That's crazy! So Singapore may do 2m for OW.

Yeah it could reach that high cause IMAX sales were also very high and all Gold Class tickets were sold out in advance. I didn't monitor much on Sunday but Saturday sales were not as great as Friday evening shows.

Singapore made 2.3m, 4th biggest opening of the year.

Where did you get that ?

EDIT : Found it at BO.com's article. Thanks

I forgot to mention that falling more than 11% on Sunday might not be much % wise but in admissions, Skyfall lost 10,000.

Skyfall ACTUAL - $1,885,123

It will die out soon there then I guess. Same here though there aren't any high profile movies lurking in Singapore so it might still do well.

Day 5: Skyfall loses 53% of admissions on Monday from Thursday. Massive erosion.

Terrible drop for Skyfall. It will still make it to 3.5m but 4m is looking a bit shaky.

Looking at the screen counts this week, Cold War has a huge advantage over Skyfall. It also helps to be distributed by the largest theater chain in HK (EDKO, which owns Broadway/AMC).

Cold War screen count

Broadway/AMC: 2-4 screens (most at 3)
UA: 2-3 screens
MCL: 2 screens

Skyfall - screen % loss (by theater chain)

Broadway/AMC: over 60% (some have cut Skyfall's screens by almost 75%)
UA: over 50%
MCL: 40% (The Grand is still a big supporter -- over 30 showings on Thursday)

I'm more interested to see Cold War than Skyfall.

I wouldn't recommend Skyfall. It's terrible. Cold War is getting better reviews than Skyfall too.

More screen counts are coming in and Broadway Mongkok (3rd highest grossing theater in HK) has cut 91% of Skyfall's screens on Thursday. They're giving Cold War the 3 biggest screens and putting Skyfall in a small house.

Cold War is targeting a 1.3m OW while Skyfall is headed for a 62% collapse ($700,000 2nd weekend).

Some interesting HK news from 1983:



That's $1,936,561 for E.T. in 11 weeks. Pretty unspecial even for 30 years ago, but considering there were less cinemas then and films weren't as frontloaded, it might be ok.

Cold War is hitting China soon. I'll see it.

Not true.

I know this data is only from the 90's but 80's still should have had way more theaters than the 48 today.

Wow. I always assume that there are more cinemas today in every market than in the past. So, E.T. really didn't do too well at all in Hong Kong. But still, it was the #1 movie upto that point in 1983, so I suppose it didn't do too badly. I guess cinema-going wasn't as big back then...but then why so many cinemas?? Hmmm...a mystery.

Going to a movie was cheap back then. It doesn't mean that E.T. did horrible but because prices weren't as high as they are today, that's why E.T.'s gross looks so inferior nowadays. HK box office also doesn't account for inflation. I've tried contacting them about this but no such luck.

There were so many theaters in the 80's because there was no internet or other multimedia services back then. Since movies at that time cost only a fraction of what it is today, movies did a lot more repeat business. Land/operating costs were cheaper back then too so theater owners didn't have to pay a king's ransom just to operate at that location every month.

Makes sense. If only we had admissions figures.

Who did you try contacting? HK Box Office, what is that?

I tried to contact the department that publishes the official weekly box office.

Cold War should lead off with 16,000-17,000 admissions in pre-sales. It is doing 5-10x Skyfall's night business at a number of locations and is in much bigger screens. For instance, at The ONE, Cold War is leading by nearly a 5:1 ratio while at Palace APM, Cold War has over an 8:1 advantage over Skyfall.

Skyfall is heading for 4,000-5,000 in pre-sales (70-80% drop from OD pre-sales).

Thursday admissions (so far)

1. Cold War - 12,997
2. Skyfall - 3,996 (-75.9%)

Cold War pre-sales are looking good. It's up 62.6% from Love in the Buff's opening day and 112.8% higher than Overheard 2's opening day. It is lagging behind A Simple Life's opening day numbers, making just over half of ASL's opening day pre-sales. Weekend pre-sales for Cold War seem to be much better than its weekday evening shows. It will open to over 1m and could reach 1.5m if all goes well.

