The Lunar New Year is on Feb 14th this year, and everybody gets one week off from 13th on, with some companies giving the employees this week off as well. For the days leading up to New Year, box office will be depressed as a lot of people will be traveling home, and New Year Eve is like Christmas Eve, where almost everybody will be staying home with family, have dinner (most likely dumplings), watch the New Year Gala on TV, and then at midnight start shooting the firecrackers to celebrate. The week right after is where people will go out to theaters and seek other activities.

Having Valentine's Day coincide with New Year is quite unique (I think it only happens once per 23 years) in that Chinese people, especially among youth, also celebrate Valentine, and it's one of the busiest movie-going days of the year, but usually for the day of New Year, people are still recovering from the previous night and also have the tradition of visiting relatives. So how they offset each other will be interesting to see.

College students normally have a month off around Lunar New Year.

$155.5 million in China now.

Does it still have a shot at $200 million?

It made $17.6m last week (full week), and estimates have it making another $10.3m (-41.5%) this week.

Xia mentioned that a lot of people would be traveling this week, so we could see an uptick, I'm guessing? I wouldn't rule it out yet.

Yeah, the week leading up to New Year is weak in general, and another problem is there were 6 new openers this past week. We'll definitely see an uptick this week; $200m will depend on how large the increase is.

Even without the Chinese New Year it seems that it has slowed down with those drops. I think that could be because of the competition by the 6 new openers xia mentioned. I hope it does get to the 200M mark.

Here are last week's rough daily figures for the market as a whole (so all of the movies combined), and look at the dramatic shifts on the weekend:

Monday - 25m yuan
Tuesday - 34m (+36%)
Wednesday - 25m (-26%)
Thursday - 31m (+24%)
Friday - 30m (-3%)
Saturday - 9m (-70%)
Sunday - 63m (+600%)

I guess we now have an idea on what would happen when Valentine's Day matches New Year on the same day.

Wow amazing +600% unbelievable. Those are some great numbers. Was VD released in China as well? Id yes then how much did it increase that day ? Which movies performed well in China on Sunday ?

Will update with official numbers tomorrow night, but figures posted by the popular Chinese movie site mtime show that even with all the new openers, Avatar still comfortably won the week and accounted for almost 40% of the market.

Hmm that is surprising for me, though I will hold my questions till your updates thanks

Look like the official numbers will be late this week as everyone is enjoying the holiday. Here are the numbers mtime reported:

1. Avatar - 85m yuan ($12.44m), -29.2%
2. 14 Blades - 35m ($5.12m), -38.6%
3. Hot Summer Days - 30m ($4.39m)
4. True Legend - 20m ($2.93m)
5. Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf 2 - 19m ($2.78m), -53.7%
6. Big Soldiers - 15m ($2.20m)
7. All's Well Ends Well - 12m ($1.76m)
8. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel - 6m ($0.88m)
9. Confucius - 4m ($0.59m), -74.2%
10. 72 Tenants of Prosperity - 2m ($0.29m)
11. Fortune King is Coming to Town! - 1.2m ($0.18m)

From the daily numbers, China is looking at 3b yuan this week as a whole. Given Avatar still occupied 38% of the market last week, another 1b yuan ($14m) week looks good.

Read some reports and posted a holiday update. Counting this week, Avatar will have won 7 straight weeks. That may be the most impressive achievement of everything it has done in China, since the amount of screens in China is still limited, and a lot of films don't even last a month in theaters. The competition for screens during busy holiday season is especially fierce, and it's already rare for a film to lead the market for more than a couple of weeks.

Hmm, so is $200m looking good?

Most films fell 50% or more after the holiday, but a couple managed to limit the damage to 30% last year. If Avatar drops less than 40%, $200m will be there for the taking.

Hmm, anything new on China? ScreenDaily says $3.6 million over the weekend, but that looks a bit low...

Yep, the number was low. The official figures are out, and I'm uploading them right now.

So $171.7m total after a $14.6m week. $200m is still within reach, although it's by no means for certain to cross the mark. This week's drop will tell.

Alice in Wonderland got approved and is set to release on March 26th.

What do you think will top 2010 in China, xia?

Well, Avatar is a 2010 release in China, so it will definitely top the chart. After that, I'd put my bet on Tang Shan Earthquake. Director Xiaogang Feng is even more consistent than Yimou in term of delivering at the box office. The film will also be in 3D, so I could see 500m+ yuan.

Avatar is at $176 million. $200 million is starting to look less likely, though $190 million will probably happen.

It should have 2 extra weekends in China since Alice is releasing there on 26th March, it is still number 1 and is enjoying good drops. I say that it still has a good chance to get that mark.

Looks like the actual should put the total higher than $176m and be more in the $179m range instead. However, March 14th will be its last day in theaters, so $200m does appear out. Should finish around $190m.

On another note, Sherlock Holmes opened to about 32m yuan, or $4.7m, last week.

Avatar will be removed from Chinese theaters on March 14th after just 10 weeks?

That's already much longer than what most films, including local ones, get, and two weeks more than originally planned.