December 16th, 2011
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations and the Awards Season picture started to look a whole lot clearer. The Artist led the way with six nominations, while The Descendents and The Help were right behind with five apiece.
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June 21st, 2011
There were seven new releases on this week's DVD Sales Chart, and six of those reached the top ten. Leading the way was True Grit with 1.02 million units / $15.91 million during its opening week on the home market. It is already in 30th place for 2011 and should quickly climb much further up.
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June 15th, 2011
True Blood: Season Three was able to lead the way on the Blu-ray sales chart this week, and while the margin was closer than it was on the DVD sales chart, it was still dominant. It started its Blu-ray run with sales of 199,000 units / $7.09 million, which is amazing for a TV on Blu release, although the comparison is difficult, as most TV on DVD releases don't have a Blu-ray release. Likewise, its 20% Blu-ray ratio seems impressive for this type of release; however, there are so few TV on Blu releases that it's hard to judge.
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June 14th, 2011
It's not common for a TV on DVD release to top the sales chart, but that's what True Blood: Season Two did. It led all new releases and holdovers during its first week of release with 786,000 units, and generated $23.92 million in consumer spending at retail. To put this into perspective, Season Two took about a month to sell that many units.
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June 8th, 2011
Two films could make legitimate claims for top spot on this week's Blu-ray Sales Chart. Gnomeo and Juliet topped I Am Number Four if you rank them by units at 271,000 units to 241,000 units; however, the pair finished in opposite order if you rank by dollars at $6.02 million to $5.42 million. As far as opening week ratios are concerned, Gnomeo managed 29%, which is in line with expectations for a family film, while Number Four was stronger at 34%, but that's not quite what you would want for a visual effects heavy film.
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June 7th, 2011
New releases took the top two spots on this week's DVD sales chart with Gnomeo and Juliet leading the way with 666,000 units sold while generating $10.74 million in opening week sales. This is not a bad result, for this time of year.
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May 24th, 2011
While we have two first run releases coming out this week, the number one seller according to Amazon.com is a specialty release, and the bulk of the interesting titles are Blu-ray catalog releases. Granted, one of the first run releases nearly hit $100 million at the box office, but this is still a really bad sign in terms of overall sales. As far as the best of the best, that's a race between The Kids in the Hall: Complete Series Megaset and Platoon on Blu-ray. I'm going with the former for Pick of the Week, but make sure to check the price, as buying Death Comes to Town and the old Megaset might be cheaper.
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May 21st, 2011
Gnomeo & Juliet opened earlier this year with rather limited expectations, and smashed said expectations. (Although, to be fair to me, I did say there was a chance it would do as well as Meet the Robinsons, and it did.) So was the success warranted? Or did it simply benefit from a nearly complete lack of competition.
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April 6th, 2011
Just Go With It reached first place on the international chart with $10.84 million on 2,791 screens in 40 markets for a total of $76.26 million after 8 weeks of release. It opened in first place in Australia with $2.44 million on 311 screens, but it struggled in Italy with just $732,000 on 248. So far the film has $9.09 million in Russia after just two weeks, including $2.87 million on 544 screens this past weekend.
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March 30th, 2011
Battle: Los Angeles remained in first place on the international scene with $16.32 million on 7,746 screens in 55 markets for a total of $79.63 million after three weeks of release. It didn't have many new openings. It did add $1.12 million on 331 screens during its second weekend in Australia for a total of $4.39 million so far. It has already made more internationally than it has domestically, and with openings in Spain, Germany, and Italy, it should have no trouble getting to $200 million worldwide. I think the studio should be happy with that, but I'm not sure they will be happy enough to go with a sequel.
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March 7th, 2011
There's very little good news at the box office this weekend, but we will start with some happy thoughts. Rango had the best opening weekend of the year, which helped the box office climb 23% from last weekend to $134 million. On the other hand, this time last year Alice in Wonderland opened with $116 million by itself, which means 2011 lost the year-over-year comparison by 32%. Year-to-date, 2011 now has $1.69 billion compared to last year's pace of $2.13 billion and it's not like it's going to get better over the coming weeks.
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March 3rd, 2011
So far 2011 has been a bit of a bust with only one weekend winning the year-over-year comparison and not a single film opening with more that $40 million. Hopefully one of those records will change this weekend, as Rango looks to become the biggest hit of the year so far. Unfortunately, this time last year saw the release of Alice in Wonderland, the biggest March opening of all time. I can't imagine a scenario where 2011 doesn't lose even more ground on 2010.
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March 2nd, 2011
For the third weekend in a row, Black Swan led the way on the international chart, pulling in $17.50 million on 3,950 screens in 45 markets for a total of $123.37 million internationally and $226.95 million worldwide. In Spain it remained in first place with $2.52 million on 319 screens over the weekend for a total of $6.47 million after two. It added $2.81 million on 363 screens over the weekend for a total of $13.74 million after three. It doesn't have many markets left to open in, but the film has already made nearly a quarter billion dollars on a production budget of just $13 million, so it is fantastically profitable.
