The Hobbit: AUJ box office

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:42 am

Voronwë the Faithful wrote:boxoffice.com confirms a four day weekend studio estimate of $1,275,000, putting the film at $300,159,345 in the U.S. domestic market.

That is a milestone to be happy about.

I am betting China comes in at over $80 mil.

Post by **Elentári** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:16 am

Well, the buzz seems good so far in China: it has been awarded 9 stars: no other film beats it on this "coming soon" ad page. It is the "most anticipated" film in the current top ten. Hope this is a good sign for its popularity when it opens on Feb 22nd.

http://theater.mtime.com/China_Beijing/movie/

And this is a translation of the page for The Hobbit: AUJ from the same website...

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:08 am

Elentári wrote:Well, the buzz seems good so far in China: it has been awarded 9 stars: no other film beats it on this "coming soon" ad page. It is the "most anticipated" film in the current top ten. Hope this is a good sign for its popularity when it opens on Feb 22nd.

http://theater.mtime.com/China_Beijing/movie/

And this is a translation of the page for The Hobbit: AUJ from the same website...

Elen - you come up with some powerful magic from time to time. A translation for the Chinese .... now that is worthy of an Istari.

Post by **Elentári** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:23 am

sauronsfinger wrote:
Elen - you come up with some powerful magic from time to time. A translation for the Chinese .... now that is worthy of an Istari.

Yeah, just at the click of a button! All hail the power of Google Translate...

(Even if it did give us such gems as Orlando "Blossoms," Richard "Ami Tagg" and "Sorin Elm" for Thorin Oakenshield!!

)

Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:34 pm

Initial reports of the China opening day are positive:

23pm, CFG tracking says 40M Friday Hobbit. Officially number in 12 hours.

For comparison, Skyfall's opening day was 31M, thought that was on a Monday. But its first Friday was 27M.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:49 pm

Voronwë the Faithful wrote:Initial reports of the China opening day are positive:

23pm, CFG tracking says 40M Friday Hobbit. Officially number in 12 hours.
For comparison, Skyfall's opening day was 31M, thought that was on a Monday. But its first Friday was 27M.

HOBBIT went today at $959 million dollars. That sort of number takes it knocking on the billion dollar door.

Post by **Elentári** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:28 pm

It's actually now passed $960m but what's a few dollars between friends?

Worldwide Gross: $960,322,891 if you go by BoxOffice.com

or

Worldwide: $960,001,896 according to Box Office Mojo

Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:48 pm

Yes, last I checked Box Office Mojo was behind where Boxoffice.com was reporting on the international numbers. The former was still saying 659 million plus for the worldwide but the latter already had it over 660.

However, the numbers that I quoted earlier for the China opening were for Yuan, not dollars (as I should have clarified). After all, the film didn't make $40 million dollars on its opening day here in the U.S.!

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:16 am

Thank you for clarifying that V
so it was actually about $7.5 million US then.....I give it two weeks to pass that billion dollar magic mark.

Sat Feb 23, 2013 5:17 pm

The actual Friday number turned out to be either 35 or 36.5 million Yuan, depending on who you believe. Supposed estimate for Saturday of 48 million. Less than hoped for, but probably still enough to stay on track for getting over a billion. Apparently Journey to the West is still ahead of it.

Sun Feb 24, 2013 3:55 pm

Saturday turned out to be only 44 million. Beaten badly by JttW. I am no longer convinced that 1 billion is in the bag.

Post by **Elentári** » Sun Feb 24, 2013 9:40 pm

So what's that - $18m or so?

Weekend figures are in on BO-Mojo

Domestic: $300,947,000 + Foreign: $679,000,000

= Worldwide: $979,947,000

Though they still don't have any figures for China listed yet...

ETA: latest word from The Wrap says official figures won't be available until Monday.

Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:38 am

Elentári wrote:So what's that - $18m or so?

