Originally Posted by Deadline Hollywood

WEDNESDAY 1 PM: The world’s 2nd highest-grossing film officially embarks on another box office voyage. Paramount for domestic and Fox for international released Titanic 3D today with some previews yesterday. (As if $1.8 billion theatrical gross for the original wasn’t enough already!) I hear that today’s matinees are surprisingly strong, although last night’s North American midnights were expectedly negligible (and considering the film’s 194-minute running time): an estimated $250,000. Overall, the North American gross taken in so far is $425,000 primarily from the fan sneak screenings which Paramount released on just over 300 screens around the country. It looks like some theater chains like AMC had a 6:30 screening Tuesday night of Titanic 3D, but no one’s sure about other circuits. Pacific, Cinemark, and Arclight all seemed to have midnight shows. Today the film releases into 2,674 dates, including 79 IMAX theaters, and Paramount is ”still feeling good” about its projection of $20M-$22M for the first five days of release. Rival studios are expecting $25M-$30M. That more than covers the cost of the 3D conversion, which was overseen by James Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau, and completed by Stereo D, at a cost of approximately $18M.

But this Easter weekend will be a crowded U.S. and Canadian marketplace what with Universal’s American Reunion opening in 3,200 locations, Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games still going strong, and Warner Bros’ Clash Of The Titans and Relativity’s Mirror Mirror trying for more ticket sales. Titanic 3D‘s tracking didn’t look radically different from other blockbuster movies which had 3D conversions. What will help this release is Cameron’s 3D authority. Audiences expected to attend include mothers taking their daughters and film technology geeks. But let’s not forget that teenage girls and their repeat business made the original Titanic successful – or that their one-time heartthrob Leonardo Di Caprio is now approaching middle-age.

Fox is opening or previewing Titanic 3D tonight in 17 of the 84 international markets that are opening day and date with domestic. It will release in a total of 108 international markets. The studio tells me it’s incredibly difficult to compare this release pattern with the original 2D release 14 years ago because the international landscape has changed so much. For instance, those territories with the most dramatic increases in screen counts include China (2,400 today vs 571 in 1997), Russia (796 vs 23), India (230 vs 82), South Korea (232 vs 75), and Japan (463 vs 263). In 1997, Fox released Titanic on approximately 7,000 screens for all of international (adding up the screen counts at the widest point of release in every territory). Whereas Titanic 3D will be releasing total international (including non-day and date markets) on approximately 8,600 screens. Also it’s interesting to recall that Fox only released the original Titanic day and date in 8 markets back in ’97 (Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and Taiwan). The majority of the international marketplace released in January and February of 1998. However Titanic 3D is releasing day and date in the majority of the international marketplace. China, Poland, Norway, and most of Latin America are releasing one week later.

Titanic 3D will play in a total of 100 international IMAX theatres, 83 of them opening today. Titanic also will open in 4DX™ theatres on Thursday. For civilians, 4DX™ bills itself as an all-five-senses immersive cinematic experience that puts audiences into a film’s environment with motion, wind, fog, lighting and even scent-based special effects, going way beyond 3D. Launched in 2009 by CGV, Asia’s largest theater chain, 4DX™ is currently available at 29 locations worldwide with 50 auditoriums slated by year’s end 2012. Titanic will open on the following number of 4DX screens: 12 screens in South Korea, 11 in Mexico, 2 in China, and 1 in Thailand.

Originally Posted by Supermallet

But is he more popular than the Beatles?

Originally Posted by GoldenJCJ

...And I had no idea they re-released American Wedding back into theaters.

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

I think today's version of that saying is, Is he more popular than Tim Tebow? And no, Cameron is not.

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

I think today's version of that saying is, Is he more popular than Tim Tebow? And no, Cameron is not.

Originally Posted by Matthew Chmiel

CHOO-CHOO! All aboard James Cameron's money making machine.


I decided to start a new thread because:

Originally Posted by KillerCannibal

I've been hearing the 3D for Titanic is nothing special (shocker, I know), so the only WOM that's going to carry it is people saying you need to see it on the big screen, but theater audiences suck so much I really don't see this having the legs it did the first time around.

Originally Posted by KillerCannibal

I've been hearing the 3D for Titanic is nothing special (shocker, I know),

Originally Posted by Deadline Hollywood

FRIDAY*3:30 PM, 5TH UPDATE: My sources now say the #1 movie*this Easter weekend will still be*Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games with $12M-$14M*for its 3rd Friday in release at the North American box office.*Universal’s American Reunion opening today is #2 with $8M-$10M today for a projected*$25M*for this weekend. Universal’s*fourquel*reunites the original cast of this raunchy popular franchise more than a decade later, including even that hot mess Tara Reid. (For those keeping score, there have been 8 releases total – but a quad went directly to home video.) In the U.S. and Canada, midnights at 37 locations opened with $660K. It pulled ahead of Paramount/Fox conversion Titanic 3D which opened Wednesday and is looking at $6.5M-$7.5M today for #3 and a possible 5-day cume of $20M through Easter Sunday.

Playing in the same 4,137 locations, Hunger Games*grossed $6.3M Thursday for a new 13-day cume of $269.3M. In second place Thursday was Titanic 3D*which grossed $3.6M playing in 2,674 theaters. “That’s a strong -16% hold given that Wednesday openers usually fall an average of -30+%,” Paramount, which is handling the domestic release tells me. Audiences gave it an ‘A’ CinemaScore. James Cameron’s epic new 2-day cume is $8.3M. There are still no foreign figures available from Fox. Universal reports that American Reunion opened as the No. 1 film in Australia, Russia, and Holland*despite stiff competition at the box office there. It had the highest opening for the franchise in those 3 territories.

Originally Posted by Matthew Chmiel

American Wedding did $33 million on its opening weekend back in August 2003 and went on to gross $105 million domestically at the end of its run.

Like others have pointed out the past few weeks, maybe releasing an R-rated sequel on Easter/Passover weekend wasn't the greatest idea. However, Universal ruined the franchise with the onslaught of awful direct-to-video sequels over the past eight years. American Reunion might've played better possibly on a different weekend or if the last four "sequels" didn't exist.

This may play out more like Scream 4 rather than say Fast and Furious.

Originally Posted by godzilla rules

I was thinking the same thing as I watched the movie. The problem also lies in the fact that Fast Five was a lot of fun. This movie, not so much.

Originally Posted by Yeti4623

About the Harold and Kumar series:

I'm still kind of surprised that the original Harold and Kumar got such good reviews. It's not bad, but pretty mediocre. I've seen comedies in the same league, which got less than 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Originally Posted by fitprod

Random analysis?

fitprod