I think that Despicable Me will do very well at the box office. You’re right about the ads though, It seems like I can’t turn on the TV or radio without hearing about the movie. But I don’t think it has any potential to make more that Toy Story 3, or even Shrek Forever After
It’s not about making more, it’s drawing major box office away from the toys. I was just looking at Shrek2 from 2004. It had amazingly low fall off after the first 3 weeks. The reason seems to be that there weren’t any animated movies out then, just the Garfield movie. There were half a dozen blockbusters out that summer, including Spider Man2, Bourne, Day After Tomorrow, and Potter came out just two weeks after Shrek2. No BlueSky, and no Pixar until the fall. Last year, Up had a big 50% fall-off when IceAge came out, while Shrek2 was suffering 25% fall-offs during the same time frame.
As of Tuesday, TS3 is less than $7M behind Shrek2’s 19th day, and it’s a shoe-in to gain millions on it by Thursday. But after that all bets are off. Because of no competition, Shrek2 had very long legs that summer. I said it should pass well over $395M, and should make a bit over $420M domestic. Foreign: Pixar’s name is well established there, but not as much as you think. The big franchise movies make twice as much overseas, Pixar doesn’t! Both TS and TS2’s overseas were less than domestic. The toys are over 10 years old between visits, and it really depends on how many peeps there saw them on television. I’m guessing $470M overseas minimum, which puts our friends around and probably past $900M.
Have these toys , such as Bo Peep, Etch, Slinky, Barbie and Ken, been available in France, Germany and Japan over the decades? I know that westerns were as popular in Germany until the early 1970’s, but that was 40 years ago. Even with reruns, the moms over there might appreciate Woody as much as today’s kids would like the Katzenjammer kids (Do any of you young-uns remember them, ha ha).
Edit. TS3 on its 20th day in release is firmly in 2nd place now with Airbender fading. Eclipse has heavy ads but might fall mightily next Monday, just like New Moon did. This will allow TS3 to keep up the # of screens. After Despicable Me will come the much talked about Inception with DiCaprio and alot of action and CG, and Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a Nicholas Cage film, but his films don’t do much anymore, and this movie has a dismal TM rating, sadly for Disney.
Edit. TS3 will become the #1 box of the year, so far, by Sunday July 11th.
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20100 … -flix-movi
Yodel-ay-hee-hoo! Cue in the roaring sales figures from Japan. The above article writes
July 10th: 305,855 attendance; 457,291,500yen ($5,147360.42)
July 11th: 343,444 attendance; 520,040,950yen ($5,853,680.21)
88.84yen$/US$1
So, TS3 is the number one all-time grossing foreign animated movie in Japan for its first two days. It’s third behind Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away all-time animated movie in Japan.
By the way, H’sMC made $190,000,000 and SA made $229,607,878 in Japan. H’sMC release date was Nov/20/04 and SA July/27/01 in Japan. This is from Box Office Mojo.
Anyways, the article mentions there were families, young and old people, and couples in attendance. Their satisfaction was very high.
Yes, we are having a ROARING good time watching Toy Story 3 Bobby Podesta.
Walt Disney Japan is targeting 10,000,000,000yen movie ticket sales.
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20100 … sanspo-ent
That’s about $112,561,090
As long as TS3 beats Ponyo’s figures in Japan, $163 million, then I’ll be satisfied.
TS3 soars on its 3rd week in Australia, regaining the poll position over Eclipse, which faded, and pushing to over $30M there. Overseas it garnered about $100M for the week, and pushed its global to over $555M. It went up on Monday to 3rd place in the U.S, but is still only about a third of the “surprising” animation hit Despicable Me. In Mexico it continued to soar and is at $45M.