Weekend figures are in on BO-Mojo

Domestic: $300,947,000 + Foreign: $679,000,000

= Worldwide: $979,947,000

Though they still don't have any figures for China listed yet...

But the China figures clearly are taken into account in those foreign numbers.

Post by **Elentári** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:59 am

Yeah, I get that - I meant they are not listing China in the breakdown by country on the "foreign" page...

Oh, and the Chinese TORNsib Elk2013 is reporting 120m Yuan so far ($20m) for Friday to Sunday...

Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:00 pm

Ah, okay. Box Office Mojo didn't start showing China in the breakdown by country for Skyfall until at least a couple of weeks into its run there.

I'm not sure where Elk2013 is getting her(?) information. The reports by the Chinese box office geeks in the boxoffice.com are reporting the official number as 114 million yuan, which translates to 17.8 million dollars. As you (Elen) had suggested some time ago might be the case, it has run into a local juggernaut. Journey Into the West has reached 1 billion yuan in just 16 days, shattering the previous record set by the last local juggernaut, Lost in Thailand. The trend in China does seem to be more to supporting local films over Hollywood blockbusters. I don't think that it will be enough to keep AUJ from reaching a billion dollars worldwide, but it will be a lot tighter than I had expected.

Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:58 pm

According to Boxoffice.com, the actual official number released by Warner's for the China opening weekend was a slightly higher 18.1 million dollars. Boxoffice.com is suggesting that the film might reache a billion by next weekend. That seems like a reasonable possibility to me.

http://www.boxoffice.com/china/2013-02- ... ebut-frame

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:44 am

Voronwë the Faithful wrote:According to Boxoffice.com, the actual official number released by Warner's for the China opening weekend was a slightly higher 18.1 million dollars. Boxoffice.com is suggesting that the film might reache a billion by next weekend. That seems like a reasonable possibility to me.

http://www.boxoffice.com/china/2013-02- ... ebut-frame

With the magic billion in its sights now, I was wondering if that would be considered as a SUCCESS. Consider that each of the three LOTR films grew in box office take and the last one really scored big. And consider that a decade has passed with ticket prices higher meaning that probably less people actually paid to see HOBBIT than any of the three LOTR films.

Will this have any effect at all on what PJ does to edit the second and third films to make them more adult and less kiddie?

The AA snub is fresh in my mind and I wonder if PJ noticed it also?

Post by **axordil** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:11 pm

Will this have any effect at all on what PJ does to edit the second and third films to make them more adult and less kiddie?

The source material's progression already does the heavy lifting in that area tonally. I do think they will want to keep the US ratings the same across all three movies.

I don't think PJ particularly cares about awards, nor should he gear the films to get them (apart from keeping the technical end cutting edge). He knows what kind of movies get awards, and he knows what kind of movies he wants to make, and if they overlap, great.

Also, a billion dollars at the BO is a success, full stop. I don't see anyone raising skeptical eyebrows at James Cameron because Avatar made less money than Titanic. If the movies had been made in "natural" order, and we were now discussing FOTR after some number of earlier Hobbit movies, perhaps; but we are talking about the lesser work, with the lesser audience, having a slightly less spectacular run after overcoming years of obstacles.

Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:19 pm

I think by any objective standard, the film is a financial success. From an economic point of view, the three film split is completely validated. And no, I don't think that PJ is going to be influenced in his editing choices for the second and third films at all. The nature of the source material will ensure that the films are increasingly more "adult" but we can expect that Stephen Fry's Master will be fully as cartoonish in his way as Dame Edna's Great Goblin was, minus the CGI excess.

Edit: Cross-posted with Axordil.

Post by **Elentári** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:35 pm

A commercial success, yes, which is probably all WB is concerned about. As Ax says, PJ readily admits he's only interested in making the sort of movie he wants to see, so apparently he's not bothered about TH being a critical/artistic success, and presumably will not care to rethink his approach to DoS and TABA.

It would be interesting to know whether WB believe that the lack of critical acclaim might have had any impact on the possible financial return at all...