Welcome back!

How did Bullet to the Head do?

It opened in 10th and made $64,418 this weekend. PTA just $3,220.

Weak opening but this is what happens when you delay a couple of months and don't promote it enough.

Is that HKD? or USD?

US$ unless otherwise specified.

New blog post up.

Inner workings of HK box office part 2

Thursday schedules

Festival Walk
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Oblivion - 9 showings	Saving General Yang (Can.) - 3 showings (▼ 4)	GI Joe: Retaliation 3D
Conspirators - 5 showings	Touch of the Light - 1 showing (▼ 4)	The Croods (3D Eng.)
Will You Still Me Tomorrow? - 5 showings	Jurassic Park 3D - 1 showing (▼ 5)	Beautiful Creatures
I Give It A Year - 5 showings	GI Joe: Retaliation - 2 showings (▲ 0)	Ip Man: The Final Fight
	The Croods (Can.) - 1 showing (▲ 0)	Oz: The Great and Powerful
	The Croods (Eng.) - 1 showing (-)	Silver Linings Playbook
	The Croods (3D Can.) - 2 showings (▼ 4)	Les Misérables
	Finding Mr. Right - 6 showings (-)
	Olympus Has Fallen - 1 showing (▼ 2)

Langham Place
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Oblivion - 6 showings	Jurassic Park 3D - 1 showing (▼ 4)	Bullet to the Head
Conspirators - 6 showings	Saving General Yang (Can.) - 3 showings (▼ 6)	Olympus Has Fallen
Will You Still Me Tomorrow? - 3 showings	Ip Man: The Final Fight - 2 showings (▼ 6)	The Croods (Can.)
I Give It A Year - 3 showings	Lesson of the Evil - 4 showings (▼ 6)
Seven Psychopaths - 6 showings	GI Joe: Retaliation 3D - 3 showings (▼ 5)
	GI Joe: Retaliation - 1 showing (▼ 2)
	The Croods (3D Can.) - 2 showings (▼ 4)
	Finding Mr. Right - 2 showings (▼ 3)

STAR Cinema
New	Holdovers	Leaving
Oblivion - 9 showings	Saving General Yang (Can.) - 2 showings (▼ 5)	Bullet to the Head
Conspirators - 6 showings	Touch of the Light - 1 showing (▼ 3)	GI Joe: Retaliation
Will You Still Me Tomorrow? - 4 showings	Lesson of the Evil - 3 showings (▼ 5)	The Croods (Can.)
I Give It A Year - 5 showings	Jurassic Park 3D - 1 showing (▼ 3)	Beautiful Creatures
	GI Joe: Retaliation 3D - 2 showings (▼ 3)	Finding Mr. Right
	The Croods (3D Can.) - 1 showing (▼ 2)	Olympus Has Fallen
	Ip Man: The Final Fight - 1 showing (▼ 3)

Oblivion is getting 2 screens at Broadway/AMC and MCL theaters. UA and GH are giving it the biggest screen. Conspirators is getting full day showings at most theaters. Will You Still Love Tomorrow? and I Give It A Year lag behind. Seven Psychopaths is getting a limited release in UA theaters while The Hunt crosses paths with the 2 arthouse theaters.

Holdovers are mixed. GI Joe 2 will get heavily crushed by the new competition but will be heading into its 3rd weekend with showtimes in almost all theaters. Croods is getting similar showtimes to GI Joe 2. Finding Mr. Right is gone from most MCL theaters but all Broadway/AMC and UA theaters will continue to show it for another week. Ip Man: The Final Fight will likely face limited showings at Broadway/AMC theaters. UA will keep this another week.

Ticket sales between Oblivion and Conspirators have been very close with Conspirators taking a slight lead at night over Oblivion. Thursday morning looks like a clear win for Conspirators so far. Oblivion will turn it around with walk-ins though.

Among all the local sequels coming out this year, which do you expect will do the best and worst?

(And congrats on 1,000 replies!)

