Release Date	Movie Title
June 29	Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
July 7	Bridesmaids Mr. Popper's Penguins Beach Spike
July 14	Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2
July 21	Kung Fu Panda 2
July 28	Wu Xia
August 4	Captain America: The First Avenger The Smurfs
August 11	Cars 2 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

Transformers - $1,797,292/$5,182,819
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - $2,819,776/$6,202,442

The Autobots returns this summer as the first of the few contenders vying to be crowned the victor of the summer.

Fun fact: In the past 4 summers, a movie that has come out in July either wins the summer or places in the top 2. One of the films that stole the summer crown from a July release was Transformers 2.

In the past, the Transformers film series was just a huge summer movie. Now, it's an enterprise. You can't go one mall without seeing huge robot toys on sale in a toy shop. The Transformers movies are huge here due to the similarities it shares with the Gundam series. When this movie opens on June 29, it will obliterate every other movie still in release.



With the Wednesday release date confirmed, this prediction looks like it will come true. What it will accomplish, however, is that it will break 3m in 5 days with ease. The previous Transformers films have grown in OW with each movie but unfortunately I see that trend ending here. 3D should help keep the grosses high but as more high profile 3D movies come out, less and less people are willing to pay for this with the full 3D price. Instead, they either flock to the 10% showing this in 2D or go to a morning show. This has been noted in Pirates 4 where it had the lowest opening weekend of any sequel in the series. Besides the 3D surcharge, IMAX will prop up the grosses as well and pre-sales for it look amazing. Higher prices due to a long running time will also inflate the opening weekend as well. A ticket to see this is HK$5 higher than a Pirates 4 ticket.

With all that in mind, the full weekend breakdown could look something like this:

Wednesday: $450,000
Thursday: $700,000
Friday: $900,000
Saturday: $550,000
Sunday: $550,000

4-day weekend: $2,700,000
5-day weekend: $3,150,000

Wednesday will pull in a lot of money as many people will try to see this opening day. Thursday should see it rise thanks to holiday-inflated night sales and then Friday will be the big Kahuna. It's unlikely to go past 1m in my opinion as it has Saturday/Sunday to help alleviate the demand.

Legs will be hard to come by. It'll get a slight reprieve first on its 2nd weekend as it will be challenged by the likes of Bridesmaids, Mr Popper's Penguins, Beach Spike and The Tree Of Life. Those movies aren't summer hits but add them up and they will take a small chunk out of Transformers screens. In 2009, Transformers 2 fell 62% at the expense of Ice Age 3. The lack of big competition will help this time around but its frontloadedness as well as its holiday-fueled opening weekend will see it drop fairly big. Thanks to this summer's slate, it could, however, see a better than expected hold due to Harry Potter coming out in its 3rd weekend and Kung Fu Panda 2 in its 4th weekend. 3rd weekend will see about half of its screens + IMAX slashed. A drop over 60% will happen as one juggernaut is replaced by another. What will save it is that it still has quite a few screens leftover. 4th weekend will see another huge drop but this one should effectively kill almost all of its screens. In Transformers 2's 4th weekend, it was already down to just $88,000 for the weekend. The 5th weekend looks to be very crowded with 5 movies coming out but only 1 will make any impact. Still, a couple of the others will steal a couple more showtimes from Transformers. Any shows still left over will be given away when Captain America and Smurfs come out August 4.

Opening Weekend: $2,700,000
2nd weekend: $1,269,000 (-53%)
3rd weekend: $471,960 (-63%)
4th weekend: $113,270 (-76%)
5th weekend: $49,838 (-56%)
6th weekend: $10,964 (-78%)
7th weekend: $1,534 (-86%)
Total: 6,750,000

Release Date	Movie Title
June 29	Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
July 14	Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2
July 21	Kung Fu Panda 2
July 28	Wu Xia
August 4	Captain America: The First Avenger The Smurfs
August 11	Cars 2 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
August 18	Cowboys & Aliens

Harry Potter: no data/$5,014,325
Harry Potter 2: $2,341,126/$4,907,373 (winter)
Harry Potter 3: $2,148,842/$4,339,688
Harry Potter 4: no data/$5,966,462 (winter)
Harry Potter 5: $2,649,588/$6,650,517
Harry Potter 6: $2,976,407/$5,873,659
Harry Potter 7-1: $1,993,704/$5,770,077 (winter)

Hoping to end its 10 year run in style, Harry Potter returns for the final time to cast a spell on Hong Kong moviegoers and win the highly competitive summer.

Fun fact: 2 Harry Potter movies each lost the summer crown and ended up taking 2nd place. Once to Transformers 2 and Spider-Man 3.
Fun fact #2: Every Harry Potter film (besides Harry Potter (no info available)) has placed in the top 5 of a yearly chart.

Raring for revenge, Harry Potter 6 was usurped by Transformers 2 for the summer crown back in 2009. This time around though, Harry Potter has got something up its sleeve: "last movie EVER" syndrome.



Opening weekend should be no problem for Harry Potter. Every Harry Potter that's been released in the summer has seen their opening weekend increase. This trend will continue as 3D and an long length surcharge will bolster Harry Potter's OW gross. IMAX will be showing this on 2 screens so maximum money available will be there for the taking. Since Kung Fu Panda 2 will come out the week after, there is also going to be a huge rush factor. It'll be just enough, in my opinion, to break Toy Story 3's opening weekend record. I don't see this making less than 3m opening weekend but cannot see an OW gross any higher than 3.5m due to the long running time.

