Thanks!
You have the most complete and systematic picture of the market right here on KJ. Took me some time to surf through the Russian Internet and old articles that are still online to get separated chunks of info and put them together (data prior to 2002 was the main problem, obviously) in a suitable way, and yet, there's still some missing pieces. So enjoy and take advantage!

By the way, Irony of Fate 2 with its ~11 million tickets sold is still somewhere well behind USSR Top-1000 top-grossing movies.

Hey, guys. Here's some pictures from INHABITED ISLAND:

http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/12/film/257774/
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/17/film/257774/
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/13/film/257774/
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/13/film/2 ... v_type/sp/
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/13/film/2 ... e/concept/

It seems like our cinema has never seen anything close to the scale of this movie. It looks pretty awesome so far.
Damn, the vehicles they have there look great.

So, since 2004 each year a local film has topped the yearly Top 10?

Yep. And each one had a TV Channel and monstrous marketing campaign behind it.

And each bigger than the one before. So will we see a $54+ million-grossing local film this year?

Highly unlikely. Irony of Fate 2 was a unique case, which was able to draw all ages, and most notably, elder women. It was born to be successful. All generations have seen the original multiple times in 30+ years since the release. All the original cast returned + current biggest stars + lots of cameos all over the place + all-time Primadonna of our music industry did a new song for the movie. So basically everyone wanted to see a sequel. It wasn't a very good movie, but still it was one of the best business projects I've ever seen. I was really happy to see stars of the original.

I'm pretty sure, if any movie will break this record, it's gonna be something unique, and it has to have Channel One advertising monster behind it. I can't say I like Konstantin Ernst, CEO of Channel One, but I must admit, that he is the biggest and most successful producer of our movie industry. His next big project will be Admiral later in the year, but it won't be that big.

Unique is a key buzz word for the new market records: of the local films the new champion could be
- a sequel to a movie that was super successful in the past (like Twilight Watch if they film it, or next year's Return of Musketeers),
- a big adaptation of the super popular book (if they film more movies about Erast Fandorin, hero of Boris Akunin's super successful book series (3 of them are adapted and 1 is being prepared by Paul Verhoven), it might claim this record)
- a big-budgeted epic-scale blockbuster with never seen before special effects (currently Inhabited Island looks like this)
- adaptation of Our Russia, if it is really good (should be released on January 1, 2009)

Of the Hollywood movies, I don't see too many candidates to claim the top spot. The most likely winners are Hobbit and POTC 4 (at least they could become champions of all non-local pics). Other biggies are T4, Ice Age 3, HP 7, Transformers 2, Angels and Demons, Madagascar 2, Narnia series - but I don't see any of those jumping higher than $35 million.

Holy christ, I never realized Russia was such a movie-oriented culture. Especially in the USSR days. How many outside films were allowed in at the time?

You might be surprised how many. 4 in the all-time Top-10 were foreign: 2 American (Spartacus and 7th Voyage of Sinbad), 1 Mexican (all-time champion Yesenia), and 1 French (The Black Tulip).

I have Top-50 Foreign films by admissions - and all of them grossed over 40 million, so there should be a lot of them out of the Top-50. A lot of movies from India, France, Italy, obviously Poland and East Germany, Mexico, Japan, and USA were released in the USSR. They had to go through censors, but still many were admitted, if they were not ideological or anti-Soviet.

OK, let's see what we have for the rest of the Summer. Each week will have a new blockbuster. I'm pretty bad at predicting the local market figures, as pretty much everyone, but here's some of my thoughts anyway:

Hancock is gonna be huge hit because of Will Smith, who is big, big, big here, and the superhero concept, which is always a very hot sell for our market. I am Legend grossed $9.4. This time Smith did a promotional campaign here coming to 30th Moscow International Film Festival along with Charlize Theron, director and producers, and Hancock was an opening movie of the Fest. It's not like too many people care about the Festival (don't tell Mikhalkov!), but the movie got a lot of PR and publicity, and it's not like Will Smith himself comes that often. I expect this to take at least $11 m with good potential for $15-16+ m.

Meet Dave - regular Eddie Murphy comedy... The guy is pretty popular here. Should gross over $2.5-3 m. Norbit did $1.2, but Dave is a high concept comedy, which will draw bigger audience for sure.