The best will be these 3: Ip Man 3, Cold War 2 and Overheard 3. They will definitely contend for the biggest HK film of the year. Interest for Ip Man 3 is sky high. I could see 6m depending on release date. The other 2 Ip Man films this year have each grossed at least 1m. A good Ip Man film could yield a lot more. Cold War 2 probably won't do as well as the first one but I could see it making 4-5m. Overheard 3 should do a little better than Overheard 2. Maybe 4-4.5m.

The worst I think will be Sex & Zen 2: Sexecution 4D. The 3D gimmick enticed a lot of people the first time around. I'm not sure adding wind, rain, bubbles and lasers will get people to join in this time. I think it will make about half of S&Z: Extreme Ecstasy's gross (2.5m).

New article up on the main KJ site. It's Oblivion time! - Alternate link

	Thursday adm.	(so far)		April 11
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	Oblivion	--	5,687	--
2	Conspirators	--	2,846	--
3	Finding Mr. Right	3,010	942	-68.7%
4	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	9,261	766	-91.7%
5	Saving General Yang	3,909	640	-83.6%
6	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	504	--
7	I Give It A Year	--	427	--
8	The Croods	10,114	395	-96.1%
9	Ip Man: The Final Fight	2,814	257	-90.9%
10	Jurassic Park 3D	3,047	212	-93.0%

Not bad for Oblivion. Good for Conspirators. Conspirators' pre-sales are up 34% from The Detective 2. Finding Mr. Right is holding extremely well while others are faltering quite quickly. That Croods drop....
_____________________________________________________________

Here's what I'm working on for my next blog post.



But before we get there...let's look at how Iron Man 3 is doing so far. In IMAX, Iron Man 3 is doing stellar. IMAX shows are 85% sold out in peak hours and there's still 2 weeks left! On its 1st day of pre-selling, Iron Man 3 was already 50% filled.



Regular theaters are also following suit with showtimes about 50-60% sold in the high traffic areas.

Me and my wife will be attending Sex and Zen 2 whenever it comes out. We had a ball with Due West 3D, so hopefully it'll be as good.

i.hope, did you notice the site with Thursday actuals is no more? They got rid of it. Bleh, all of the good box office sites are disappearing.

	Thursday adm.			April 11
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	Oblivion	--	21,845	--
2	Conspirators	--	12,264	--
3	Finding Mr. Right	10,884	3,372	-69.0%
4	Saving General Yang	12,363	2,658	-78.5%
5	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	27,651	2,471	-91.1%
6	I Give It A Year	--	1,547	--
7	The Croods	24,788	1,281	-94.8%
8	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	1,110	--
9	Ip Man: The Final Fight	11,693	1,014	-91.3%
10	Lesson of the Evil	5,095	829	-83.7%

Good for Oblivion. -5% from Battleship's opening day but had very strong walk-ins. Multiplier reached almost 8x for the day. So far so good across the reviews front. Holding a 91% approval rating from users. Great for Conspirators. Up a healthy 50% from Detective 2. Good hold for Finding Mr. Right. Decent for Saving General Yang. Pretty awful for GI Joe 2. Yikes for The Croods.

Does Croods have not-so-good WOM ?

I'm having to go all the bloody way to Po Lam to see Bullet to the Head for a second time. After only 7 days, it's gone from all cinemas in HK apart from the MCL Metro Cinema where it's showing once per day (only until Sunday). Now, I knew it didn't set HK on fire, but I didn't realise it performed THAT badly to warrant this sort of reaction from cinemas. Or is it more a combination of it performing softly plus the fact that there are so many options around that need screens too?

I guess I will be going to another cinema, which is a plus, but I love the MCL Telford one. It's close and convenient and the prices are nice and the seats are comfortable.

Furthermore, Drug War isn't playing with subtitles. So I can't see that either. Although, I might go and see Oblivion, which I'm super happy about. Seeing a Stallone and Cruise on the same day.

It's having very good WOM. The drop right now is very surprising since WOM is very good and there's no other kids film out right now either.
There are 3 places still showing this. AMC Pacific Place, Grand Cinema and MCL Metro.

Last week it made close to $64,000. That's terrible for a film that got a wide release. Overall, its PTA was a bit above $3,000. Not good but not an outright flop. Still, those numbers are borderline grounds for removal for theaters. It barely beat out Zookeeper's OW, which was a total disaster in its own right. Add in the new openers and getting 3 theaters is a miracle. Any way you slice it, Bullet to the Head got executed big time.