Its 4-day weekend could turn out like this...

Thursday: $600,000
Friday: $800,000
Saturday: $950,000
Sunday: $950,000
4-day weekend: $3,300,000

Thursday will be very strong and Friday, Saturday and Sunday will see small percentage increases in admissions.

There will be a shortage of legs for Harry Potter, however, as Kung Fu Panda 2 comes out the next week. Examples are hard to come by as most blockbusters have a gap of 2 weeks between them. There is one, back in 2009, when Transformers 2 fell 64.2% against Ice Age's $1.89m opening. That, however, is not the scale of how big Kung Fu Panda 2 will be as competition. It is even bigger than that so a 2nd weekend drop above 65% is expected. Even worse for Harry Potter is that Order of the Phoenix crumbled 66% in its 2nd weekend against weak competition. It will still have IMAX, however, to keep the drop from tumbling lower until Cars 2 on August 11. After Harry's 2nd weekend, it will breathe a sigh of relief as only one of the 5 new releases will make any sort of dent. A 55% drop here could result. After that, another 60% drop looks likely when Captain America/Smurfs takes away its screens. Cars 2 and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes will take away any further screens and IMAX so a 70% tumble might not be out of the question. Any showtimes left will be quickly rerouted towards Cowboys & Aliens and Larry Crowne in its 6th weekend.

Opening weekend: $3,300,000
2nd weekend: $924,000 (-72%)
3rd weekend: $415,800 (-55%)
4th weekend: $162,162 (-61%)
5th weekend: $47,026 (-71%)
6th weekend: $19,281 (-59%)
7th weekend: $8,483 (-56%)
8th weekend: $1,781 (-79%)
Total: $6,825,000

Release Date	Movie Title
June 29	Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
July 14	Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2
July 21	Kung Fu Panda 2
July 28	Wu Xia Doraemon: Nobita And The New Steel Troops
August 4	Captain America: The First Avenger The Smurfs
August 11	Cars 2 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
August 18	Cowboys & Aliens
September 8	Final Destination 5 One Day

Kung Fu Panda: $829,203/$4,146,431

The panda returns in the follow up to the beloved hit Kung Fu Panda.

Fun fact: Kung Fu Panda went up its 2nd weekend even with Hancock opening to over 1.3 million.

The multi-million dollar question this summer is how Kung Fu Panda 2 will fare. The first one was much loved as golden WOM propelled it to a 4m total. With 3D being all the rage, this has a chance of tripling its predecessor's OW. All signs point to a breakout...prime July release date, sequel to a beloved hit, no real heavy hitters in its 2nd weekend. Apparently, the Cantonese version was so good that people were saying it was MUCH better than the English one. Watching the Cantonese trailers for the 2nd one, the jokes are much funnier in Cantonese than in English. Since the Cantonese version does about 80% of the business for most big kids films, this will be a surefire winner.



Opening weekend will be interesting since it also competing with Harry Potter's 2nd weekend. It could end being deflated but this is only around a 10% chance. Most likely, this will debut with over 2.5m even with no IMAX screens. The good word of mouth from China and other places has only fuelled the anticipation of this movie. There has been huge promotion everywhere. We could see a breakdown like this:

Thursday: $475,000
Friday: $500,000
Saturday: $850,000
Sunday: $900,000
4-day weekend: $2,725,000

Thursday and Friday will be relatively light as kids wait to watch it with their parents on the weekend. Saturday will see a huge bump but some parents might still work on that day so Sunday seems to be the go to day for this movie. I can see parents going for the afternoon shows on the weekend if the kids don't want to/can't wake up early in the morning to watch it.

Legs here will be very interesting. 2 weeks ago, there were no movies slated for release on July 28. Now? 5 new movies are coming out. Wu Xia will steal screens away and Doraemon is direct competition against Panda. Doraemon won't impact Panda too much and Wu Xia is playing to a different demographic. This won't be dropping more than 40% its 2nd weekend as great WOM should spread. 3rd weekend sees it up against Captain America and The Smurfs. We could see something similiar like what we say with Toy Story 3/Despicable Me. Smurfs could end up disappointing and Panda might be able to avoid a 50% drop. Captain America, however, is expected to do big things OW so a 45% drop could be in the works. 4th weekend will see a big drop as Cars 2/Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes open. Combined, it will force theaters to allocate screens to them and away from Panda. 65% drop is likely here. 5th weekend has Larry Crowne and Cowboys & Aliens opening. Not exactly hitting the target demographic and Cowboys & Aliens isn't expected to do much so a light drop could happen. 6th weekend has nothing except Summer Love which again does to play to its demographic. We could see a light drop again unless if more films are added here. 7th weekend has Bad Teacher coming out so it could see a drop of about 35% here. 8th weekend will for sure see a big drop as Final Destination 5 and One Day open.

Opening weekend: $2,725,000
2nd weekend: $1,907,500 (-30%)
3rd weekend: $1,030,050 (-46%)
4th weekend: $298,714 (-71%)
5th weekend: $104,550 (-35%)
6th weekend: $78,412 (-25%)
7th weekend: $50,184 (-36%)
8th weekend: $11,542 (-77%)
Total: $7,700,000