pixaraustralia.blogspot.com/2010 … eek-3.html
Italy and Japan were the 2 big releases of the week. France was supposed to be based on the list I copied to this thread earlier, but what a joke, on one of the lists it appears twice with different dates. One Italian site said that TS3 earned 3M euros for the weekend, with Eclipse earning more for the whole week. They blamed “the beaches” and the World Cup for drawing off patrons. Come to think of it, these Euro vacations have plagued Pixar, especially for very late July and the month of August. Many films won’t release much later than now, but Pixar released Wall-E and La-haut(Up) around July 29th. Good to hear the fab news from Japan, Rey. Those are really huge daily totals. I wonder if other film studios have big releases planned in the coming weeks there. Here is an authoritative release schedule, with France showing up on July 14th (Bastille Day):
In Japan, as of July 15th, 1,019,000 very satisfied viewers have watched TS3.
cinematoday.jp/page/N0025657
I should have mentioned earlier that there are 525 screens, and still are, for TS3 and 81% are for 3D and 19% for 2D.
DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver, this coming weekend is the Ghibli film Kari-gurashi no Arietty (The Borrowers) and here’s a write up.
search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ … 716a2.html
It’s Pixar vs. Ghibli this weekend in Japan, but both studios complement eachother. Pixar with 3D and Ghibli in 2D.
Bastille Day. TS3 garnered 390,000 admissions in France. That’s a pretty big opening. Twilight Eclipse did about 2 million admissions last week, but it fades fast, but Shrek4 was supposed to have been released 2 weeks ago there. Pixar may be trying to jam in its latest earlier (Wall-E and Up were both released on July 29th) to get people to see it before hitting the beach in late summer.
Edit. TS3 should be being seen by lizardgirl and company within a few hours. I was watching the British Open live at 4 am California time, Friday’s round, and then some of Sunday’s round, you have to get up early here, or go to bed late to see it live. I was looking for lizardgirl in the gallery at the 18th hole, but to no avail… Why a Monday release in Britain? Special holiday for summer school?
Global is up to $630M, but it’s not the #1 movie in the world now, Shrek4 is still doing better, and that’s because TS3 hasn’t been released thruout most of Europe (it has been released in 60% of markets). TS3 has blown $100M over Shrek4 already globally, and will have Shrek2 in its crosshairs soon…
France: 1,056,000 admissions in first 5 days, at 8.8M euros, the latest Twilight did 1.5M tickets the previous week.
Italy: $7.5M euros in first week, reported as good, but not great. Again, analysts blame the heat and a late summer release.
Australia: chugs up to $37M in 4th week and falls to #2 there. A smash.
Mexico: roared to a stratospheric $52M. A near record for that nation.
I’m guessing TS3 will do $405-415M now domestically. It’s the 15th highest grossing movie of all time, and might reach #9, but is unlikely to hit 5th place where Shrek2 at $441M sits. TS3 dropped modestly this past week and garnered $13M for the weekend. And is trudging its way to $400M, which will take a few more weeks. But is lagging behind Shrek2 by $12M as of the 33rd day of release. It still is playing on thousands of screens and might stay around 5th in revenue, keeping 2D and 3D options open in most multiplexes for our future viewing delight!
A very big week for Pixar’s latest:
uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100726/te … df947.html
That figure from the U.K. would be hard to believe, $33M is the latest est., but it covers a whole week, and the news media in that country is very cognizant of what Pixar stands for and how successful its movies are. Pixar premiere’s there are big events.
Global gross is $730M, which is close to matching Up’s entire run, and $200M over Wall-E. This is nearly $100M over last week and includes a scrawny $17M from the U.S., where TS3 holds at #5 with 2,700 screens. In fact, it’s doing better than Twilight and will soon pass the new Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which is a semi-flop. I have to admit, Despicable Me is quite a good movie, the 3rd big animated film of 2010. TS3 is still $10-14M behind Shrek2 and doesn’t look like it can beat it. If it can hold to finish $15M behind, it will end up at a domestic of $426M, right at some predictions here a month ago. This week’s performance surely will propel Pixar’s latest over the $919M global cume of Shrek2.