Skyfall is falling apart. With only average WOM in HK and Cold War taking the majority of screens, Skyfall's pre-sales have taken a huge hit. Last Thursday saw huge pre-sales in the areas with more foreigners (Central, Admiralty, Tsim Sha Tsui) but this week, ticket sales for Skyfall in Tsim Sha Tsui have evaporated. The business sector on HK Island is still doing the best with sellouts for Skyfall as early as 5 PM today. Even with the fast selling for Skyfall there, Cold War has performed admirably in that area. Cold War will remain on the biggest screens on Saturday and Sunday so chances of Skyfall mounting a comeback on the weekend to salvage a decent hold is very slim. Last week had very high pre-sales but this week, pre-sales have been slow at most places. Walk-ins could make up 75% of Skyfall's business today whereas last week, pre-sales accounted for almost 50%.

Some good news for Skyfall now. It opened to 1.97m last weekend according to Mojo and it pushed the total box office high enough to claim the biggest November weekend on record! Woo-hoo!

Is it customary for films to die pretty quickly in HK?
I mean, Skyfall is a big movie that I would have expected to do well in HK because of the English culture there, but within 1 week it's dropping like a rock and the opening wasn't that impressive. Are Hong Kong residents preferring HK-fare over US/UK made productions (like in Japan)?

Yeah, it kind of is, unfortunately. There are a few exceptions though like TDKR, Ice Age 4, Madagascar 3, Toy Story 3, Avatar.

The James Bond franchise has never been that big in Hong Kong to begin with so I think expectations of a huge total for Skyfall is way too optimistic. Skyfall dying has more to do with its average word of mouth in HK than it does with people going to see a local film.

If Skyfall had strong word of mouth, it wouldn't have collapsed this fast. Skyfall started dipping on Sunday; it lost 10,000 admissions and more than 11% from Saturday. On Monday, it fell 53% from Thursday admissions so it cliff diving now had very little to do with Cold War. Yeah, Cold War accelerated Skyfall's nosedive a little but Skyfall was already losing a lot of sales then. Had Cold War not been released this week, Skyfall would have still fallen over 55%.

Skyfall's opening was very surprising. It only made 1.1m OW with CR/QoS so it jumping over 65% this time around was shocking. Even if Skyfall falls 80% this weekend (it won't), it will have already passed the previous 2 Bond films. Let's not lose sight of the big picture here: Skyfall opened to big numbers and will outperform the previous 2 Daniel Craig Bond vehicles by a fairly wide margin. It's a huge success.

Foreign box office is down slightly but local films have done much better this year. They've already set new highs this year, way up from last year. Still, foreign box office has done pretty well for itself too. You've got 2 films over 10m, which has never happened before and 3 films almost making 8m. 4 Hollywood films have done over 6m; it also hasn't been done before. I would say interest in local films is going up because they are actually making better films the past few years. Hollywood movies have done no worse for wear here. It's still very much Hollywood territory although now it's getting more competitive. If the local film industry continues to pump out good movies, I could see the 2 industries co-existing with each other. HK though will NEVER turn to another India, that's for sure. People here love their Hollywood blockbusters too much.

								Nov 1 WKD
Rank	Movie	Distributor	Weekend BO	Weeks	Engmnts	Eng. average	% change	B.O. Cume
1	Skyfall	Sony	$1,824,640	1	132	$13,823		$1,824,640
2	Natural Born Lovers	Newport Entertainment	$175,995	2	37	$4,757	-40%	$601,097
3	Silent Hill: Revelation 3D	Edko Films	$148,382	2	47	$3,157	-60%	$657,573
4	Umizaru4 (Umizaru 4)	Intercontinental Films	$87,253	2	22	$3,966	-51%	$438,036
5	Frankenweenie	Disney	$24,753	3	19	$1,303	-77%	$543,378
6	The Perks of Being A Wallflower	Deltamac (HK)	$18,434	3	8	$2,304	-47%	$131,158
7	Going With The West	Newport Entertainment	$17,664	7	6	$2,944	-42%	$2,404,935
8	Heruta Sukeruta (Helter Skelter)	Intercontinental Films	$16,202	4	8	$2,025	-75%	$766,966
9	Tai Chi II: Heroes Rise (Tai Chi II)	Intercontinental Films	$14,088	2	15	$939	-81%	$115,317
10	The Intouchables	Golden Scene Co	$9,913	9	9	$1,101	-57%	$1,061,937

