Bulgarian Boxoffice Update - Weekend 28-30 October

Who needs hiding when they're on top?

(In Time has come at the right time, while Kecove disappoints)

Defying all expectations, Justin Timberlake's sci-fi thriller In Time debuts with a splash at number one with BGN 95,272 for the weekend. It's quite a surprising result but perhaps the audience was attracted by the good promotion, relatively light subject matter and the star power. However, in view of the performance of other sci-fi movies lately, most of which bombed, the figures made by In Time are really quite unpredictable. 

The other new release for the week, Bulgarian title Kecove, enters new at #3. The weekend result of BGN 50,371 is surprisingly low in view of the heavy advertising, which started as early as the summer and the star talent. Maybe many viewers were deceived that the movie is actually rather grim, when in fact it is not, and had preferred to watch once again Shmenti Kapeli, which retreats with just 17% to #2 and has BGN 598,310 so far. I'm not so surprised though, a film like Kecove was too good to be appreciated by the local cinemagoers, so the underwhelming results only add to the overall picture of the cultural life in the country, if there is any...

At #4 The Three Musketeers continues its relatively okay showing, with a fall of 43% and BGN 286,844 in total. With this rate it will soon surpass the more pretentious Real Steel, which is at #5, with a decrease of 47% and BGN 322,624 in total.

The Spy Kids continues to scare children as the fourth instalment of the Robert Rodriguez shame moves back by mere 8% and has BGN 222,720 so far. It is followed by another children title, with The Smurfs going down 30% but with the much superior BGN 1,034,292 and counting. 

At #8 Killer Elite falls 42% and has BGN 456,238 so far, while Contagion shows no stabilisation signs as it collapses 54% in its second week and has earned the disastrous BGN 56,914 in total.

The top ten is rounded up by Bulgarian film The Island, which finds its feet and falls by only 5%, having BGN 69,492 on its account.

As there are no figures provided by the Bulgarian distributor of Trespass, it is for now missing from the top 10. The other film, which goes out, is The Thing, which in its second week decreased by 52%, collecting a meagre BGN 32,249.

Compared to my last week's projections, In Time doubled my forecast for BGN 50,000, while Kecove missed my target of BGN 80,000.

Next weekend's projections:

The Adventures of Tintin - BGN 110,000

Tower Heist - BGN 55,000 

(BGN 1 = USD 0.71 = EUR 0.51)