October 21st, 2007
Evan Almighty was a surprise winner on this week's sales chart topping fellow new release Surf's Up in terms of sales 740,000 units to 682,000 units and in terms of dollars $12.58 million to $10.91 million.
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October 21st, 2007
New releases took three of the top five places including Surf's Up, which earned first place with $8.13 million. This is unusual since kids movies tend to place higher on the sales chart than the rental chart, but that was not the case here.
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October 9th, 2007
The holiday-delayed list is here, but there are not many releases I can get truly excited about. There are quite a few limited releases on this week's list that deserve to be seen, but only one rises to the level of a DVD Pick of the Week and that is Black Sheep - Unrated - Buy from Amazon. Fair warning, this movie is not for everyone, but it manages to mix the gore and giggles nearly perfectly and fans of such movies will certainly want to add it to their DVD collections.
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September 30th, 2007
Ratatouille opening in first place in South Africa this weekend earning $298,000 on 40 screens, which is very close to what The Simpsons Movie made in its opening there a few weeks ago. Its best market of the weekend remains France where it was down a mere 4% to $1.67 million on 655 screens over the weekend for a total of $58.63 million. At this pace, the film will reach $60 million by this time next week while topping Finding Nemo's total of nearly $65 million is increasingly in reach. Overall Ratatouille added $4.66 million on 2535 screens in 27 markets for a total of $216.42 million, which is more than Cars managed, and this film still has openings in Germany, U.K., Italy, and Scandinavia.
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September 9th, 2007
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix may have fallen out of the top five, but it was able to cross $900 million worldwide since last week making it only the tenth film to do so. Over the weekend the film added $7.08 million on 4486 screens in 53 markets for a total of $626.30 million internationally, which places the film sixth place on that chart just $16 million behind Dead Man's Chest. There's not much to report for individual markets with the film down 43% during its second weekend in Greece adding $612,000 on 129 screens for a total of $2.91 million. Its best market remains Japan at $1.67 million on 605 screens over the weekend for a total of $75.18 million after seven weeks. Meanwhile, the film continues to march towards $100 million in the U.K. and after earning $796,000 on 306 screens over the weekend it now sits at $97.89 million in total.
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July 29th, 2007
The Transformers held on strong dipping just 7% to $33.77 million on 4626 screens in 41 markets for a total of $192.44 million. This includes an estimated $6.4 million from previews in the U.K. The film's only major opening of the weekend was Mexico where it placed first with $5.46 million on 410 screens pushing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix into second place. The Transformers also continued its amazing run in South Korea adding $3.12 million on 442 screens for a running tally of $46.21 million, which is like making $500 million here given the relative sizes of the two markets.
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July 15th, 2007
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End remained in sixth place with $8.94 million on 5442 screens in 101 markets for a total of $624.93 million. Internationally the film is in fifth place all-time and should top Dead Man's Chest shortly. Worldwide, it is also in fifth place but Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone's $974.56 million seems safe. As for At World's End's individual markets, the U.K. is still ahead of Japan $80.06 million to $77.58 million. However, Japan is catching up $2.28 million on 674 screens compared to just $738,000 on 357 in the U.K. At this pace Japan will need just two weeks to become the film's biggest draw.
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July 8th, 2007
Some very interesting news on the international front this weekend regarding Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. First of all, it fell out of the top five; however, it was still able to pull in more than $10 million over the weekend. Not too long ago it was a chore to find a dozen films that cracked $1 million, while this past weekend we had 6 that earned $10 million or more. Over the weekend the film added $14.02 million on 5775 screens in 104 markets for a total of $608.89 million internationally. It is the sixth film to cross $600 million internationally and is now in fifth place on that chart. Worldwide the film has $906.89 million making it the ninth highest grosser of all time. The U.K. is still the film's best market at $78.51 million compared to second pace Japan where it has made $74.02 million. However, that gap continues to narrow with the film making $3.23 million on 691 screens in the latter and $1.37 million on 401 screens in the former.
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June 17th, 2007
300 returned to the international chart this week thanks entirely to its opening in Japan.
In that market, the film opened in second place with $2.71 million on 452 screens over the weekend and $3.39 million including last week's premiere in Tokyo.
This was enough for it to capture sixth place internationally with $2.75 million on 576 screens in 8 markets, while lifting its total to $236.89 million.
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June 10th, 2007
With no worldwide opening this weekend, several studios tried to open / expand smaller films hoping to take advantage of the lull. Despite this influx of competition, Fracture was able to hold strong dipping just one place with sixth with $2.25 million on 1018 screens in 16 markets for a total of $22.33 million internationally. The film wasn't able to top $1 million in any single market, but came closest in France with $671,000 over the weekend for a $7.20 million running total.