Going by other theater chains, Drug War has English and Chinese subtitles. MCL doesn't list them though.

If you can, save up and see a movie at AMC Pacific Place. Seriously, it's even been rated one of the best theaters in the world. Pics here.

	Friday adm.	(so far)			April 12
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	9,154	--	+61.0%
2	Conspirators	--	4,528	--	+59.1%
3	Finding Mr. Right	2,018	1,674	-17.0%	+77.7%
4	Saving General Yang	1,931	949	-50.9%	+48.3%
5	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	5,384	922	-82.9%	+20.4%
6	I Give It A Year	--	686	--	+60.7%
7	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	611	--	+21.2%
8	The Croods	3,910	572	-85.4%	+44.8%
9	Touch of the Light	767	380	-50.5%	--
10	Lesson of the Evil	757	293	-61.3%	--

	Friday adm.				April 12
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	28,050	--	+28.4%
2	Conspirators	--	14,160	--	+15.5%
3	Finding Mr. Right	6,970	4,765	-31.6%	+41.3%
4	Saving General Yang	7,356	3,388	-53.9%	+27.5%
5	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	16,009	2,976	-81.4%	+20.4%
6	I Give It A Year	--	2,582	--	+66.9%
7	The Croods	11,834	1,743	-85.3%	+36.1%
8	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	1,510	--	+36.0%
9	Drug War	--	1,332	--	--
10	Ip Man: The Final Fight	6,510	1,224	-81.2%	+20.7%

Oblivion has taken away the lead from Battleship in admissions. Battleship made more than 1.1m for the 4-day so if Oblivion can keep this up, it should be able to at least tie it in gross.

	Daily admissions (OW)
	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
Battleship	23,029	25,616	46,523	40,916	136,084
Oblivion	21,845	28,050			49,895
Gap	-1,184	1,250	-45,273	-86,189

Conspirators is still doing OK. It had the smallest increase of the top 10 but it will easily pass Detective 1 & 2's opening weekend. Excellent for Finding Mr. Right although Friday's are usually inflated for romance movies. Good for Saving General Yang. Bad for G.I. Joe 2. Not good for I Give It A Year even though it had the best increase. Awful for The Croods. Beating Wreck-It Ralph looked like a certainty 4 days ago...now, it looks like it will miss. How things change... Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? won't be loved tomorrow or the next day. Drug War snuck into the top 10 with sneaks. Very impressive considering that only a few theaters gave it Friday night sneaks. Bad for Ip Man: The Final Fight.

Ok, AMC Pacific Place is where I will see The Tomb in September.

Iron Man 3 preview

	Saturday adm.	(so far)			April 13
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	14,086	--	+53.9%
2	Conspirators	--	5,982	--	+32.1%
3	Finding Mr. Right	2,562	1,931	-24.6%	+15.4%
4	The Croods	4,689	1,599	-65.9%	+179.5%
5	Saving General Yang	3,124	1,390	-55.5%	+46.5%
6	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	6,732	1,111	-83.5%	+20.5%
7	Drug War	--	794	--	--
8	I Give It A Year	--	726	--	+5.8%
9	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	598	--	-2.1%
10	Ip Man: The Final Fight	1,864	536	-71.2%	--

	Saturday adm.				April 13
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	45,504	--	+62.2%
2	Conspirators	--	21,852	--	+54.3%
3	Finding Mr. Right	9,775	6,738	-31.1%	+41.4%
4	Saving General Yang	12,157	5,100	-58.0%	+50.5%
5	The Croods	13,719	4,753	-65.4%	+172.7%
6	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	19,684	4,127	-79.0%	+38.7%
7	Drug War	--	3,829	--	+187.5%
8	I Give It A Year	--	3,739	--	+44.8%
9	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	1,742	--	+15.4%
10	Ip Man: The Final Fight	7,980	1,650	-79.3%	+34.8%

	Daily admissions (OW)
	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
Battleship	23,029	25,616	46,523	40,916	136,084
Oblivion	21,845	28,050	45,504		95,399
Gap	-1,184	1,250	231	-40,685

Now the lead shrinks to 231 for Oblivion. No changes for the top 4. The Croods had a huge jump on Saturday but weekend hold is still looking at -75%. Drug War had a lot of Saturday sneaks, hence the huge increase from Friday.


