Uh yeah, Australia was the first stop after the first junket in Korea.....so yes....

Do you think 20m AUS$ is probable?

The majority of blockbusters end up around the $18-25m region. This is also the dumping ground for pics like T3, Revolutions, King Kong, War of the Worlds......very similar to Transformers.

An opening weekend of AUD$5-6m will usually get you to this level......i think Transformers will open around the $6-7m region due to school holidays.....and might get to around AUD$21-23m....

Potter arrives on its 3rd weekend, though it will have to face Knocked Up in its 2nd week....not direct compettiion which is good.

44 SPIDER-MAN 2 Col/Tri 2004 30 Jun 24,394,233
47 TROY WB 2004 13 May 23,703,158
50 THE MATRIX Road 1999 08 Apr 23,160,219
51 MEN IN BLACK Col 1997 11 Sep 22,789,539
53 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 UIP 2000 01 Jun 22,478,131
56 OCEAN'S ELEVEN Road 2002 10 Jan 22,234,443
58 WAR OF THE WORLDS UIP/Par 2005 29 Jun 21,559,982
61 KING KONG UIP/Uni 2005 14 Dec 21,449,746
69 MR AND MRS SMITH Fox 2005 9 Jun 20,403,665
72 THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW Fox 2004 17 May 20,229,116
75 THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK UIP 1997 29 May 20,071,203
83 CHARLIE'S ANGELS Col 2000 23 Nov 19,150,065
84 TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES Col 2003 17 Jul 19,099,482
87 CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE Col 2003 03 Jul 18,913,076
88 PEARL HARBOR BVI 2001 07 Jun 18,773,007
89 DIE ANOTHER DAY Fox 2002 12 Dec 18,760,751
98 THE MUMMY RETURNS UIP 2001 10 May 18,204,297
100 THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS Road 2003 06 Nov 18,135,935

SOUTH KOREA - Preview

Jun 6 - Shrek 3
Jun 14 - Ocean's 13
June 21 - Hot Fuzz, Never Forever
June 28 - Transformers
June 12 - Harry Potter 5
June 19 - Die Hard 4
June 26 - Fantastic Four

Transformers kick started its worldwide tour with an Asian junket in Korea. Confidence in the market is justified, Korea has generated huge takes for both Spiderman 3, Pirates 3 and Shrek 3. There is a possibility that Transformers might top them all.

Bay has a pretty strong record here, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and even The Island are all big grossers. The market also delivered King Kong more than 4m admissions. Korean tastes are very similar to Japan in terms of action and sci-fi, however, comparatively children's flicks don't do as well here. There's an emphasis on drama or adult comedies.

Korea is one of the first markets to receive Transformers, on June 28th. It has next to no foreign compettiion the week before and after it. Is the competitiont scared?

Transformers will easily do 3m admissions here. It's guranteed a monster opening, but it will be the legs which will determine whether it can get to 4m admissions. WOTWs had one of the worst legs for a blockbuster, finishing below the 3m mark despite an opening above 1.2m admissions.

It might not beat Pirate 3's (5-Day) or Spiderman (6-Day) takes because of a Thursday (4-Day) opening...nontheless, it should explode on those four days, and i'm expect at least 1.5m (93% of the market) ahead of Shrek 3's 5-Day opening of 1,541,121 adms..

Transformers - 4.5m admissions

Lord Of The Rings: ROTK (2003) - 5,960,000 adms. (Seoul = 1,978,409 adms.)
Mission Impossible 3 (2006) - 5,740,789 adms. (US$37.6m) (Seoul = 1,584,202 adms.)
Lord Of The Rings: TTT (2002) - 5,145,193 adms. (Seoul = 1,771,966 adms.)
Spiderman 3 (2007) - 4,931,900 adms.
Pirates Of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest – 4,628,903 adms. (Seoul = 1,525,853 adms.)
Night At The Museum (2006) - 4,590,000 adms.
King Kong (2005) - 4,232,430 adms. (Seoul = 1,352,121 adms.)
Lord of the Rings: FOTR (2002) - 3,873,300 adms. (Seoul = 1,361,855)
Troy (2004) - 3,851,000 adms. (Seoul = 1,513,408 adms.)
Harry Potter 4: GOF (2005) - 3,615,300 adms. (Seoul = 1,239,817 adms.)
The Matrix: Reloaded (2003) – 3,600,000 adms. (Seoul = 1,500,000 adms.)
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (2005) - 3,546,900 adms. (Seoul = 1,206,120 adms.)
Minority Report (2002) - 3,379,000 adms. (Seoul = 1,400,200 adms.)
The Da Vinci Code (2006) - 3,339,082 adms. (Seoul = 1,144,795 adms.)
Shrek 2 (2004) - 3,300,533 adms. (Seoul = 1,285,594 adms.)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - 3,006,400 adms. (Seoul = 959,010 adms.)
Spiderman 1 (2002) - 2,901,821 adms. (Seoul = 1,107,600 adms.)
Harry Potter 3: POA (2004) - 2,532,000 adms. (Seoul = 892,900 adms.)
Shrek 1 (2001) - 2,344,700 adms. (Seoul = 1,123,200 adms.)
Pearl Harbour (2001) - 2,261,100 adms. (Seoul = 1,081,627 adms.)
The Mummy Returns (2001) - 2,341,800 adms. (Seoul = 954,700 adms.)

