There is another typhoon headed towards HK. #8 signal will soon be in force.

#10 warning in effect (equivalent to hurricane warning). Rain is going sideways and wind is howling at times. This storm just exploded into a Cat. 4 typhoon in the past few hours.

Based on early Thursday pre-sales, TDKR will fall 60% in its 2nd weekend.

Weekend/Total Actuals
1 The Dark Knight Rises - $3,320,908 (weekend actual)
2 Ice Age 4: Continental Drift - $3,469,502
3 The Amazing Spider-Man - $7,729,856
4 Abaraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - $1,356,307
5 Painted Skin: The Resurrection - $1,155,984
6 The Four - $221,757
7 Hotaru The Movie - $220,028
8 Silenced - $215,169
9 Late Autumn - $111,765
10 W.E. - $44,720

It's a little disappointing that TDKR didn't have a huge jump on the weekend. It does, however, secure #5 OW all-time. TDKR will make 4.8m in 7 days.

Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy Comparison Chart

	Batman Begins	The Dark Knight	The Dark Knight Rises
Opening weekend	$1,086,273	$2,107,626	$3,320,908
2nd weekend	$486,478	$1,450,364
3rd weekend	$122,464	$678,412
4th weekend	$70,025	$372,897
Total	$1,798,348	$7,549,781	$3,320,908

TDKR's OW is 58% better than TDK's.

Interesting to see that 90% of 3D admissions for Ice Age 4 are for the Cantonese version while English admissions represents only 10%. That is well down from Shrek 4 and Toy Story 3, which saw English admissions comprise 20% and 25% of their respective 3D admissions. Add in the non-3D Cantonese admissions and 3D English admissions fall to just 8%. Could this be a precursor for the rest of the summer's animated movies?

A predicted 60% drop for TDKR doesn't sound as good but the opening is HUGE.

Records updated. We're right where we were last year in terms of 1m OWs with 10 recorded so far. We might not be able to challenge last year's record of 16 as only 3 movies left are locked for 1m for more (The Hobbit, Madagascar 3, Skyfall). Other possibilities for 1m OW include Breaking Dawn Part 2 and Brave. At least some good news will come out of this year; our 10th highest grosser will be bigger than the 10th place grosser from 2011.

There's still the possibility of 2 or maybe even 3 10m grossers this year. TDKR will try and hope for a similar TDK-style finish and The Hobbit will easily win the winter box office but how high will it go?

Thursday schedules

Olympian City
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Step Up Revolution - 6 showings	The Dark Knight Rises - 14 showings (▼ 21)	Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure - 4 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Can.) - 3 showings (▼ 4)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (3D Can.) - 4 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (Can.) - 3 showings (▼ 5)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Can.) - 1 showing	The Amazing Spider-Man - 1 showing (▼ 2)
Wu Dang - 3 showings	The Amazing Spider-Man 3D - 1 showing (-)

Palace APM
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Step Up Revolution - 7 showings	The Dark Knight Rises - 14 showings (▼ 25)	Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure - 4 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Can.) - 3 showings (▼ 6)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (3D Can.) - 4 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (Can.) - 1 showing (▼ 4)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Can.) - 2 showings	The Amazing Spider-Man 3D - 1 showing (▼ 3)
One Piece + Toriko 3D - 3 showings
Wu Dang - 4 showings

The One
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Step Up Revolution - 11 showings	The Dark Knight Rises - 17 showings (▼ 27)	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Eng.)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (3D Can.) - 2 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Can.) - 4 showings (▼ 5)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Can.) - 2 showings	The Amazing Spider-Man 3D - 2 showings (▼ 5)
Wu Dang - 3 showings

The Grand Cinema
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Step Up Revolution - 6 showings	Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - 2 showings (▼ 3)	Motorway
Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure - 3 showings	The Amazing Spider-Man 3D - 2 showings (▼ 3)	The Four
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (3D Can.) - 2 showings	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Can.) - 2 showings (▼ 4)	Painted Skin: The Resurrection
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Can.) - 1 showing	Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Eng.) - 3 showings (▼ 4)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (3D Eng.) - 3 showings	The Dark Knight Rises - 30 showings (▼ 36)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Eng.) - 1 showing	Elles - 1 showing (-)
Wu Dang - 6 showings	Hotaru the Movie: It's Only A Little Light in My Life - 3 showings (▲ 2)
	W.E. - 3 showings (-)
	When Pigs Have Wings - 3 showings (▼ 5)

