Bulgarian Boxoffice Update - Weekend 29-31 July

The BO victory could have been much sweeter...

The Harry Potter supremacy in Bulgaria's boxoffice comes to an end with the arrival of the latest Marvel hero - Captain America. Sweeping the Bulgarian cinemas, the Captain makes the unremarkable BGN 65,504 over the weekend and BGN 98,460 including previews. In comparison fellow avenger Thor earned above BGN 200,000 in its first weekend, while X:Men - First Class collected BGN 47,135. So, having in mind that superhero movies usually stumble on our screens, the lacklustre results of Captain America are not so surprising after all. 

The second new offer of the week comes in straight at #2. Friends with Benefits draws BGN 41,499, which is just a notch below the BGN 48,085 debut of No Strings Attached at the beginning of the year. Bad Teacher, also starring JT, has started with a result of BGN 67,446 but so far has made the respectable BGN 398,677, which means that the future before Friends with Benefits may be rosy after all. 

Two weeks' champion Harry Potter retreats to #3 with a fall of 45%. With BGN 589,218 conjured so far, the crossing of the one million threshold is still out of reach. It's good that Warner does not rely on our market to break records...

Last week I sensed that Winnie The Pooh would be the summer's winning underdog and so to prove me right the cute Disney animation falls by mere 9% and already can boast BGN 87,689 in its account, a result which I guess no one has expected. 

The rest of the top ten looks like this:

5. Transformers 3 - a fall of 47%; BO so far BGN 975,401

6. Cars 2 - a fall of 23%; BO so far BGN 568,618

7. Bad Teacher - a fall of 33%; BO so far BGN 398,677

8. Mr. Popper - a fall of 23%; BO so far BGN 141,487

9. Hangover 2 - a fall of 39%; BO so far BGN 669,951

10. Pirates 4 - a fall of 17%; BO so far BGN 2,024,371

The top ten is left this week by Larry Crowne, with the Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts vehicle heading towards the BGN 100,000 barrier for its entire run - not good but not that bad result for an unpretentious movie. Kung Fu Panda 2 tumbles outside the first ten with a result of BGN 710,242 so far, already becoming the second most successful animation of Dreamworks in Bulgaria, next to Shrek 4 from last year. In comparison the first adventures of Po and friends ended with USD 219,000.

Compared to my last week projections both Captain America and Friends with Benefits missed my forecast of BGN 180,000 and BGN 75,000, respectively.

Next weekend's projections:

The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes - BGN 80,000

(1 BGN = USD 0.740 = EUR 0.511)