The Golden Rock Box Office Report - 9/3/07

- Hong Kong Sunday box office was pretty well spread out across the top 10, partly because it's the last weekend before schools start in the city. Standing out above and beyond Evan Almighty, which is performing and holding up surprisingly well. From just 29 screens, the underperformer (at least in North America) made another HK$810,0000. After 11 days, the film has already made HK$8.62 million. Not a blockbuster, but a very healthy take for a sequel with an unknown leading man.

As for those 7 opening films, only 3 made it to the top 10. Disturbia got bumped down to third place with HK$290,000 from 24 screens to make it the best performer out of the 7. After 4 days, the teen thriller has made HK$1.19 million, perhaps only fueled by the success of Transformers. The Korean puppy film Hearty Paws saw an increase over the weekend, making HK$270,000 from 20 screen for a 4-day total of HK$800,000. Hearty Paws bumped down Alfred Cheung's Contract Lover (my pan here), who almost made the HK$1 million mark on Sunday by making only HK$250,000 from 26 screens. After 4 days, the lazy Mainland Chinese comedy made HK$960,000.

One film noticeably missing from the top 10 is the Japanese animated film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The late-afternoon screening I attended yesterday of the Japanese version was COMPLETELY full, but the performance in the Cantonese-dub theaters was probably too weak to push it up to the top 10.

HK$7.8=US$1

So now the Hong Kong summer box office is officially over, the top 3 foreign films this summer are: Harry Potter (HK$50.4 million), Transformers (HK$39.1 million), and Ratatouille (HK$24.61 million and counting). Sadder is the top 3 Chinese films this summer - Secret (HK$13.89 million and counting), Invisible Target (HK$13.21 million), and the award-winning Simply Actors (HK$9.35 million). The general consensus amongst the Hong Kong market is that Hong Kong films need to adapt to the greater Chinese market. Didn't Hong Kong films work once without having to do that?

- In Korea, the end of summer means a quiet box office. May 18 and D-War is finally on their way out, replaced by Disturbia. The best news is Korean films have rebounded to take 48.5% of total box office in Korea after falling to 42% before the big D-War/May 18 invasion.

- In Japanese attendance rankings, the animated film Evangelion 1.0 took the top spot. However, it seems like you can't access any video content from outside Japan, so I can even see if it's any good (oh, don't worry, you can see it here). The tearjerking biopic Life Tengoku de Kimi Ni Aetara bumped off Harry Potter to take second place for its second weekend. Poor Rush Hour 3 got pushed way down to 7th place.

Speaking of Rush Hour 3, its opening was only 80% of the second film, and the final weekend gross was even bumped up by just over 1 million yen from what was first reported. It was close, but did they want first place that badly?