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June 3rd, 2007
Spider-Man 3 earned a comfortable second place earning almost as much as the rest of the films on this list with $21.07 million on 10,365 screens in 76 markets for a total of $501.00 million. It is only the 14th film to reach that milestone while it became the 16th film to top $800 million worldwide and has already climbed into 14th place overall. The U.K. regained the lead as the best market for the film adding $2.58 million on 460 screens for a total of $61.09 million. Japan took in $2.36 million on 630 screens while France made $2.31 million on 866 screens as the only other two markets to top $2 million over the weekend and the film now has $47.79 million and $48.55 million respectively. There were a quartet of led by Brazil, ($1.29 million for the weekend and $21.55 million in total); Spain, ($1.29 million / $22.49 million); Mexico, ($1.22 million / $32.90 million); and Germany, ($1.01 million / $27.16 million).
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May 27th, 2007
Mr. Bean's Holiday fell one spot out of the top five this weekend despite showing some significant growth. The film did have a few openings, including a third place $165,000 debut on 56 screens in Turkey, but its biggest market was Germany where it grew 44% to $651,000 on 577 screens for the weekend and $22.52 million in total. Overall the film added $3.47 million on 2634 screens in 43 markets for a total of $176.19 million internationally with debuts in South Korea, Japan, and China, yet to come, (and of course it doesn't open here till August).
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May 24th, 2007
For the third time in four weeks there will be another $100 million opening. It's strange, for four years after Spider-Man set the record, no film matched its record-setting debut. In fact, no film really came that close. However, in the past 12 months, three films have topped that mark and another film will do the same this weekend.
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May 21st, 2007
There was another massive opening over the weekend, something we'll have to get used to this summer, but not all reports are glowing.
The second $100 million opening of the month helped push the overall box office up, way up, to $182 million, which is 70% higher than last weekend.
However impressive these weekly fluctuations may seem, it is the year-to-year increase of 11% that is more important.
The other number of note is 15%, which is how much higher this summer is over the record-setting pace of 2004.
That summer not only gave us Shrek 2, but also Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Those three movies combined for more than $1 billion, a mark this summer's top three films should be able to top.
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May 17th, 2007
So far May has been softer than expected. Sure, Spider-man 3 opened with a record breaking weekend, but since then it has started tracking below expectations. Meanwhile, every other film has missed their modest expectations, some by large margins. This weekend things should get back on track with one of the most anticipated films of the year debuting tomorrow, but even here there are some warning signs.
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May 16th, 2007
Spider-Man 3's performance at the international box office at the weekend was even more dominant than its domestic performance.
Over the weekend, the film added $84.27 million on 13,799 screens in 73 markets for a total of $385.43 million, which puts it on pace to become the biggest hit of the franchise by this weekend.
Worldwide, the film hit $625.66 million at the end of the weekend, and should also top the previous releases before long.
On the all-time charts, the film is now in 24th place and should catch the 23rd place film (Spider-Man 2), and the 22nd place film ( Spider-Man), before long while it could grab a temporary spot in the top ten.
Worldwide, it currently ranks 28th with eyes on Attack of the Clones.
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May 14th, 2007
As expected, no new release came close to challenging Spider-man 3 for top spot.
In fact, the four newcomers were even weaker than expected.
However, while this led to a 44% drop-off from last weekend, the overall box office take of $106 million was still more than 6% higher than the same weekend last year and that's the more important figure.
Next weekend there should be a big bounce as Shrek the Third should earn significantly more than that all by itself.
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May 12th, 2007
Not the best week for sites as there was only one that had even a chance of winning, Surf's Up - Official Site. There were a couple others that showed potential, but they will need a little more work to win.
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May 10th, 2007
This is the only soft weekend in the month of May with new releases forced to fight for the scraps of last weekend's record breaker, which explains why we have four such films trying to split already weak box office prospects. However, none of these new releases has any real shot at unseating Spider-man 3, even though that film is expected to sink pretty far at the box office.
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May 1st, 2007
It's the first of May, which means it is the start of the summer blockbuster season.
This year, May is dominated by sequels, and not just sequels; there are three monster franchises releasing their third installments this month.
If these films were the only monster hits being released this month, I would assume that any of them would have little difficulty hitting $300 million; for that matter, all three would have a better than 50% shot at $400 million.
However, it seems highly unlikely to have three $400 million movies open in one month, especially given there's never been two $400 million movies to open in the same year.
But who knows, records have already fallen this year, so anything's possible.
On a side note, there is a real gap between the big three and the rest of the new releases.
There's a slim chance another sequel, 28 Weeks Later, could crack $100 million.
However, it looks like the any of the big three releases will earn twice as much as all of the other films on this list will earn combined.
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April 7th, 2007
It's the Saturday after Good Friday, which explains why this column was delayed one day. But while the Friday was good, this week's sites were mediocre, at least they were compared to high expectations. If this was January, it would be a great list. However, at this point of the year I'm expecting one potential summer blockbuster to have a major website launch each week, and that didn't happen this time. We still had an award-worthy effort with Grindhouse - Official Site.
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