Bulgarian Box Office Update - Weekend 10-12 Feb

Brainstorming was not enough to come up with BO success ideas

It was a tough battle for the top of the box office in Bulgaria this weekend, with Safe House taking the lead over the re-released Star Wars. Thus, the Denzel Washington picture collects BGN 56,843 for the weekend, a surprisingly strong result in view of the slow promotion and the fact that it is played only in the Arena cinema chain as a Universal title. In comparison, Unstoppable, the last movie anchored by Denzel, earned USD 143,460 in its entire run. 

The runner-up slot was taken by the 3D version of Star Wars: Episode 1 with BGN 48,533, which shows that the popularity of the brand is still not marred. Back in 1999, the movie took USD 487,200, which is exceptionally strong when we take the inflation rate into account. It was also an era with no multiplexes, when there were actually cinemas and not only multiplexes throughout Sofia. 

The third new proposal of the week arrives at #11 (last week The Help had the same fate). The movie in question is the low key but still beautiful  My Week With Marilyn. It draws BGN 9,769, a meagre and still rather expected result. 

Official figures were also revealed for Freddy Frogface. The animated movie, which came as from nowhere, manages to collect BGN 4,783 with just three screens. 

And here's the top ten in full:

 

	movie	Change w/w	Result for the weekend (in BGN)	Total result (in BGN)
1.	Safe House	-	56,843	56,843
2.	Star Wars 3d	-	48,533	48,533
3.	Underworld 4	-33%	23,527	432,459
4.	Man on a ledge	-37%	22,458	104,886
5.	Puss in Boots	-23%	17,681	1,264,961
6.	Muppets	-32%	17,455	169,583
7.	One For The Money	-47%	15,989	85,481
8.	Chronicle	-35%	13,254	56,031
9.	Haywire	-47%	12,641	155,540
10.	Little Big Panda	-27%	11,074	51,112

This week the top ten is left by Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, which with BGN 958,040 in total still has the chance to surpass the 1m barrier. It has already outgrossed the final tally of its predecessor. Independent title Devil's Double also goes out and has BGN 69,842 to date, which is not that bad after all. 

Compared to my projections, Safe House came higher than my BGN 37,000 expectation, Star Wars was near my BGN 42,000 forecast, while My Week With Marilyn was below my BGN 19,000 prediction.

Next weekend's projections:

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - BGN 75,000

The Vow - BGN 48,000, including previews

War Horse - BGN 30,000

(1 BGN = USD 0.68 / EUR 0.51)