France: Twilight fans there are lamenting a second week of the “Disney steamroller” trouncing their cult movie with 1.3m tickets, nearly twice that of “Eclipsed”, our movie made $20M. Spain: $9M, a good box. Italy: up to $12.5M, which is ok there. So it’s #1 in all the big Euro nations, Germany coming July 29th, and Scandinavia right after.
Japan: yes Rey The Borrowers just slipped past TS3 to become #1 there. But yet Inception just squeezed past into the #1 slot this past weekend, and my guess is that TS3 has reached $35M box on its 3rd week. Edit: $44M as of July 25th, $6M+ last weekend, and it could hold its spot. Rey, I noticed that Alice in Wonderland did $133M in Japan. This huge number alone will make it hard for TS3 to beat Alice’s $1B take, an underwhelming movie for me.
Mexico: the juggernaut rises to $58M as of 7/25, dropping to 4th place from #2, only the U.K. and Japan will beat that total. This is almost a sixth of the entire overseas take. Again, a huge smash there.
Brazil: rises to $22M, out 32 days there, but will be easily beaten by Shrek4’s big first weekend and the week since, and Eclipse. Big gross in Argentina too: $14M, but only $7M in Venezuela, where last year’s Up did so well.
Australia: 5th week up to $39M, slips to #3, with a 61% loss, which takes the wind out of its sails. New Zealand and the Philippines $3.5M each. Hong Kong a very nice $7M.
Russia: behind on reporting, but only up to $6.1M now, and who cares, Pixar isn’t McDonald’s. $3M totals in Poland and similar totals in smaller European countries, including Belgium, Turkey, Israel, and Greece.
SE Asia: $2-3M each in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan.
Finally!!! Here’s the current UK top 5 at the box office, as it stands:
- Toy Story 3 (£21,187,264!)*
- Inception
- The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
- Shrek Forever After
- The Rebound
This is just phenominal! Toy Story 3 had the second-highest opening weekend gross ever in the UK (behind Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) 
I’m so hyped. TS3 is rockin’ the UK’s socks! Pixar, you’re the best 
*In pounds, don’t know what it is in dollars. I’m not very good at converting, sorry.
Ami, it’s equal to $32,808,568.87.
And here is the US box office for the weekend of July 23rd to 25th!
- “Inception,” $43.5 million.
- “Salt,” $36.5 million.
- “Despicable Me,” $24.1 million.
- “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” $9.7 million.
5. “Toy Story 3,” $9 million. - “Ramona and Beezus,” $8 million.
- “Grown Ups,” $7.6 million.
- “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” $7 million.
- “The Last Airbender,” $4.2 million.
- “Predators,” $2.9 million.
As you can see, Toy Story 3 is still in the top 5 in its 6th week of release! That is just phenomenal for any film! Also, the change from last weekend was less than 25% as compared to other weekends which have been closer to a 50% drop.
Toy Story 3’s cumulative gross now stands at… $379,529,000!
At this rate, Toy Story 3 should pass by Finding Nemo’s worldwide score easily, and Alice in Wonderland’s over 1 billion dollar score gives us more hope (although it’s unlikely).
Alice in Wonderland, 2010, the 2nd movie made about Carroll’s classic tale was released at a time of no competition, early spring, with substantial brouhaha and tremendous anticipation internationally. Yet it failed to muster thunderous critical acclaim. Some things were missing, the scariness, the magic… and substituted in their places were stellar actors and lots of colorful sets. Choosing an older Alice right there took away from the frightening element, avoided in The Wizard of Oz because Shirley Temple could still appear childlike. It’s int’l box was huge, bigger than any of the Potter films!, the 5th biggest movie of all time, and will be very hard to beat!
Thanks for the updates, DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver and Ami. Glad to hear that Toy Story 3 has been very successful in the UK so far!
Excellent work, DarkHand. And it’s good to see we haven’t gone below #5 yet in the U.S.