You're missing AWE from that list...

Final runtime for the movie is at 135 mins (or 2 hours and 15 mins)

http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=10699

That's quite long for an action blockbuster. But good length though, i was worried it'll be under 2 hours....

It's actually on par with Bay's previous pic, The Island. Bay seems to like slightly longer running times

Comparisons:

King Kong - 187 mins
Pearl Harbor - 183 mins
Pirates 3 - 168 mins
Armageddon - 150 mins
Independence Day - 145 mins
Minority Report - 145 mins
Star Wars 3: ROTS - 140 mins
Spiderman 3 - 140 mins
The Matrix: Reloaded - 138 mins
The Island - 136 mins
X-Men 2 - 133 mins
The Mummy Returns - 130 mins
The Matrix: Revolutions - 129 mins
Mission Impossible 3 - 126 mins
The Day After Tomorrow - 124 mins
War of the Worlds - 116 mins
I, Robot - 115 mins
Terminator 3 - 109 mins
X-Men 3 - 104 mins
Jurassic Park 3 - 92 mins
Fantastic Four 2 - 92 mins

News from Australia, are very positive so far......i've started to see some Transformers posters being posted on Bus shelters...etc....along with Harry Potter 5.

I can feel the excitement....it opens here next Thursday...


Transformers make all things new

19th June 2007, 7:30 WST
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx? ... ntID=31798

Spider-Man 3 soared, Shrek the Third scored and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End sailed across the Depp blue sea and returned with a king’s ransom.

However, if the response of those lucky enough to be at last week’s Australian premiere of Transformers is any indication, this triumvirate of “three-quels” will be hammered by the first big-screen outing of the cult 1980s TV cartoon series.

From the moment they clapped eyes on their first Transformer to the gargantuan metal-crunching climax, the mainly adult audience were themselves transformed into kids — clapping and cheering and roaring with approval.

There were also plenty of sighs of relief from hard-core Transformers fans who were worried that Michael Bay, a Hollywood sledgehammer who routinely beats his audiences into submission (Bad Boys, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), would stomp all over a cherished childhood memory.

But the gathered geeks seemed most pleased of all as Bay, under the guidance of producer Steven Spielberg, masterfully mixes live action and CGI animation, delivering a work that once again raises the bar on what is possible in this era of visual astonishments.

----

Maybe this mindless action blockbuster....won't be so mindless at all....

Isn't it incredibly how insanely huge M:I-3 was for some reason in South Korea? None of this year's threequels will pass it.

It was a big action blockbuster, and it has Tom Cruise's name on it.....i don't think they really cared about his antics.....

Transformers might be the movie to upset them all this year....we'll see....

Obviously.....the folks at Hasbro are banking on the success of the movie to invigorate toy sales....

===============

Films light up toy sales

Glenn Koenig, Los Angeles Times
Transformer Optimus Prime, centre, dangles Spider-Man and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Los Angeles Times
Hollywood (Jun 19, 2007)

As movie studios battle at the box office with their summer blockbusters, toy manufacturers that have hooked their fortunes to these films are facing a similar fight as they vie for the attention of young boys.

"It has become so crowded that kids don't have the time to let that emotion (for the movie) percolate," said Martin Brochstein, executive editor of the Licensing Letter, a monthly newsletter that tracks toy licensing

Toy industry analysts expect this year to be strong in action figure sales because of the number of summer movies featuring swashbuckling heroes or crime fighting characters including Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

The biggest seller of the season, however, could be Transformers, the popular toy series that will be brought to life by Michael Bay's upcoming action film, Transformers.