Step Up Revolution is getting full day showtimes at almost every theater and even 2 screens in some places. Pre-sales have looked decent. Doraemon should be good for another $100,000 OW. Pre-sales have been more or less the same compared with the most recent Doraemon films. Morning showings are performing well and afternoon showings aren't bad either. The last 2 Doraemon movies to open the last weekend of July have made more than $100,000. I don't think this new Doraemon movie will fail despite huge animation competition. The Pirates! Band of Misfits is looking to flop even with the very wide release. Pre-sales have been very lackluster and this will get cut down in screens or showtimes this weekend. One Piece seems to be doing ok so far but it looks like this is headed for an OW below $100,000. Wu Dang is in bad shape and opening on the same weekend as Wu Xia last year is not doing any favours.

The Dark Knight Rises saw 30% of its screens go to new openers but it still holds about a 50% majority in screens. Early Thursday/Friday pre-sales have been OK. Some theaters are holding very well but others have seen ticket sales plummet from last week. I would put TDKR's early weekend pre-sales like this: 30% of theaters are doing well, 40% of theaters are doing OK, 30% of theaters are doing below average/well below average. Cool to see TDKR get 30 showtimes on its 2nd Thursday. Haven't seen that before. Ice Age 4 is still doing pretty well although demand has curtailed slightly. With The Pirates bombing, it is looking at an increase in showtimes on the weekend. The Amazing Spider-Man is hanging in there.

That's indeed a hurricane (category 4), I heard. I hope there's minimal damage caused by it.

129 people injured, no deaths reported.

Guess 2012 is playing its end-of-the-world theme in HK. I mean two warnings in less than 2 months is BIG.

Glad that there are no reports of life loss.

2 typhoon warnings in 3 weeks. And they both took place on a blockbuster's opening week.

BREAKING: Expendables 2 has moved from its August 17 release date. No new date has been set. The Bourne Legacy just breathed a little easier.

	Thursday adm.	(so far)		July 26
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	The Dark Knight Rises	38,750	12,748	-67.1%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	5,281	--
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	--	3,369	--
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	2,004	--
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	1,016	--

Huge drop from opening day pre-sales for TDKR. I still expect walk-ins to help out immensely and take it to 30,000 admissions for Thursday. It looks like Step Up Revolution won't be able to match Step Up 3D's OW. Ice Age 4 is down about 54% from last Thursday's pre-sales. Doraemon Island of Miracles is doing about the same as last year's Doraemon offering. The Pirates! Band of Misfits bombed.

How does TDKR's 2nd Thursday pre-sales compare to past blockbusters?

Movie	2nd Thu. Pre-sales	% diff
The Dark Knight Rises	12,748
The Amazing Spider-Man	7,616	+67.4%
The Avengers	17,064	-25.3%
Transformers 3	17,204	-25.9%
Harry Potter 7-2	17,599	-27.6%
Toy Story 3	--	--
Pirates 4	11,387	+12.0%
Inception	8,533	+49.4%

What this table tells us is that TDKR is tracking ahead of movies below 8m but below movies above 9.8m. One thing to note is that it's well back of DH2's 2nd Thursday pre-sales. DH2 was extremely frontloaded though. More than 50% of its admissions its first 2 weekends consisted of pre-sales. TDKR's got a tough road ahead if it wants to break 10m but it will need to rely on superb walk-ins to do it.

I think TDKR will be frontloaded and might not get a good walk-ins as TDK.

								Jul 19 WKD
Rank	Movie	Distributor	Weekend BO	Weeks	Engmnts	Eng. average	% change	B.O. Cume
1	Dark Knight Rises, The	Warner Bros Int'l	$3,322,868	1	44	$75,520		$3,322,868
2	Ice Age: Continental Drift	Fox Int'l	$787,061	2	37	$21,272	-60%	$3,473,740
3	Amazing Spider-Man, The	Sony Int'l	$163,255	4	31	$5,266	-80%	$7,490,262
4	Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter	Fox Int'l	$88,666	3	20	$4,433	-74%	$1,225,471
5	The Four	Newport Ent.	$37,750	2	10	$3,775	-70%	$222,190
6	Painted Skin: The Resurrection	Intercontinental	$35,775	3	21	$1,704	-86%	$1,157,701
7	Silenced	UA Films/Emperor	$20,515	5	5	$4,103	-34%	$215,645
8	Hotaru The Movie: It's Only A Little Light In My Life	Panasia Films	$14,998	3	8	$1,875	-74%	$219,046
9	When Pigs Have Wings	Panasia Films	$12,762	1	3	$4,254		$12,762
10	W.E.	Golden Scene	$10,711	2	3	$3,570	-53%	$44,716

I think they made a typo for TASM's total and meant to put 7.69m instead. Great for TDKR. Very good hold for Ice Age 4 since that 60% fall had previews and it held 10% better than any other wide release. Superb for Silenced.

