Bulgarian Box Office Update - Weekend 8-10 June

Who'd not like to watch a zebra do the two-feet number?

The arrival of Madagascar 3 on top of the box office this week comes to show several interesting things. First, Bulgarians do love animated movies in 3D, especially the ones coming from Dreamworks, which rely more on gags than on story, and second it doesn't need the participation of the cinema chain with the biggest market presence for a movie to turn into a hit. Yes, for reason unknown (it's always money involved) Madagascar 3 was not screened in the multiplexes of Arena, which didn't stop it to take BGN 92,722 for the weekend and BGN 201,743 including previews from just 13 screens. It's the best performance of a cartoon movie since Puss In Boots stormed the cinemas at the end of 2011. 

Thus, the other new heavyweight proposal - Snow White And The Huntsman has to satisfy itself with the runner-up slot. In view of the competition and the absence of the 3D effect, the fantasy flick draws the okay BGN 72,082. It's quite better than the disastrous debut of Mirror Mirror (BGN 16,424) but the fact that Snow White And The Huntsman is the second Snow White of the year and boasts no familiar to the mass audience faces has also curbed its chances for a spectacular new entry.

This week's top 10 in full:

 

	movie	Change w/w	Result for the weekend (in BGN)	Total result (in BGN)
1.	Madagascar 3	new	92,722	201,743
2.	Snow White	new	72,082	72,082
3.	Prometheus	-59%	61,834	308,281
4.	Men In Black 3	-66%	33,676	504,940
5.	The Dictator	-60%	23,837	645,002
6.	What To Expect...	-45%	15,706	71,717
7.	Avengers	-76%	7,175	1,134,434
8.	Pirates	-76%	4,179	303,754
9.	Rio	699%	4,157	1,006,400
10.	Dark Shadows	-59%	3,482	163,937

This week the top ten is left by Chernobyl Diaries, which didn't manage to escape the curse of the horror genre here and has made just BGN 36,424 so far. It may be a huge hit in Serbia but as Bulgarians are above gay themed (extremely funny) comedies, Parada has attracted the poor BGN 39,348. At the same time, proving once again that Jason Statham is the man who all Bulgarians love, his latest Safe is going out of the top ten with the excellent BGN 287,584. I'm sure our prime minister (The Sun itself) will approve that...

Compared to my predictions Madagascar 3 reached my forecast of BGN 190,000, though when I made it I didn't take into account the fact that it wouldn't be played in Arena. At the same time, Snow White was also close to my BGN 82,000 prediction

Next weekend's forecasts:

Salmon Fishing in The Yemen - BGN 27,000

Piranha 3DD - BGN 17,000

(1 BGN =  0.64 USD / EUR 0.51)