Life of Pi enters its 21st weekend this week. It becomes the 2nd longest run behind 3 Idiots.

I went to a Sunday sneak of Drug War. Quite a few people there too. Went to Po Lam's MCL Metro. Screen 7 is dire (uncomfortable seats, no stadium seating), but screen 3 is fine (still no stadium seating, but better seats in narrow aisles), but with screens 1-6, I dislike there ONLY being a curtain as a door. I could hear The Croods while I was watching Drug War. Not ideal.

I saw Bullet to the Head at lunch time, and it had about 15 people in the cinema, which was more than I expected. I think that many people expected it to stay around in other cinemas. When they saw that it had left all but three, they decided to travel all the way out to Po Lam to catch it. If it's there next week too, I might go again. Was going to see I Give It A Year too, but it was already late enough. Might see it next weekend IF I go.

Overall, I kind of like MCL Metro. Prices are low and cinemas are so-so (no stadium seating, seats aren't comfortable etc.), but I kind of like this in a cinema - reminds me of back in England.

Thanks for the report.

So how many times have you seen Bullet to the Head? And how was Drug War anyways?

	Sunday adm.	(so far)			April 14
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	15,536	--	+10.3%
2	Conspirators	--	6,822	--	+14.0%
3	The Croods	5,627	2,287	-59.4%	+43.0%
4	Finding Mr. Right	2,509	1,994	-20.5%	+3.3%
5	Saving General Yang	3,637	1,929	-47.0%	+38.8%
6	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	6,526	1,327	-79.7%	+19.4%
7	Ip Man: The Final Fight	2,405	1,298	-46.0%	+142.2%
8	I Give It A Year	--	997	--	+37.3%
9	Drug War	--	787	--	-0.9%
10	Jurassic Park 3D	2,180	707	-67.6%	--

	Sunday adm.				April 14
Rank	Title	LW	TW	WKD % chg	QD % chg
1	Oblivion	--	40,565	--	-10.9%
2	Conspirators	--	20,980	--	-4.0%
3	Finding Mr. Right	8,304	6,222	-25.1%	-7.7%
4	The Croods	14,387	6,194	-56.9%	+30.3%
5	Saving General Yang	11,572	5,597	-51.6%	+9.7%
6	I Give It A Year	--	3,530	--	-5.6%
7	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	16,701	3,468	-79.2%	-16.0%
8	Drug War	--	3,389	--	-11.5%
9	Ip Man: The Final Fight	7,451	2,651	-64.4%	+60.7%
10	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	1,628	--	-6.5%

Not a bad hold for Oblivion. Battleship fell 12% on its opening Sunday so it's doing in line with typical sci-fi apocalyptic movies. Conspirators had the best drop on Sunday but it also had the worst increase on Friday. Go figure. Croods was #3 on Sunday. It posted a solid increase. Saving General Yang outranked Finding Mr. Right on Sunday but it couldn't catch Mr. Right overall. Great drop for Mr. Right on Sunday. Huge spike for Ip Man: The Final Fight on Sunday. I'm not sure if this is an aberration or if it's genuine but it helped Ip Man: TFF to pass Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow in the official weekend rankings.

	Daily admissions (OW)
	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
Battleship	23,029	25,616	46,523	40,916	136,084
Oblivion	21,845	28,050	45,504	40,565	135,964
Gap	-1,184	1,250	231	-120

This concludes the fight between Battleship and Oblivion. Warships and aliens over Tom Cruise and aliens.