	Thursday				July 26
Rank	Title	LW (adm.)	TW (adm.)	Gross (USD)	% chg (adm.)
1	The Dark Knight Rises	63,920	37,399	$419,873	-41.5%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	20,484	$228,235	--
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	--	11,263	$112,488	--
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	5,983	$42,300	--
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	2,437	$25,691	--

I really hope those grosses are true.

TDKR erases the 67% plunge in pre-sales and brings its admissions back to a more respectable 41% fall. It's worthy to note that it had almost the same amount of walk-ins today as it did with opening day (25,000). If that gross is accurate, TDKR will have passed 5m in 8 days and would be down only 33% in gross from opening day. That would also up its chances of making 10m. Excellent.

Very good for Step Up Revolution. Its admissions are slightly below the OD of Step Up 3D but its gross should be a little higher than Step Up 3D. If it experiences the same increases like Step Up 3D, it will make more than $900,000 which would be put it about $200,000 higher than the 3rd movie.

Not to be outdone, IA4 has the best drop of the top 5 as it is down only 18% in gross. That would put it on track to pass IA3's gross this weekend and give 5m a fighting chance.

Doraemon opened higher than its previous entry. With that gross, it would make more than $200,000 which would be better than the last two films' OWs in the series.

The Pirates bombed. It might not even make $100,000 this weekend because theaters are giving its weekend showtimes to Ice Age 4 or Doraemon.

Rest of the top 10

	Thursday		July 26
Rank	Title	Gross (USD)	% chg
6	The Amazing Spider-Man	$17,925	-34.6%
7	One Piece + Toriko 3D	$9,260
8	Wu Dang	$5,998
9	Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter	$4,469	-73.5%
10	Beloved	$4,366
11	Silenced	$3,918	+1.2%

That hold will seal the deal for TASM as far as 8m is concerned. A 35% drop would be another $120,000 and adding in this week's weekdays, it should be above 7.9m. Even if it ends up slightly below 7.9m after this weekend, it won't collapse fast enough with the two big openers next week and miss 8m. One Piece did standard One Piece numbers. Horrible for Wu Dang. Abraham Lincoln is not holding well after its surprise 2nd weekend hold. Excellent for Silenced. It lost 1 theater so that makes its gain even more outstanding. $300,000 is almost a lock.

		Thursday Actuals						July 26
LW	TW	Title	Last Thu. (USD)	Thursday (USD)	% chg	Screens	Days	Total
1	1	The Dark Knight Rises	$626,904	$328,361	-47.6%	100	8	$5,054,378
--	2	Step Up Revolution	--	$170,156	--	38	1	$180,468
2	3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$135,700	$90,027	-33.7%	53	15	$3,924,932
--	4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	$32,901	--	22	1	$32,901
--	5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	$17,060	--	37	1	$17,060
3	6	The Amazing Spider-Man	$27,395	$13,159	-52.0%	24	28	$7,816,389
--	7	Wu Dang	--	$9,667	--	19	1	$9,667
--	8	One Piece + Toriko 3D	--	$6,338	--	14	1	$6,338
--	9	Beloved	--	$3,718	--	2	1	$3,718
4	10	Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter	$16,895	$3,479	-79.4%	7	22	$1,393,366

The Avengers	$12,457,605
Motorway	$1,901,206
Painted Skin: The Resurrection	$1,171,679
The Bounty	$374,244
What to Expect When You're Expecting	$365,838
The Best Exoic Marigold Hotel	$346,907

Everything was overestimated.

This is how much the top 5 grosses changed (for the worse).

The Dark Knight Rises	-$91,512
Step Up Revolution	-$58,079
Ice Age: Continental Drift	-$22,461
Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	-$9,399
The Pirates! Band of Misfits	-$8,631

The overestimated actuals don't really change much for most of the top 10. It's still a good hold for TDKR. It should pass TDK by the end of the week. Nice beginning for Step Up Revolution. If it posts the same gross for the rest of the week, it'll come in at $680,000 which is just a step behind the third film. It'll end up very close to Step Up 3D's OW regardless of where it falls (below or above Step Up 3D's OW). Very good hold for Ice Age 4. This will easily pass IA3's gross this weekend. Good start for Doraemon. It'll be close but I see this beating the last 2 Doraemon films' OW and total. The news got bleaker for The Pirates! Band of Misfits. $100,000 doesn't look like it's happening. The Amazing Spider-Man's chances of 8m are back to a toss-up. It'll be close to 7.9m by the end of the week. If it has a decent hold next week, I like its chances of 8m. Wu Dang, One Piece, Beloved didn't do much. Abraham Lincoln sinks lower.

