300m+ for Potter and Narnia

"OMG!!! KONG DROPPED 43%! IT'S NOT GONNA PASS TITANIC NOW!!!"..







it's still going to make +500 million worldwide.. Is that a disappointment? I guess it is..


people just set expectations too high, that's the problem..


anyway, that's not too brilliant for Kong, Munich and Brokeback (which seems to have made less than a million), yeah.. but given this specific year and the specific weekend, it might be asking a little too much for these movies.. I had my hopes too up for BBM as some had for Munich/Kong, but they're all doing fine, if you consider the circumstances..

You can continue that thought in another topic that here on the site somewhere.......

MovieCityNews has Kong on $8.4m and Brokeback Mountain on $0.7m.

Among friday 'estimaters', MCN is usually most off though.

That is why I don't understand the way Kong has performed. PH no one recommended to me personally (worst piece of sh*t.. being one of the typical responses), its IMDB and yahoo scores are mediocre to bad. Kong's are as good or better than most movies. The worst I have heard personally, is "it was just ok, I am not sure if it was worth 3 hrs," the rest being either raves or recommendations. I guess three hours is too much to expect from an audience if it is not LOTR or Titanic.

Anyhow piss poor for all openers including Munich,FWDAJ, and CBTD2. Geisha and The Ringer did pretty good

Munich did pretty dissapoitning, but after seeing some crowd reports about how the movie was in the smallest screens and only had one showing a day it's not that hard to belive it would only do that much.

IMDB, Yahoo ratings and critics ratings are not true maesures of WOM among the majority of the moviegoers.

Either way wom is great, it's just that alot of people just dont give a shit about King Kong it looks like no matter what the movie is like.

That is certainly a very big reason.

See, that's the thing, I don't think it's wOM is great. The numbers back me up on this. It might be great on the internet, but ask teh average joe what they thought of it and most everyone that I haev spoken with, including my own opinion, is that it is a good film, but not worth seeing a second time. I'd give it about 6.5 to a 7, decent, but not worth a second viewing. That is WOM just as much as someone voting for it on some internet poll.

I have a feeling BBM is going to do light business today and Sunday, and then begin finding an audience in it's newly expanded markets starting Monday...

Good for Munich, that is good for my derby!!!

The only movie that will kill me in the derby is Ringer. I will score at least 70, which is good so far.

Kong is getting mixed wom from the people i know,some like it and others dont but nobody i have met loves it.I think its a good film but a one time see only film in theatres,i cant think about going through that first hour again.

baumer, I have been saying that for a long time. Some people just use IMDB, Yahoo and other ratings to show WOM.

To prove the stupidity of these internet ratings, Consider JP VS KK on KJ;

KK is beating JP two to one.

JP was a phenomenon that redefined the blockbuster where it mattered most i.e. at the box office, while KK is a big underperformer. Just goes to show how idiotic these internet polls/WOM is.

Here's my take on the numbers:

First off, its fantastic to finally have something interesting to talk about regarding the box office. These are the weekends that interested me at all this year:

1) May 27–29, 2005: Sith/Mad/Yard combo, and then the following week having those 3 above films finishing within 3 m of each other and having Mad and Sith switch places.

2) July 15–17, 2005: Charlie/Wedding combo, and having both finish at $200 m +.

3) October 28–30, 2005: Having Saw II DOUBLE Zorro 2's weekend. That was great.

4) November 4–6, 2005: Jarhead/Chicken combo, I didn't see Jarhead doing that well.

5) November 18–20, 2005: HP4/Walk The Line, it was great having HP4 do OVER $100 m.

I think this long weekend will top those other 5 choices. There's just so much uncertainty with having 2 openers on Wed, 3 on Fri, 3 on Sunday, with another limited release (BBM). 9 openers/expanders within 5 days of each other, and having 5 openers/expanders during the first 3 weeks of December. So we've almost tripled the film count for the entire month so far just from this weekend from 5 films to 14. Holiday box office is also always more exciting, and having the close race for #1 makes it all the more exciting.

Here's my take on the numbers:

NARNIA 8.2 141.7

Strong for Narnia. It is great news for Disney, and could be headed for $270 m or so.

