Bulgarian Box Office Update - Weekend 16-18 December

The risk has really paid off...

Expectedly, the latest part of Mission Impossible stormed the cinema charts in Bulgaria and with the sublime BGN 162,290, or BGN 172,797, including a day of previews, removed The New Year's Eve from the summit. As Ghost Protocol fits perfectly in the taste of Bulgarians - a well-known brand, an action and masculine movie, its success is not surprising. We should also add the fact that the film is generally liked by cinema goers (unlike some too pretentious Bulgarian "critics" who compare it to Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean because of its ....increditability). The third mission ended its entire run in Bulgaria with the poor USD 121,066, which has already been passed by the fourth instalment as you're reading this.

At #2, Arthur Christmas once again shows a fantastic hold and slips by just 23%, having BGN 299,363 in total. Even the forthcoming holidays couldn't stop the aforementioned New Year's Eve from taking the down road quickly, as it falls by 42% to #3 and has BGN 136,659 so far.

For a change, a poor children movie is struggling to have strong legs in the country, as in its third week Happy Feet 2 goes down with 47% and BGN 160,953 in total. By the looks of it, the much superior Arthur will at the end beat the dance-obsessed penguins. 

Albeit with a decrease of 51%, The Immortals retains its strong performance and with BGN 843,385 sits pretty at #5. It is followed by The Twilight saga, with a fall of 60% and BGN 524,789 so far. Operaciq Shmenti Kapeli is still in the top ten, slipping 54% and BGN 1,091,578 so far. At #8 Jack and Jill goes down with the not-so-welcome 59%. The movie has earned BGN 112,927 in its run.

The second new entry of the week enters as low as #9. Bulgarian title Something More About Love manages to collect the dismal BGN 7,319 over the weekend. This is one of the worst opening results for a Bulgarian movie in the last few years, paling even compared to "flops" such as Sbogom Mamo and The Island. Putting the negative reviews aside (yes, there are one or two on the net, the remaining "film journalists" rather praised or just, typically, didn't give any opinion at all), it seems that superstar Kalin Vrachanski couldn't attract any viewers in the cinema halls...

The top ten is rounded up by Machine Gun Preacher, which falls 67% and has made BGN 74,921 so far.

The top ten is left by In Time and The Son Of No One. The surprising sci-fi Justin Timberlake hit has made the excellent BGN 552,024 so far, while The Son Of No One underperformed with BGN 79,347, which for a film with Al Pacino is really bad.

Compared to my last week projections, Mission Impossible came somewhat higher than my BGN 130,000 forecast, while Something More About Love drew exactly half of my BGN 15,000 prediction. 

Next weekend's projections:

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - BGN 150,000, including previews

Puss in Boots - BGN 130,000, including previews

(BGN 1 = USD 0.69/EUR 0.51)