	Weekend adm.			Apr 11-14
Rank	Title	LW	TW	% chg
1	Oblivion	--	135,964	--
2	Conspirators	--	69,256	--
3	Finding Mr. Right	35,933	21,097	-41.3%
4	Saving General Yang	43,448	16,743	-61.5%
5	The Croods	64,728	13,971	-78.4%
6	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	80,045	13,042	-83.7%
7	I Give It A Year	--	11,398	--
8	Drug War	--	8,550	--
9	Ip Man: The Final Fight	33,634	6,539	-80.6%
10	Will You Still Me Love Me Tomorrow?	--	5,990	--

April 11 Weekend Estimates

I've seen Bullet to the Head twice now. I always see Sly's movies at least twice. Drug War was great. Better than last year's Cold War. I really enjoyed it. Gave it a "B+". Louis Koo was superb.

April 11 Weekend Actuals

1. Oblivion - $1,024,266 (weekend actual)
2. Conspirators - $497,316 (weekend actual)
3. Finding Mr. Right - $986,903
4. Saving General Yang - $662,229
5. The Croods - $2,538,118
6. G.I. Joe: Retaliation - $3,174,580
I Give It A Year - $81,168 (weekend actual)
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? - $34,786 (weekend actual)
The Hunt - $15,460 (weekend actual)
Seven Psychopaths - $15,460 (weekend actual)

Oblivion drops from estimates. I see Oblivion making 2.3m. Good for Conspirators. It'll be the first in the series to reach 1m. Finding Mr. Right will go away with about 1.2-1.3m. After that sluggish start, it's a good total. Saving General Yang had the 2nd best hold of the top 10. The Croods passed 2.5m and it is $225,000 away from Wreck-It Ralph. I don't think it will get there after this weekend. Lots of theaters will dump it next week. GI Joe sputtered. Terrible hold this week. It'll gross 3.25m before leaving. I Give It A Year did bad but not as disgustingly bad as Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?. Tomorrow will have one of the worst PTA's of the year. The Hunt was solid. $7,600 PTA from 2 theaters. Seven Psychopaths scared off people making only a $2,576 PTA from 6 theaters.

Hong Kong held their Film Awards last Saturday. Cold War pulverized the competition and cleaned up with 4/5 big awards and 9 statues in all. Full list:

Best Film - Cold War
Best Director - Longman Leung, Sunny Luk (Cold War)
Best Actor - Tony Leung Ka-fai (Cold War)
Best Actress - Miriam Yeung (Love in the Buff)
Best Screenplay - Cold War
Best Supporting Actor - Ronald Cheng (Vulgaria)
Best Supporting Actress - Dada Chen (Vulgaria)
Best New Performer - Alex Tsui (Cold War)
Best Cinematography - The Silent War
Best Film Editing - Cold War
Best Art Direction - The Last Tycoon
Best Costume & Make Up Design - The Great Magician
Best Action Choreography - CZ12
Best Original Score - Cold War
Best Original Song - Ding Feng Bo by Jacky Cheung (The Last Tycoon)
Best Sound - Cold War
Best Visual Effects - Cold War
Best New Director - Chow Hin Yeung (Nightfall)
Best Mainland/Taiwan Film - Back to 1942

I'm glad Back to 1942 got some recognition. I don't see the specialness in Cold War - it was ok, but not the event film they were all making it out to be.

It mostly won because it made so much money at the box office. It was the only Chinese film (local/China) to make the top 10 last year.

New blog post up. I'll have another update on Iron Man 3 later today.

It's exactly 1 week before Iron Man 3 is out. You know what that means.

Thursday and Friday Iron Man 3 pre-sales @ Palace APM

Palace APM
	Iron Man 3
Day	Time	Seats sold	Seats available	% filled
Apr. 25	12:15 AM	53	286	18.53%
	12:00 PM	27	286	9.44%
	2:25 PM	20	286	6.99%
	4:50 PM	33	286	11.54%
	7:15 PM	135	286	47.20%
	9:40 PM	108	286	37.76%
	12:05 AM	27	286	9.44%
Total		403	2002	20.13%
Apr. 26	12:00 PM	17	286	5.94%
	2:25 PM	16	286	5.59%
	4:50 PM	29	286	10.14%
	7:15 PM	123	286	43.01%
	9:40 PM	163	286	56.99%
	12:05 AM	29	286	10.14%
Total		377	1716	21.97%

Iron Man 3 is doing in line between 3-3.5m. Pre-sales are slightly below The Avengers right now. Ticket sales will really pick up this weekend.