flight 3D	--	2,138	--	+15.8%
5	Machine Gun Preacher	--	2,128	--	+31.0%

Buff and Titanic had good holds. Battleship looks to be holding better. Decent for 407 Dark Flight. Machine Gun Preacher isn't doing great.

	Saturday adm.	(so far)			April 21
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Titanic 3D	4,993	3,609	-27.7%	+40.6%
2	Battleship	16,099	2,974	-81.5%	+95.5%
3	Love in the Buff	3,922	2,070	-47.2%	+11.1%
4	407 Dark Flight 3D	--	1,402	--	+62.6%
5	A Simple Life	--	1,359	--	--

Nice hold by Titanic. Battleship had a nice bump. Buff is doing much better than last week. 407 Dark Flight is doing OK. Good for A Simple Life.


The Avengers has looked great in IMAX. Showtimes are 80-90% full.