I have no idea if our toys will pass the giants that are Alice in Wonderland, Finding Nemo, and Shrek 2.
Alice in Wonderland is the huge titan I’m very unsure about. I was very suprised to see it made $1 billion - not trying to say it doesn’t deserve it, but I was suprised.
Anyway, I will be very happy if Toy Story 3 outgrosses Finding Nemo. That is my number one priority with this campaign. i want our boys to be the highest grossing film from Pixar. After that, definetly could see it passing Shrek 2… maybe. We only need another $100 million or so to beat Finding Nemo. Shrek 2 will be more of a problem.
It’s in the can. This was the 3rd $100M week for TS3 and has assured it pushing past Nemo in about 3 weeks and Shrek2 a few weeks later, to being the #1 top grossing all time animated film in the world. (But it will not pass up Shrek2 for the domestic crown.) So Disney will have the top 2 films of the year, and the respectable PofP and the semi-flop Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which by the way, TS3 has already passed up to take the #4 spot on the U.S. charts. This is quite good staying power, in the face of so much competition. Last year Up was never able to beat The Hangover, esp since IceAge3 siphoned off so much of the same market. The toys are keeping all those screens, since the theater owners like a sure bet.
Now 11th biggest domestic movie of all time, and will finish in 8th or 9th place by September. When Nemo came out in 2004, it was the 8th biggest domestic movie of all time, strangely released 11 days after the titan Shrek2 was released.
Oh my goodness. I wasn’t expecting this, but look at that. Toy Story 3 is at $826 million. DD It took Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 7 months to do that.
At this point, it seems fairly certain Toy Story 3 will pass Finding Nemo, and has a good chance of breaking Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and probably even Shrek 2.
Considering how much Toy Story 3 jumped in a few days, we have a much better chance of hitting $1 billion. DDDD
boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=toystory3.htm
Excellent work everyone. Keep going to the theater for re-watches. Let’s get this puppy to $1 billion!!!
Yes indeedee, it was an unexpectedly strong week, and here’s why. First here is a quote off of Yahoo:
“Internationally, Walt Disney Co’s “Toy Story 3” slipped to No. 2 with $39.1 million from 48 countries, for a total of $434.6 million. The Pixar cartoon led Britain for a second weekend, and Japan for a fourth, tallying about $61 million in each market. In North America, it fell two places to No. 7, with earnings to date of $390 million.”
Hmm, first of all that’s just the overseas gross, not including the nearly $10M domestic (tracking ~$16M behind Shrek2’s 45th day), and secondly, it’s just the weekend, if you include the full week it approaches $100M, for the 4th time. Thirdly, according to my sources and Rey’s it really hasn’t led in Japan for 4 weeks. So in actuality, this would be the 2nd time out of 4 weeks. Last week I was predicting that TS3 would hold in Japan, but its gross went up 7% there and the 2 movies ahead of it slipped, I guess. Several sources are saying that the movie bulldozed to nearly $62M in both the U.K. and Japan, an astonishing total already in the land of Benny Hill. That would be about $30M more than last week, with a reported $12M weekend, which seems quite a bit short, so I’m still working on where this huge number has come from. Maybe lizardgirl can read the Manchester Daily Blarney Stone or the Birmingham Bugle and Tattler and tell us what’s up.
Spain: $6.1M for the weekend, #1, four times the nearest movie, being referred to as yet another “masterpiece” by Pixar. Italy: still #1 and up to $14.5M, so it’s doing better there even with the nice weather. France: Inception knocks it out of top spot and with only 390,000 tickets sold over the weekend, drops to #5 there, with Knight and Day and The Last Airbender debuting ahead, which is hard to believe…
Australia: #4 this week, up to $40.3M.
