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May 15, 2006
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Box office updates! Get yer box office updates right here!
ELECTION 2 - at this point E2 is the third highest grossing Category III movie in recent Hong Kong history after ELECTION and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Over the weekend it took in around HK$220,000 to come to a rest at about HK$12.95 million in just 18 days.
THE PROMISE - has doubled its American opening week gross and taken in $510,000 (estimated). This isn't bad, but since it's in over 200 theaters it's also not that great, either.
LADY VENGEANCE - after two weeks, LADY VENGEANCE has grossed a disappointing $23,181.
KEKEXILI - has taken in a not-bad but not-great $86,884 after almost four weeks in theaters.
The box office seems pretty soft right now, but foreign films in the US seem to be getting hit especially hard since they've rarely been strong players in the first place.
May 15, 2006 at 08:28 AM in News | Permalink
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Comments
Quick correction, it looks like ELECTION 2 made the HK$220,000 on Sunday alone. So that may not be the total weekend box office, just a third of it.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | May 15, 2006 9:45:20 AM
The lack of marketing for all of these titles (except the Promise) has been appalling, and what marketing was done was awful. Let's take Kekexili and sell it as a nature documentary? Let's make sure the only promotion we do for Lady Vengeance in on MySpace, to internet kids that downloaded the film eight months ago?
I think this underscores the importance of a day-and-date release in America. Look at Bollywood- Rang De Basanti is in the top 100 American releases of the year, with nearly three million, despite little to marketing. Why? Because it had the benefit of all the hype and marketing done in India, and in the end there was no way for them to see it except going to the theaters. Even bad Bollywood does well.
These days it's far easier for me to plunk down $18 at YesAsia, or, alternatively, spend six minutes doing an internet search, than waiting two years to go to a tiny theater 50 miles away to drop $50 on tickets and food for me and my girl to see a version with 20 minutes cut out and that "Kung Fu Fighting" song dubbed in forty times.
Piracy is here to stay- you can give up or fight it.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 15, 2006 9:59:44 AM
The advertising and promotion for all these films has definitely been very poor. I would like to point out (with some frustration) that this seems to be an overwhelming trend with all Asian features that do not involve Jacky Chan, Jet Li, or a bloody lot of kung fu. It's even a pattern that has repeated itself in popular media (such as Utada Hikaru's abortive attempt to crossover into the American music industry...what advertising?)
At times, I'm confused as to whether it's because a half-hearted interest on the part of American companies, Asian companies, or a combination of both.
Posted by: Brandon | May 15, 2006 2:37:29 PM
Speaking of pathetic marketing, anyone know if LADY VENGEANCE is coming to the San Francisco area?
Posted by: Adam | May 16, 2006 5:02:55 AM
Lady Vengeance is a hard sell. We're giving it at our small art house where it should do respectable numbers relative to other Asian films shown in Nashville (OLDBOY did well here). Still, it is going to be tough to market the film to an already reluctant audience.
And that is really the problem. In most places there aren't enough people who are open to being interested in something like S4LV or THE PROMISE. You can spend a lot of money on TV ads that aren't going to yield results. You could maybe do cross promos with IFC or Sundance . . . maybe. Theaters, especially the small art house, have to try and be creative about how they market films at the local level.
I'm the kind of guy who is very much interested in seeing S4LV in theaters even though I've already seen it twice at home, and will go.
Utada? LOL. ISLAND/DEFJAM won that one regardless of how well she did in the states. Did you see the sales for that record back in Japan? I don't think they had great expectations about that record, and the whole thing was just mishandled. To wit: the corny ass first video and single. Jeez. It did do quite well in the dance charts, though.
Posted by: Gandalf Mantooth | May 17, 2006 3:15:18 PM
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