Hellboy 2 - the first one did pretty good back in 2004, grossing $1.5 m and was taken pretty favorably. I see this one grossing $5-6+ m.

Get smart - the high-concept comedy should sell enough to take around $3 m or higher. The market likes good comedies.

X-files 2 - the series was a huge cult hit back in the 90s and beginning of 2000s. There's enough following for this to gross over $7-8 m.

Mummy 3 - the franchise is pretty famous, and Mummy 2 headed the 2001 yearly list with $3.05, which was huuge. National Treasure 2, which is gonna be some kind of a benchmark for this, was able to triple the grosses of the original and finishing with $15.4 m, so I can see Mummy 3 grossing $12-16 m, regardless of how far it is from the original concept. And Jet Li is a nice addition to the cast. I think the crowd will eat this.

Mutant Chronicles - the concept looks cool enough for our market. Sci-fi, mutants, f/x, apocalypse - the crowd likes these things. Somewhat reminds me Resident Evil, which did $9.2 in its third installing. I don't see the reasons why this can't make at least $3-4 m.

The Dark Knight - this is gonna be hard. I remember how I predicted Barman Begins to be a sure hit, and how much I was shocked then coming to an empty theater on opening weekend. It was one of the first major blockbusters to flop so badly in our highly blockbuster-oriented market, and one of 2 comicbook adaptations that flopped (this, and Superman Returns).
BB did disgraceful $1.3 m, while SR did $1.7, both hugely disappointing (I mean, even MY SUPER EX GIRLFRIEND did $2.6 m). Both Batman and Superman are very well-known major superheroes here, but for some unknown reason the crowd ignored both movies (+they didn’t market them very well, probably thinking that they will sell themselves, which didn’t happen). Batman is as popular as Spidey, previous movies were very popular, and so were the cartoons. They show both Burton’s movies every Winter on TV, 3rd one every couple of years, and 4th one every once on a while. When I think that our market will consume everything, Batman Begins and Superman Returns come to my mind, and I somewhat hold my expectations. Come on, even Uwe “Dr Evil” Boll grosses $1.5+ m here, how come big superheroes fall in the same range???
And it’s not like BB was taken that favorably here, it wasn’t a crowd pleaser as in the US, and its cult following is not that big (if any). So I’m really unsure about how much DK can improve on BB. Since BB did so terribly, I have no idea how much more DK will take (+ it’s not like there’s not much buzz here). At this point I see $3-3.5 million as the worst case scenario (if it makes as much opening weekend as the original made in total), and Incredible Hulk’s range of $6-7 m as optimal scenario. And if it grosses around $10 m, as it deserves, I would call it a miracle.

Babylon A.D. – Vin Diesel is pretty big here after XXX, Fast and Furious and his Riddick series, so he is surely able to sell this movie, if even The Pacifier did $2.8 m. The benchmark for this is gonna be Riddick’s very solid $3.3 m in 2004, and looking somewhat similar, Babylon might jump as high as $5-6 m or more.

Space Chimps – when this comes out in the very end of the Summer, kids won’t have movies for them for quite some time, which might help this gross as much as $1.5-2 m. On the other hand, school starts few days after, and they might want to use their final chance to do something else with friends or parents (or finalize the school preparations). But they can still choose going to movies to put an official end to their Summer holidays.

I bet that for the rest of the summer Hancock will be the biggest film. In fact, I'd say it has a chance to outgross Narnia and maybe even Indy.

Wanted and Kung Fu Panda will be the biggest Hollywood summer flicks, though.


I wonder how Quantum of Solace will do, especially with Kurylenko starring....I think Casino Royale did well too. I see $16+ million.

My mom loves that film...was it ever released in the US? I can't find much about it.

To tell you the truth, Nobody cares about Kurylenko. I mean, it's cool that she is Russian, but she is not a major star, draw or anything close. Nobody knows her. I mean, if it was Milla Jovovich, it would matter... Casino did over $9 million and was a real crowd pleaser, so yeah, I'm totally in with your prediction, and I think it can even double Casino's gross. And we'll have a holiday when it opens, so opening weekend will be pretty massive as well.

Not surprised... That's a totally moms' movie. Women just die crying. It was a direct prerequisite to Slave Isaura (remember this one? that was maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee), Simply Maria, Wild Rosa and all other soap we got from Latin America.