Germany: Inception opened at #1 here with $7M, no confirmation yet on how TS3 fared on July 29th-31st. Edit: $4.2 over the weekend. One source says only 350,000 admissions, which is sad compared to France’s million for the first week: “Inception triumphs, Pixar fumbles”. Bahh, some blame families and their kiddies enjoying the unusually nice weather in usually cloudy central Europe. Some people are angry over at this website, the worldofkj.com, which tracks films, including Pixar’s, with extreme detail and analysis:
worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopi … &start=375
Note they feel TS3 will end at around $990M global, and this is probably since Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe are so flat. They do a country-by-country analysis, pretty thorough.
I’m sorry. I deleted my message and put this newer news. I popped open a bottle of wine. I was celebrating and I found another news. I’ll never do that again.
TS3 sales pace is still ahead of Finding Nemo’s in Japan. After 22 days, from July 10th to the 31st, TS3 passed the 5 billion yen mark. After Sunday, August 1st, TS3 has made 5.4 billion yen ($62.9 million). FN passed the same 5 billion yen mark in 23 days. FN finally made 11 billion yen back in 2004.
cinematoday.jp/page/N0025979
If you convert 11 billion yen into today’s very strong yen to a weak US dollar rate that comes to $127 million.
Also, check out the ranking of box office tickets with the new Ghibli movie and TS3 what they did last weekend in Japan, July 31st-August 1st. They both went back up to the number one and two spots. Inception went down to the fourth spot. Salt couldn’t crack the first nor second spot for its first weekend. Animation rules in Japan.
cinemanavi.co.jp/english/weekend.html
Here in chilly England-winter Down Under, the toys debuted at No 1, before being pushed to 2 by the Twi-Hards in its second week. Then it actually went back to Number 1 again after the Twi-Hards have had their fill. 
It has since gone down to 2 after Knight & Day opened, then 3, after Inception swamped in a fortnight ago. It is currently sitting pretty at fourth place, with Killers debuting at Number 2 the reason for the demotion, but it is displaying incredible resistance after 6 weekends! That is a century in movie release-time, and it’s still in the Top Ten a month and a half after its release, even against the face of bigger competitors like the Tom Cruise and Leonardo vehicles! It’s current Australian takings stand at $40,241,534. I think I read somewhere that it has already surpassed Finding Nemo’s record, although I need to double-check. Good on ya, Australia, and Pixar, you’re a beautaaay!
Source: Urban Cinefile
In sunny, balmy, oh-so-warm-i-wish-i-was-there-now Singapore, Woody and Co. fared less better, staying at the top for two weeks before being relegated to third and fourth place in the subsequent weeks by famliy-friendly competitors Twilight and Despicable Me respectively. From there, it’s seven place below Hot Tub Time Machine in its fifth week before dropping out of the Top Ten altogether at 12 this week. Gross-to-date is an impressive $3,030,894. Interestingly, Nicolas Cage’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has beaten the juggernaut Inception this week in the Lion City. 
Source: Box Office Mojo
And in my lovely homeland of Malaysia, the gang are making gangbusters, being in the Nombor Satu place for an unbelievable three consecutive weeks. The last time I saw that was for The Dark Knight, though other movies may have achieved that if I failed to notice. From there, it’s a slow drop from 5, 7 and 10 for the last three weeks, raking in an astounding $2,667,013. That’s 600 Grand more than Twilight. Take that, Edward!
Source: Box Office Mojo
Also, according to China Daily, the People’s Republic has “kicked in $9.5 million, setting a new record for a cartoon, Disney said.” This success is quite remarkable, notwithstanding the fact that an animated film has actually made it into the coveted annual ‘20-Foreign-Films-Slot’ of the Chinese government.
The big stories in the Orient are Japan, Australia and Hong Kong. We’ve talked about the first two here, but the gross in Hong Kong is almost $10M after only 17 days and they are saying it’s the 3rd biggest movie of all time there already. Would like to get some confirmation on that. Last week I mentioned that it was conspicuously performing well there. I know its indeed true this is the most successful recent Pixar film in that principality. We haven’t heard much from Australia since the first week, so glad you posted this thedriveintheatre.