	Friday					July 27
Rank	Title	LW (adm.)	TW (adm.)	Gross (USD)	% chg (adm.)	QD % chg (adm.)
1	The Dark Knight Rises	63,724	45,052	$505,319	-29.3%	+20.5%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	19,327	$223,716	--	-5.6%
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	--	10,880	$107,281	--	-3.4%
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	5,140	$36,095	--	-14.1%
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	2,310	$23,814	--	-5.2%

Huge bump for TDKR. In fact, it was the only film of the top 5 to increase on Friday. Still good for Step Up Revolution. Ice Age 4 passed 4m today. Doraemon is on track to pass the last 2 OWs in the franchise. Ouch for The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

	Saturday adm.	(so far)			July 28
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg	QD % chg
1	The Dark Knight Rises	49,751	37,254	-25.1%	+76.3%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	7,481	--	+39.3%
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	--	7,310	--	+93.7%
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	4,008	--	+97.8%
5	Vulgaria	--	1,388	--	--

Great for TDKR. Decent for Step Up Revolution. Huge bumps for Ice Age 4 and Doraemon. Vulgaria cracks the top 5 with only 7 showings -- most of them after midnight.

	Saturday					July 28
Rank	Title	LW (adm.)	TW (adm.)	Gross (USD)	% chg (adm.)	QD % chg (adm.)
1	The Dark Knight Rises	97,279	71,262	$785,345	-26.7%	+58.2%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	26,059	$300,222	--	+34.8%
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	24,792	18,290	$186,427	-26.2%	+68.1%
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	7,973	$59,731	--	+55.1%
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	2,605	$26,904	--	+12.8%
6	The Amazing Spider-Man	4,763	2,519	$31,223	-47.1%	--

The Pirates! ranked #5 in admissions but was outgrossed by TASM.

	Weekend Projections			July 26
Rank	Title	TW	% chg	Total
1	The Dark Knight Rises	$1,975,000	-40.6%	$6,700,000
2	Step Up Revolution	$745,000		$745,000
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$480,000	-39.0%	$4,315,000
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	$155,000		$155,000
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	$70,000		$70,000

Very good weekend for TDKR. It would rank as the 4th biggest 2nd weekend of all time (behind Avatar, Toy Story 3, The Avengers). It'll pass TDK by either Wednesday or Thursday should numbers stay there or go higher. Excellent start for Step Up Revolution. Here's how it's been tracking against Step Up 3D so far.

	Step Up 3D	Step Up Revolution
Thursday	21022	20484
Friday	20196	19327
Saturday	25622	26059
Sunday
Total	66840	65870

Step Up 3D has a slight lead in admissions but ticket prices are more expensive nowadays. It's funny that Step Up 3D had less competition than Revolution but it could have the lower OW of the two. Fantastic hold for Ice Age 4 considering 3 animation films came out all in the same week. It passes IA3 this weekend. Good start for Doraemon. Actuals will tell us if this beats the 2010 Doraemon film's OW. The Pirates sunk. It would have done better had Sony released it in April or May when there were no animation releases flying around.

	Sunday adm.	(so far)			July 29
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg	QD % chg
1	The Dark Knight Rises	57,684	37,558	-34.9%	+0.8%
2	Ice Age: Continental Drift	16,253	10,226	-37.1%	+39.9%
3	Step Up Revolution	--	8,086	--	+8.1%
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	5,177	--	+29.2%
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	1,702	--	--

Still very good for TDKR. Excellent bump for Ice Age 4. It has a shot at beating Step Up Revolution in admissions today. Solid for Doraemon. Pitiful for The Pirates!

