MovieChat Forums > Moana (2016) Discussion > Sing explodes in the UK while Moana look...

Sing explodes in the UK while Moana looks to be flaming out in Korea

posted 8 years ago by QueenFanUSA
17 replies | jump to latest

The UK, which summarily rejected Moana, has gone bananas for the crap factory Illuminaton for the second time this year for Sing. Brit phenom Trainspotting 2 couldn't even keep it from the top spot. What is going on in that country?!?!?

South Korea is where Frozen became a phenomenon and grossed over $100 million in 2014 but seem to be walking away from Moana in 2017. After a fairly strong opening it is barely registering there just two weeks later. Not a good sign for Japan.

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Just how bad is the UK situation?

Moana opened with 2.7 million there. Sing? 13 million>

Sick yet?

[–] A-Rey-of-Light 8 years ago

Moana only dropped -2% from last weekend in Korea so I'm not sure how much that argument holds water.

Galaxy's princess
Her mother, singer in rain
Unite in heaven

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Yes...but holding from a small number the previous weekend. After 3 weeks it's only at 10.7 million.

No, it's not as disasterous as the performance in the UK and Germany, but Korea won't be the saviour many hoped for. It's now down to Japan and even there it can't escape Sing. Sing opens one week after Moana.

I don't know about you, but that's a big uh-oh. Disney better find more effective stategies going forward to deal with Illumination because they are here to stay. They are super-aggressive and even more wildly popular internationally than they are domestically.

[–] A-Rey-of-Light 8 years ago

No, it's not as disasterous as the performance in the UK and Germany

Both of which still showed incredible legs, so it's not all that bad. Korea got hit by some local blockbusters last week, and it stil has a chance of having great legs there.

Japan is one of the least competitive markets, so Moana and Sing can coexist instead of cannibalizing each other's earnings.

Galaxy's princess
Her mother, singer in rain
Unite in heaven

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Hope you're right.

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Both of which still showed incredible legs, so it's not all that bad.

"Legs" that sprung from paltry openings. In the end it was not good, regardless. Moana ended up with just $22 million in the UK. In just it's first weekend, Sing has already made well over half of that.

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Speaking of 13 million...the UK opening weekend of Sing has already surpassed Moana's total gross in Germany.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

SLoP had incredible staying power in the UK...why wouldn't Sing?

Because it hasn't had much staying power in most territories. Also, because Secret Life of Pets has performed much better than Sing, so expecting Sing to match its performance just because it's Illumination is like expecting Moana to make a huge upswing and finish around Frozen. Day 40 puts Sing at $258M domestic. SLoP was at $339M. Germany (I use this because it's a big territory where Sing has been out for a while) had Sing opening at $4.1M and has managed to get to $18.2M after 7 weeks. SLoP opened at $7.1M and had $30.3M after 7 weeks. Sing is clearly not on the same trajectory as SLoP, so I would have absolutely no reason to believe it would perform similarly in the UK.

Lets's not forget that Trolls blew Moana away in the UK, as well.

Further proving my point. As I said, Moana underperformed badly in the UK, so using the UK as the benchmark for success is a little unfair. I could do the same with Brazil or Venezuela, where Moana has overperformed and Sing underperformed, and act like because of those countries alone, Moana is clearly much more successful. You have to look at the whole picture, and so far, Sing still has $68M of ground to cover to catch up.

Speaking of 13 million...the UK opening weekend of Sing has already surpassed Moana's total gross in Germany.

Most likely false, since Sing's UK opening is only $5k more than Germany's gross was at last weekend. I highly doubt Moana failed to make $5k this week.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

Barely registering? Since when is $2.1M in South Korea barely registering? It's holding very well in SK with only a 6.3% drop. As far as the UK:

1) We'll see how well it holds after such a big weekend. Sing has shown some pretty drastic SW drops.

2) It was a given Moana would lose in the UK. We've all universally agreed that Moana underperformed pretty badly in the UK.

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

SLoP had incredible staying power in the UK...why wouldn't Sing?

Lets's not forget that Trolls blew Moana away in the UK, as well.

[–] A-Rey-of-Light 8 years ago

SLoP had incredible staying power in the UK...why wouldn't Sing?

Because it's January, not the summers, and it has to face The Lego Batman Movie two weeks later.

Galaxy's princess
Her mother, singer in rain
Unite in heaven

[–] FantasticFearOfMisterBobo 8 years ago

Sing's total is actually made up of two weekends, its 'opening weekend' is a massive cheat. Sing had previews last Saturday and Sunday and made £4million from those two days alone, so Sing's opening weekend total is much closer to £6million which is more in check with no competition.

Your point about T2: Trainspotting is effing ridiculous, it's rated 18 and made £5million with no previews which is one of the largest ever openings for a film of that rating so it would never have been a film aimed at children.

Moana opened 2 weeks after Fantastic Beasts, a prequel to the homegrown Harry Potter franchise which is closing around £56million. Two weeks later Rogue One opened, which was itself a large box office success in the UK with a final total looking to be close to £68million. You seem to completely ignore Dory is currently the 4th highest grossing film of 2016 in the UK and Zootopia faced the same issue as Moana with a heavily crowded market of BVS, Huntsman, Eddie the Eagle and Jungle Book.

You seem to keep ignoring the fact QueenFan. Pets got the jump in the summer market in the UK and had no direct competition for weeks, hence such a strong gross in the UK. Its entirely possible Sing will fall quite a bit now with Lego Batman getting previews this weekend. It took me a few minutes to research and write this post.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

Moana opened 2 weeks after Fantastic Beasts, a prequel to the homegrown Harry Potter franchise which is closing around £56million. Two weeks later Rogue One opened, which was itself a large box office success in the UK with a final total looking to be close to £68million.

I'm going completely off topic, but I'm really surprised that Rogue One outgrossed FB in the UK. Well done, Disney.

[–] FantasticFearOfMisterBobo 8 years ago

It's not that surprising, Force Awakens made £128million in the UK shattering Skyfall's £103million to take the record of the highest grossing film in the UK so Rogue One was always going to beat FB. In all honesty I didn't expect the fight to be so close, FB has outgrossed multiple Potter films so it over performed in my eyes.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

I figured it would be pretty close. Both were individual stories based off of massive hit franchises. But with FB building its own series and being spawned off a British franchise, I expected it to edge out Rogue One.

[–] greyhelm-91337 8 years ago

Lin Manuel Miranda writes awful songs and doesn't have such overrated popularity overseas.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

I would have to strongly disagree. While I didn't know anything about him or who he was before the movie, I absolutely loved pretty much every song in it. Then, a few months later, I listened to Hamilton due to my best friends pestering me about it constantly, and I loved almost every song in that as well. Completely different type of music, due to Opetaia Foa'i's influence on his songs in Moana, but all very good. That's just my opinion, though.