February 18th, 2010
Half a dozen new releases reached the top 30 on this week's sales chart and one of them reached number one.
Even so, it was a really weak list.
Gamer opened in first place, but it only sold 346,000 units and generated $5.78 million in consumer spending at retail.
That's mediocre, no matter what its ranking.
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January 19th, 2010
The flood of home debuts for September releases continues this week and unfortunately there are not a lot of TV on DVD releases or limited releases to take up the slack at the top.
There are a few releases that are of interest though, including The Invention of Lying on Blu-ray and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging on DVD.
The former probably has more mainstream appeal, but the latter is the better film, and with plenty of extras on the DVD, it is the Pick of the Week.
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October 11th, 2009
Le Petit Nicolas debuted in sixth place internationally with $9.39 million on 618 screens in 3 markets. Of that total, $8.88 million was earned on 571 screens in France, which was more than five times the amount earned by the second place film.
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October 4th, 2009
District 9 climbed into sixth place with $6.19 million on 2547 screens in 35 markets for a total of $56.88 million. This includes a fifth place, $926,000 opening on 253 screens in Italy, while it added $1.94 million on 448 screens during the full week in France for a total of $6.05 million after two.
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September 26th, 2009
Vicky the Viking fell to sixth place with 7.40 million on 898 screens in 3 markets for a total of $24.55 million. Of that, $5.92 million was earned on 751 screens in Germany and it now has $18.94 million in its native market.
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September 19th, 2009
Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs fell out of the top five this past weekend earning $7.08 million on 3521 screens in 35 markets for a total of $670.44 million internationally and $865.11 million worldwide. It is now the third highest grossing film internationally of all time, while it is 18th place worldwide. That's quite a gap. The film remained in first place in Italy earning $3.14 million on 690 screens over the weekend for a total of $33.63 million after three. So far the film has earned more than 77% of its worldwide box office internationally, which is a very high percentage, and it will keep creeping higher as its international run comes to a close.
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September 15th, 2009
The first official weekend of Autumn was not great at the box office, as every single new release missed expectations, some by small margins, others quite dramatically.
This was enough to push the total box office down to $92 million, off 6.7% from last weekend and 8.7% lower than the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2009 is still up on 2008 by a significant margin, leading $7.53 billion to $7.00 billion.
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September 11th, 2009
The winners of our Winning the Game contest were determined and they are...
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September 8th, 2009
Labor Day long weekend is over and, as we already knew, the summer of 2009 set records.
Over the summer months, the box office earned $4.31 billion, which was well ahead of 2007's previous record of $4.16 billion.
Granted, as mentioned before, this summer not only had two years of inflation, but also one additional weekend.
Even so, there's a lot to cheer about.
This past weekend, the industry pulled in $99 million over three days and $125 million over four.
This is a huge amount compared to same weekend last year; however, because summer lasted one week longer, this weekend last year was the weekend after the Labor Day long weekend, so the comparison falls apart.
Year-to-date, 2009 has earned $7.41 billion, which is 7.8% more than at the same point in 2008.
The lead in terms of raw dollars is more than $500 million, and it would take a massive collapse for this lead to evaporate.
Hopefully that will not happen, but given the performance of the three new releases this week, it is not impossible.
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September 6th, 2009
The Final Destination pulled off an unlikely repeat win over Labor Day weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
The horror movie, which was considered only a marginal favorite to win last weekend, beat off modest openings for All About Steve and Gamer.
Destination's 3-day estimate is $12.435 million, with Steve second with $11.2 million and Gamer a disappointing fourth with $9 million.
Inglourious Basterds places third with $10.8 million.
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September 4th, 2009
September 3rd, 2009
It's the final weekend of summer 2009, and already we've broken the record for the season.
The previous record was set in 2007 when the total summer box office was $4.16 billion.
In comparison, at the end of last weekend, 2009 had earned $4.17 billion and there's one more weekend to go.
Granted, 2009 is a rare year where the summer had 18 weekends instead of 17, and 2009 also has two years worth of inflation to help, but this is still worth celebrating.
Looking at the final weekend of the summer, we should end the season on a high note as this time last year was, well, terrible.
It would be nearly medically impossible for the summer to end weaker than last year, but there is a chance none of the three wide releases will come out on top, which would be a bit of a disappointing end.
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September 1st, 2009
Summer ended on a strong note with three films from August that have the potential to cross $100 million at the box office. But I don't think there's a single film coming out this month that has the potential to do the same.
Then again, we're not concerned with keeping up with August, we are concerned with keeping up with September last year, and that will be an easier task most weeks.
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August 28th, 2009
Next weekend is the Labor Day long weekend, and thus the official end of summer. It is also the first weekend of September and arguably the worst long weekend of the year. Our target film for this week's Box Office Prediction contest is Gamer. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office of Gamer.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of DEA: Detroit on DVD.
Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of DEA: Detroit on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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