	Sunday					July 29
Rank	Title	LW (adm.)	TW (adm.)	Gross (USD)	% chg (adm.)	QD % chg (adm.)
1	The Dark Knight Rises	107,528	65,694	$713,026	-38.9%	-7.8%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	24,455	$273,178	--	-6.2%
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	32,769	20,711	$209,890	-36.8%	+13.2%
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	9,587	$66,646	--	+20.2%
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	3,329	$32,498	--	+27.8%

	Weekend adm.			Jul 26-29
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	The Dark Knight Rises	332,451	219,407	-34.0%
2	Step Up Revolution	--	90,325	--
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	--	61,144	--
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	--	28,683	--
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	--	10,681	--

	Weekend Estimates			July 26
Rank	Title	TW	% chg	Total
1	The Dark Knight Rises	$1,950,000	-41.3%	$6,675,000
2	Step Up Revolution	$745,000		$745,000
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$480,000	-39.0%	$4,315,000
4	Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles: Animal Adventure	$160,000		$160,000
5	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	$75,000		$75,000

TDKR had a weaker than expected Sunday but Doraemon/Pirates! performed well.

Thursday numbers:

1. NEW Vulgaria (HK)
HK$1,105,265

2. WK2 Madagascars 3 (US)
HK$951,583/$15,747,861

3. NEW The Bourne Legacy (US)
HK$718,754

4. NEW Brave (US)
HK$617,506

5. WK4 The Dark Knight Rises (US)
HK$593,389/$69,654,666

6. WK3 Step Up 4 (US)
HK$259,204/$15,007,675

7. NEW The Silent War (HK/China)
HK$235,209

8. WK2 Total Recall (US)
HK$218,792/$5,490,974

9. WK5 Ice Age 4 (US)
HK$54,848/$37,401,731

10. NEW The Chef (France)
HK$37,203

That was a fairly close race between Vulgaria and Madagascar 3. The raunchy foul-mouthed comedy managed to beat Hollywood newcomers The Bourne Legacy and Brave by a wide margin. Brave got robbed by holdover animation fella Madagascar 3. Total Recall in week 2 was annihilated by Bourne.

Saturday numbers (as of 11:53:47 pm HKT):

1. Vulgaria (HK) - $2,191,100 (34,906 admissions)

2. Madagascar 3 - $2,118,295 (26,627)

3. The Dark Knight Rises - $1,596,080 (17,500)

4. The Bourne Legacy - $1,363,700 (21,736)

5. Brave - $1,294,385 (16,010)

6. The Silent War (HK/China) - $609,140 (9,971)

7. Total Recall - $512,150 (8,095)

8. Step Up 4 - $498,490 (5,435)

9. The Chef (France) - $119,480 (1,688)

10. Ice Age 4 - $115,855 (1,532)

11. Tatsumi (Japan)

12. Doraemon (Japan)

13. Silenced (South Korea)

14. Room in Rome (Spain)

I'm back from hiatus for just this week only.

Before I get into this weekend, let's look at last weekend's numbers.

Ted - $300,000 (2-day est.)
Due West - $871,957
Headhunters - $27,087
Chernobyl Diaries - $78,682
Starbuck - $9,674
ATM - $2,450

Holdover totals
Vulgaria - $3,861,894
Resident Evil: Retribution - $2,241,807
Expendables 2 - $1,496,258
The Bullet Vanishes - $757,158
Intouchables - $564,966

This weekend is a bit complicated so let me lay things out. This weekend there will be 7 new releases coming out. 4 will start on Thursday, 1 on Friday and 2 on Saturday.

The list

Thursday

Ted
Looper
Magic Mike
Upside Down

Friday

The Assassins

Saturday

Taken 2
Finding Nemo

Although Taken 2's official release is on October 4, September 29 can be considered its unofficial release date because it will be shown everyday before its October 4 release date. Its release pattern will be exactly the same as what The Expendables 2 got.

HK: September 27 Predictions

^

It's shaping up to be a very competitive weekend.

Ted did $300,000 on weekend previews alone? That must've been a typo.

Sex dramedy "Due West" was the story of the weekend. Despite carrying a category III rating (no persons under 18 allowed), it managed to get a lot of screens and was able to fill them with audiences.

Intouchables did great for a French movie. Headhunters, Moonrise Kingdom and Friends with Kids did fine. Bernie did so-so.

Not a typo. Ted had more than 40,000 admissions last weekend and the ratio of admissions:gross is about 1:0.7. The only question is how many students went to watch it. If the majority of crowds were students, Ted's advanced screenings will be closer to $275,000, if not, $300,000 is its ballpark.

That's excellent for Ted. And it's a smart move by Universal and whoever the distributor is to release a "cleaner" version of the movie to avoid the category III rating so that teenage kids can see them.

I read your article. So Magic Mike is going wide too. I thought it should have no problem finding an audience in Hong Kong but the previews number isn't good.

It's the year of comedies. The Dictator, Vulgaria, Due West, and Ted all did great in box office.