The movie, which features the heroic robot Optimus Prime and the villainous Megatron, will be released July 4 by Paramount Pictures. The toys were out earlier this month.

Sheliah Gilliland of the Internet toy retailer EToys.com is betting on Transformers.

"Transformers will be the biggest seller -- it's a movie based on a line of toys that has been popular since the '80s," she said.

"They have always been strong sellers but, because of the movie, they are coming back in a huge way."

===============

Banking on 'Transformers'

By By MICHELLE R. SMITH
The Associated Press
June 19, 2007
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /706190301

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Hasbro Inc. struggled when the toy company tied its fortunes too closely to toys based on movies.

But a movie based on its toys? That could be a different story.

Hasbro is banking that the July 4 release of the DreamWorks/Paramount movie "Transformers" — based on Hasbro's "robots in disguise" toys introduced in the 1980s — will herald a new era for the company that in the past few years has been remaking itself from a toy maker to an entertainment company.

" 'Transformers' sort of opens another chapter for us," said Brian Goldner, Hasbro's chief operating officer, who is listed as an executive producer on the movie. "In the past, I think that the company may have thought too narrowly about its brands as forms of entertainment."

In 2000, the Pawtucket, R.I.-based company was struggling. The toy maker lost $144 million after fads for Pokemon trading cards and the electronic pet Furby faltered. It cut hundreds of jobs. Then-chief executive Alan Hassenfeld called it "a very painful year."

Hasbro started the year strongly, reporting a profit of $32.9 million for the three months that ended April 1, versus a loss of $4.9 million in the year-ago period. The company credited core brands and strong sales of games, led by Monopoly. Shares surged to an eight-year high, but some analysts have since downgraded their projections, warning that the stock price already factors in the high expectations for "Transformers" and that sales could slow down next year.

The idea for the "Transformers" movie started percolating in 2002, when Goldner and his team began re-examining Hasbro's properties for boys. At around the same time, "Spider-Man" was making its debut as a live-action, blockbuster movie and Goldner realized Transformers could do the same.

"I looked at Transformers and G.I. Joe as opportunities to enter that same arena," he said. "Three-quarters of now-adult men had played with these products as children."

The movie is one of the most anticipated of the summer. It won an MTV Movie Award this month for the best "Summer movie you haven't seen," and is opening on what has traditionally been one of the biggest moviegoing holidays of the year.

"They put their stake down and everybody avoided it," Silver said. "That is the biggest statement of how Hollywood expects the movie to be."

From my sources i have come to know TF did $6.1+ million in previews alone in south korea.

This movie will be gigantic in Asia.

I am predicting the movie to do $2+ million in India alone OW.

Im pretty sure the 6.1 is actually read $6100 since it only took place in one small theater for the films world premiere at that night

TF gross from South Korean previews is $6.194.

Wrong again. Its $6194, not 6 dollars and 19 cents. That would mean only 2-3 koreans saw the movie during premiere

tyrannyreborn is correct since '.' means ',' in Europe (and vise versa), so $6.194 = $6,194.

Hold on i'm not getting it, so what is it $6.1m (which would be mind blowing good), or $6,100?

It would've be huge if it could muster than previews in one weekend, on its way to topping Spiderman.

Interview with Michael Bay

http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=99

Can you talk about GM and the introduction of the new Camaro?

MB: O.K., I mean, I had $145 million. I needed to find a car company that can give me a bunch of vehicles and save me three million bucks. And I opened it up to every car company. And I have a relationship with GM because I've done commercials with them and they have helped me out on my other movies by giving me flood damaged cars or cars that had to be destroyed. And they took me to Skunk-works, which is where they do the prototype cars, it's a secret place somewhere. And I saw that car and I said, "That's Bumblebee,"and, so, to help save $3 million and it was a great looking car.

===

Is this a joke, $3m seems kinda low? I was thinking that the GM car tie in would be huge money...

Thank you! That's what I meant. 6 thousand, 194 dollars.

Check my post under. And btw, 6 dollars and 19 cents would be ALMOST 1 Korean. Avg. ticket price is about $6.58 in SK.

And where exactly did this news come from....not some fabrication i hope

So roughly 150 people saw it at the premiere? no

It opens on a Thursday, so will only get 1 day ahead of the regular 3-Day....hope they do previews this weekend or something.....you know, so it can get the opening record

This is going to be SO BIG!!!

Im thinking :

$310m+ North America
$27m+ Australia
$700m+ WW

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?pa ... mers06.htm

You're prediction for Australia is really high, are you sure?

Maybe it's AUS$.