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February 28th, 2011
February ended in the same position it has been for nearly the entire year, on the losing end of the comparison to 2010. The post-holiday drop-off was steep at 25% leaving the weekend box office at just $109 million. This was 9% lower than the same weekend last year. Normally, a 9% drop-off year-over-year would be devastating, but that's actually better than 2011 has averaged so far. Year-to-date it is now 21% lower than 2010's pace at $1.53 billion to $1.93 billion.
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February 27th, 2011
All eyes are on the Oscars this weekend, as the industry suffers another poor weekend at the box office. Aside from a blip caused by the timing of President's Day, the overall box office has now been down for 16 straight weeks, and no film will crack $15 million this weekend, with Gnomeo and Juliet likely to be the lowest-earning February number one since Black Hawk Down's $11 million number one weekend in 2002.
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February 24th, 2011
It's the end of the month and considering how poorly the year has started, for a lot of people it's good riddance. We are coming off of the first win in several months, but that streak could be over before it really starts. Firstly, the win was mainly due to President's Day long weekend coming a week later than it did last year. Secondly, the two films coming out this week are rather weak. The only good news is that this time last year wasn't exactly big at the box office either.
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February 23rd, 2011
As I've stated in the past, it is quite rare for a film that opened in limited release in the United States to go on and have success internationally. Most markets are simply too small to have the infrastructure to support limited releases. So it's quite a pleasant surprise to find two such films atop the international box office. Leading the way for the second weekend in a row is Black Swan, this time earning $17.60 million on 3,699 screens in 39 markets. In total it has $98.24 million and it has likely already reached the century mark. It opened in first place in Spain with $2.91 million on 296 screens, but it was not as strong in Italy with $1.50 million on 257 screens, which was only enough for third place. Oscar contenders tend to perform really well in Italy, so this is a bit of a disappointment. As far as holdovers are concerned, the film was down just 18% in France, adding $3.82 million on 338 screens over the weekend for a total of $9.77 million after just two weeks of release.
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February 22nd, 2011
It was a good news / bad news situation this weekend as a number of films missed expectations. However, the overall box office was still enough for 2011 to secure its first win, topping last year's box office $145 million to $134 million. Granted, this is not exactly a fair comparison, as it was President's Day long weekend this year and it wasn't last year, but when you've had a 14-week losing streak, you will take any win that you can. Year-to-date, 2011 is still behind 2010's pace by nearly $400 million at $1.39 billion to $1.78 billion and there's little you can do to spin that into a positive.
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February 17th, 2011
We need a win. It has been more than three months since we've seen a victory in the year-over-year comparison, and with last year's Alice in Wonderland looming ahead on the comparisons, if we don't get a win soon, we might not get one for another couple of months. There is some good news this weekend. It's President's Day long weekend, which actually happened one weekend earlier last year. This means we have a holiday weekend this year going up against the post-holiday weekend from last year. Granted, Shutter Island opened with more than $40 million and I don't think any film will repeat that feat this year. However, last year's second place film, Valentine's Day made under $17 million, and each of the top five films this year could make that much. In order words, depth could be the key to the first victory of the year.
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February 15th, 2011
On the one hand, we are only six weeks into the year, which means it is far too early to push the panic button. On the other hand, there's everything else. It was yet another disappointing weekend at the box office with the top two films barely earning more than last year's number one movie. In fact, even if you ignored last year's number one movie, this year was still weaker in terms of ticket sales. The total box office was $149 million, which was 71% higher than last weekend, but while that seems impressive, it was still 27% lower than last year. 2011 is already closing in on $400 million behind 2010 at $1.17 billion to $1.54 billion. Maybe this coming weekend we can catch a break and finally turn things around.
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February 13th, 2011
Justin Bieber's popularity may not be restricted to Twitter after all.
This weekend's box office race is too close to call on Sunday morning after Justin Bieber: Never Say Never posted an impressive $30.26m opening weekend, enough to put it within striking distance of Just Go With It for top spot.
The Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy is pegged at $31m by Sony Pictures, which makes it the favorite to win, but a 2% difference between the two films means that Bieber could still take the title if fans turn out in greater numbers than expected today.
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February 10th, 2011
2011 is over a month old and we've only had one film that you could call a mid-level hit, two if you want to be generous. Worse still, none of 2010's holdovers have been big either. $100 million films opening in January are very rare, but films earning $100 million during the month of January are not that unusual. In fact, most years the biggest hit of January is a film released in December. So with no new releases or holdover pulling their weight, 2011 is off to a terrible start. This could be the weekend that changes that. Not only is it Valentine's Day weekend, but we should have the first $100 million hit of the year opening on Friday, plus a couple of potential mid-level hits. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the month, I was expecting two potential massive openings, but that appears less likely now. It also makes keeping pace with last year nearly impossible.
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February 1st, 2011
January got off to about as bad a start as I feared, and already 2011 is behind 2010 by about $275 million. Even worse, last February was better than expected. Not only did Avatar add another $200 million to its coffers during the month, the new releases collectively topped expectations every week (even if some individual releases failed to do so). What does this mean going forward? It means 2011 will likely continue to lose ground on 2010. By the time March rolls around, the only thing box office watchers will be talking about is the slump.
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August 26th, 2008
This week another number of upcoming movies, new stars and directors have been added to our archive!
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August 23rd, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for Extract, Gnomeo and Juliet, My Life in Ruins, and more!
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