May 23 Weekend Estimates

Weekend Estimates May 23 Rank Movie TW % chg Total 1 Fast & Furious 6 $1,025,000 $1,130,000 2 Star Trek Into Darkness $280,000 -75.9% $1,669,000 3 The Great Gatsby $215,000 -56.4% $840,000 4 Iron Man 3 $195,000 -75.6% $13,400,000 5 Pee Mak Phra Khanong $175,000 -29.2% $555,000 Fast & Furious 6 kept the #1 film over 1m weekend streak alive and rode to an estimated $1,130,000 including Wednesday night previews. The total represented a 112% increase over Fast Five's OW. What sent Fast 6's OW skyrocketing was the hot WOM for Fast Five and the fact that Hong Kong was playing catch up to the other Asian territories with the Fast & Furious series. HK was Fast Five's worst Asian territory by far and was the only Asian territory to miss 2m. Fast Five was the first one in the series to grab any moviegoers outside of the main demographic and it is just now starting to become another popular franchise. It will take a little longer for this Fast movie to become the highest grossing film in the series. Fast Five took just 5 days to race ahead of all the others but it will take Fast & Furious 6 twice as long to pass Fast Five. WOM for Fast & Furious 6 is even better than Fast Five with 100% of users giving it a thumbs up so far. Fast & Furious 6 will be the first Fast film to reach 2m, either next weekend or by the end of its 2nd week, and it looks certain to pass 2.5m. 3m will depend on how far-reaching its WOM is with the general public. Star Trek Into Darkness fell from grace and the top spot this week. There was no holiday to rescue its weekend gross this weekend and the switch over from 3D to 2D made its drop look even larger than usual. Fast & Furious 6 also took the major screens and audience away. 2m is still looking like it will happen. Next week, there doesn't seem to be anything of note so if Star Trek 2 can hold well, it will definitely pass it. This week it passed the 2009 version of Star Trek but many did not care about its 3D and tried to catch a 2D showing instead. The Great Gatsby held onto 3rd place with no movie targeting its main demographic. Its 56% drop is not bad but it's not exactly great either. There was no new drama film released this week which led to an easier hold but it did fall 56% from a holiday weekend. It's not an encouraging sign even with the extremely good WOM going around. One milestone that it's knocking on the door of is becoming Baz Luhrmann's biggest directorial film. By the end of this week, it will surpass Moulin Rouge to become his biggest film of all time. 1m is going to happen for the period drama. Iron Man 3 got crushed with no holiday to back it up. It had the 2nd worst hold of the top 10 every day this weekend and it nosedived 85% on Friday. Fast & Furious 6 affected both action films hard and Iron Man 3 couldn't take cover from the barrage of disadvantages this week with no holiday, new action film out and buzz on other films. It looks like Iron Man 3 will lie down with 13.7m, good enough for 3rd place in USD but 2nd place in HKD. Pee Mak Phra Khanong shocked everyone last week when it outperformed its holiday Friday with higher grosses on Saturday and Sunday. Buzz over it becoming Thailand's biggest movie ever may have had a nice effect over it last weekend but WOM has definitely carried it over to this weekend. This week, it has the best drop of the top 5 with it easing just 30% from last weekend and passing $500,000. Reception from 2nd weekend moviegoers, however, is not as great as opening weekend with its rating dropping to 89%. Pee Mak Phra Khanong is already Thailand's biggest horror movie in HK in the past 2 years. Competition will start to come next weekend from The Haunting in Connecticut 2 and then another Thai horror, Long Weekend, gets released 2 weeks from now. $750,000 is a good barometer for the Thai horror comedy with all the new horror films slated for release. Outside the top 5, Christmas Rose was the only wide release other than Fast & Furious 6 this week. It could not penetrate the top 5 as weak admissions shot down its chances. It slipped from 5th on Thursday to 6th Friday through Sunday. There were no factors helping its cause especially with all the focus centered around Fast & Furious 6, Pee Mak Phra Khanong and The Great Gatsby this week. Aaron having been in 2 recent hits also didn't seem to help with bringing people in. Marketing was weak with little promotion around town. This is a failure for the first time director Charlie Young and it will be hard for her to get more scripts after Christmas Rose leaves theaters. Opening in 23 theaters, Christmas Rose walks toward an estimated $120,000. 21 and Over failed to convince the public this weekend as moviegoers bounced out of paying to see this dreck. Lowly rated on many sites, this movie was delayed by nearly 3 months. It was supposed to open next weekend but EDKO decided to move it up 1 weekend to get away from Hangover 3. What resulted did not have any effect and viewers shunned the comedy. It debuted on Thursday at #7 but low increases throughout the weekend have caused the gap between itself and The Call to shrink considerably to just over 100 admissions on Sunday. The 12 or so theater operators will wish they were drunk when they ordered this movie to show on their screens as 21 and Over will fail to even break $50,000. Playing in 12 theaters, this will quietly flash and dash with $42,500 this weekend and only a $3,541 PTA. After a weekend where it saw a very good hold, The Call relinquished the buzz to Pee Mak Phra Khanong and it was dumped unceremoniously. No holiday this weekend really highlighted how bad it tripped up. After 3 weeks, it is down to an estimated $33,000 this weekend for a total of $441,000. New release, Quartet, is making the rounds at select locations. It is being showcased with a limited theater engagement and will enter with $17,000 from 5 theaters for an out of tune PTA of $3,400.