What about Madagascar 2 and Harry Potter?

OMG...bleh.

I always knew you don't have heart, Doc...

Madagascar headed the list of top animated pics until Ice Age 2 broke out. I think it should easily double the original and make well over $15 m. $20-22 m is not out of question, given how big was Dreamworks' Panda.

HP looks pretty safe without too much competition, but it won't be able to top the previous one ($18.4) by large margin in just a year and a half. I'd say $20-22 million is maximum. I doubt it would top $25 m...too soon for this to happen.

Hmm, it'll be interesting to see. It probably will matter who'll do the voice cast in Madagascar 2 (as that was a major reason for Panda's success).


About next year's flicks...


Transformers made over $15 million in Russia...so I think Transformers 2 is a lock for $20 million, probably even something like $23-24 million.


The Terminator franchise has always been big in Russia. At some point T3 was the biggest movie of all-time. However it was also mostly because of how popular Arnie is in Russia. Without him, I'm not sure there'll be much of an increase for Terminator 4, I see maybe around $15 million.


Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs will be HUGE. I see $30+ million easily.

OK, so we have some news here. It appears that Wanted is showing legs after its super breakthrough weekend, which never happens for Hollywood pics. So it's behaving more like a local pic heavily advertised after the opening week. Which means WOM works very well. $6.5, if true, puts it in Top-3 biggest 2nd weekends on par with Pirates 3 and Irony of Fate 2. If this exact number holds, it would be the Highest 2nd weekend ever! Moreover, a decline of 40% is almost unheard of for the blockbuster. I really hope it won't take a hit from Hancock and top the year's #1 Very Best Film's $30 m. It is possible, but would be hard.

On the other hand, Pixar's brand didn't improve as much as I hoped, as the estimates say WALL-E took $5.4 m (they still might not have included Thursday). Still an improvement on Rat's $3.9 m. With enought staying power it would still be able to take $15-16 m (Rat's legs would put it on $15.6, but Rat faced Transformers in its 2nd weekend, and HP in its 4th). Hancock is this years' TF, but after that Wall-E would be still good enough to show late legs and make up to $16.5-17 m.

Irony of Fate 2's third weekend is unbeatable, though....unbeatable.

I wouldn't say the voice cast was a major factor for Panda, but it surely contributed as much as it did for US. Voices for Madagascar 1 were provided by always present Khabensky and few other famous ones. I'm sure they'll hire some big guys this time either.
Yeah, TF2 is gonna be big enough for $20-25.

Well, Terminator is still Terminator, even without Arnie. With him it would be supermonster, but the concept and brand are still powerful enough. Since 2003 market grew big time, and with Arnie this would be a sure candidate for $35 m. Without him I still see this falling close to $20 m. And I'm sure they won't cover that Arnie is not there in ads. Just for some comparison, Fast and Furious 3 still doubled gross of the second, Evan Almighty matched Bruce, while XXX2 did only 60% of the original. $15 m is a lock for T4.
As for Ice Age 3, the concept still looks strange to me, but the brand is big enough for $30 m, but I'm not sure how much more it can do...

$10.8 m, yeah... Well, it was a unique thing and holiday, so we might not count that They need to release something big (there's still enough Soviet comedies to make sequels that everyone would like to see) around that same time, and who knows...

Hmm, but how many really famous Soviet movies are out there where the original cast is still alive?

BTW, why are the Russian charts in US-Dollars?

Because the numbers would be too big in rubles...too much typing

Yeah... it's so sad that so many Really Big Soviet stars died. Mironov, Nikulin, Papanov, Morgunov, Vitsin, Demyanenko, Leonov, Kramarov, Solomin... It seems like most of the biggest are gone. However, almost the full cast of Moscow does not believe in tears are alive and doing well. Workplace Romance is another huge opportunity - all of them are around!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, our dear Sherlock Holmes, the best one ever, Vasiliy Livanov is here. Lyudmila Gurchenko is always present - Railway Station for Two is just waiting for her and Basilashvili. Kuravlyov is here to do another one Afonya. Kikabidze is around for sequel to Mimino.
Then, we have Little Vera and Intergirl, which could be very-very interesting.