Monkey 8.2 95.5

Not the best, but still decent hold. It's a shame that it has yet to pass $100 m, but will on its 11th day (as long as it doesn't drop more than 45% on Sat, otherwise it will pass it on its 12th day). But even so, its still headed for close to $215 m-220 m, which considering the year we've had, isn't that bad at all. It's a very solid number if you don't fixate on Narnia's numbers. It seems that the common thought that Narnia would get hurt by the 5 day gap between it and Kong was actually the other way around. Universal will still have a huge film on their hands, and with Oscar attention, it could go higher than $220 m.

FUN 5.6 12.9

Actually a quite decent number, considering the poor opening day figures. It won't be a mega success for Carrey, but I've been hearing good things about it, so it should still be able to have a semi respectable run. It could still get to $70 m.

CHEAPER 2 4.0 9.3

This is quite disappointing, but things are alot different from the first Cheaper's surroundings. Narnia is big competition for families, and with Your's Mine and Ours, there's a huge been there done that feeling with Cheaper. Regardless, it should still do solidly, and could do over $70 m. But at half of the original, it isn't what they must have hoped for.

MEMOIRS 2.8 5.9

xiayun, I am so happy I was wrong about Memoirs! I wanted it to do well, but was quite skeptical on its opening. That is a solid number for it, being in the top 5 films when all the others in the top 5 have twice as many theaters. However, I'm not sure how much of a rush out might have taken place on Friday, or any of its Oscar chances, so a total is very difficult to guess at this point. Regardless, its a very solid opening.

RINGER 2.4 2.4

Most surprised about this, but after seeing some of its commercials, its understandable. It should be a solid performer for the holidays, and could do over $40 m if its holds up well.

STONE 2.4 21.6

No one really touched on this, but I don't think this is a good hold for Stone at all. It's down 40% from last Friday, and it really needed a strong Friday, because it'll take a dip on Sat, and then another with Rumor Has It opening, which is much more high profile. It'll still have a fantastic total, but it really could have had a stronger Friday. It's too difficult to tell where it will finish, but will become quite clear after Sunday's numbers are revealed, and what type of effect Rumor will have on it.

HP4 1.6 258.3

It's great to see it still doing solid business. It's per theater average jumped up 32%, and its Friday is above last week's despite losing 700 theaters, so its still a draw even with the big competition. It's down to Narnia and HP4 it seems for #2 for the year, and it could end up being quite close, so its important for HP4 to keep up its pace.

MUNICH 1.4 1.4

It's a decent figure. It could have been alot higher, but I think people will see it more upon its expansion in the first week of Jan, because it might be a bit too serious for moviegoers right now. Oscars will certainly help.

Brokeback Mountain $0.7 m

If that's the number, its quite disappointing, because BBM did $770,000 last Friday from 69 theaters, and $0.7 m this Friday from 217 wouldn't be great. It would also be a drop of 71% in its per theater avg, which of course was bound to go down, but still a shame. It'll pick up business of course because its the Oscar frontrunner, but isn't likely to be a huge player this weekend if that $0.7 m figure is correct. It still could get to $100 m total regardless, with its Oscar momentum.

I think it has more to do with current hype vs older movie deal. Where as always, the newest movie always seems to win out. Look at the past BOM threads and IMDB threads that included stuff like "Which do you think will be better:Troy or Gladiator?" People for some reason always side with the most current crop of movies and then 3 months later after the affect has worn down they rag on it

Obviously Kong is a january movie, not a december movie, so it is still on pace for well over 300 million.

Its just not doing good. I agree with you. WOM in the real world is ok at best. Its a very costly middle of the line movie. It would have done better in the summer. Its not a family film to see at Christmas time.

In the context of how it did the previous two weekend, that's a quite disappointing number for Brokeback. If it were a normal weekend, this would translate to a $10K PTA in 217 theaters. Still one of the better PTAs ever with this many theaters, but it's depreciating at a faster speed than I expected.

Damn Narnia...

A $2,600 per-screen average for this movie is definitely disappointing. Most were expecting it to do better. Yes it's a strong per-screen average, but it should have been able to do more. It failed to meet the high expectations of most. We don't know where it will end up going and I'm sure when all is said and done it will have a respectable gross, but its Friday number is disappointing.

Great for Narnia! Yayy

Thanks! I'm really happy as well.

The reason why the average seems disappointing to most (not me) is quite simple. Unlike other movies like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN the movie is playing in just one auditorium per theater instead of multiple screens. Add the running time of 164 minutes plus it wasn't showing on the biggest screens and than you get this average which - under these circumstances - is quite good...