Big discrepancy between Mojo and Variety this week. Regardless, Skyfall opened to huge numbers. Natural Born Lovers held very well. Silent Hill is having toxic WOM. Umizaru isn't doing too badly. Frankenweenie had most of its screens cut. The Perks of Being A Wallflower is holding excellently after that slow OW. Due West is holding decently. Helter Skelter has done pretty well. Tai Chi 2 is having terrible legs. Intouchables is holding on but won't last much longer.

	Thursday				November 8
Rank	Title	LW (adm.)	TW (adm.)	Gross (USD)	% chg (adm.)
1	Cold War	--	41,798	$345,170	--
2	Skyfall	40,134	13,588	$138,383	-66.1%
3	Natural Born Lovers	--	1,840	$15,346	--
4	Umizaru: Brave Hearts	--	1,052	$8,474	--
5	Silent Hill: Revelation	--	1,030	$11,094	--

WOW. Cold War manages to defeat Skyfall's OD admissions. That is fantastic. It did a 3x multiplier today. This bodes really well for the weekend where pre-sales have looked even better than today. It will take home the biggest OW of the year for a local film and will pass 1.5m OW. 2m can not be counted out.

Its OD is +127.5% higher than Overheard 2's opening day, +124.0% bigger than Love in the Buff and +10.0% stronger than A Simple Life, which opened on a Friday and had a boost with night shows. This is unbelievable. WOM has looked good so far. If it holds, we might even see our first 5m grosser for a local film this year.

Skyfall crumbled under Cold War's watch. The negative word of mouth among the general public doesn't inspire confidence that it will hold better the coming weeks. Overall WOM remains ok but it is a divisive film amongst moviegoers. It'll rebound slightly this weekend but Cold War remains a huge force this weekend. It'll drop slightly bigger on Saturday while flexing a better hold on Sunday. Skyfall could squeeze out a 60% drop if it holds well on Sunday.

Nice to see a local film performing so well and I hope it reaches at least $4 million.

Also nice to see how well Heruta Skelter did in Hong Kong, too. If it's not too much trouble, could you put together a Top 10 Highest Grossing Japanese films in Hong Kong from this past year?

I'll get to it a little later.

		Thursday Actuals						November 8
LW	TW	Title	Last Thu. (USD)	Thursday (USD)	% chg	Screens	Days	Total
--	1	Cold War	--	$259,836	--	92	1	$269,658
1	2	Skyfall	$346,399	$116,077	-66.5%	84	8	$2,576,356
2	3	Natural Born Lovers	--	$11,306	--	31	15	$699,560
3	4	Silent Hill: Revelation	--	$8,317	--	26	15	$721,450
4	5	Umizaru: Brave Hearts	--	$5,759	--	20	15	$480,502
--	6	Bel Ami	--	$2,547	--	4	1	$2,547
--	7	Due West	--	$2,494	--	5	50	$2,417,434
--	8	The Perks of Being A Wallflower	--	$2,027	--	6	22	$144,506
--	9	Monsieur Lazhar	--	$1,708	--	2	1	$2,580
--	10	Frankenweenie	--	$1,055	--	3	22	$550,890

This is why ticket prices are so important in HK. Nearly $100,000 difference from Skyfall's OD actual. Cold War is still a huge hit even with the downgrade. It will still pass 1.5m this weekend. Huge plunge for Skyfall. Great reviews are not helping this movie. Average word of mouth in HK is sinking this. Natural Born Lovers is doing well. Silent Hill Revelation will come within $50,000 of the original. Umizaru is also showing some legs. Bel Ami flopped. Due West has been doing ok after the holiday. The Perks of Being A Wallflower has already surpassed a 4x multiplier after its OW. Monsieur Lazhar is off to a fairly good start. Frankenweenie has done ok for itself.

Update: Cold War is on pace for 1.5m this weekend. Skyfall is doing much better now.