February 3rd, 2020
Our annual Oscar Prediction contest is underway so now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Due to a compressed Oscar schedule, and the monthly preview, I have to get all ten Oscar highlight stories done this week, continuing with best Feature-Length Animated Film. We do have a favorite in this category; spoiler warning, it’s the Pixar film. However, we could also have an upset and it wouldn’t be the most shocking twist of Oscar night.
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January 13th, 2020
The Oscar nominations were announced on Monday, and the results were... well, there were some puzzling results. Joker led the way with eleven nominations. ... A film with 69% positive reviews earned the most nominations. It’s not the worst-reviewed movie to earn a Best Picture Nomination—after all, Bohemian Rhapsody was nominated just last year. However, this film is arguably the worst-reviewed movie to ever earn the most nominations in a single year.
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January 6th, 2020
The Golden Globes winners were announced on Sunday and we have some interesting developments for the rest of Awards Season. 1917 wasn’t considered a front-runner with five films earning more nominations. However, after this result, it might be the front-runner to become the big winner on Oscar night.
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December 11th, 2019
The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. It is still very early in the year and the predictive value of the Golden Globes is a little suspect, but there are still some things to learn here. (This is especially true on the TV end, as there’s talk about how strange the nominations are this year.) Marriage Story led the way with six nominations, just ahead of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, both of which picked up five nods.
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July 24th, 2019
We are still in the summer doldrums on the home market. The biggest first run release of the week is Alita: Battle Angel, which is much better than its box office numbers and one of the best releases on this week’s list. Other contenders for Pick of the Week include Do the Right Thing and Nichijou: My Ordinary Life: The Complete Series. In the end, I went with Nichijou: My Ordinary Life: The Complete Series. In part because it is an amazing series, but also in part in solidarity with the victims of the Kyoto Animation arson attack.
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April 23rd, 2019
Easter weekend gave box office watchers a few reasons to celebrate. The Curse of La Llorona topped expectations and earned first place with $26.35 million over the weekend. That’s a very strong debut for this time of year. Additionally, both Shazam and Captain Marvel held on amazingly well, which bodes well for their chances against Avengers: Endgame. Overall, the box office rose 1% from last weekend to $108 million. This was 14% lower than the same weekend last year, and it wasn’t Easter weekend last year. On a side note, I’ve seen some stories call this past weekend the worst Easter weekend in over a decade. However, this is misleading, as it was the first time Easter weekend was one weekend before the start of the Summer Blockbuster season. Avengers: Endgame opening on Friday had more to do with the weak box office than any other factor and if Endgame is as big as some box office analysts expect, then by this time next week, we will be talking about how quickly 2019 will turn things around rather than how bad 2019 has been. In the meantime, we’ve hopefully sunk to the low point in the year-over-year comparison, as 2019 is now behind 2018 by a $570 million or 17% margin at $2.84 billion to $3.41 billion.
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April 16th, 2019
Shazam easily topped the weekend box office chart with $24.45 million. This is significantly more than the best new release of the week, Little, which managed $15.41 million during its opening weekend. That film will break even sometime during its home market run. The same can’t be said of Hellboy, After, and Missing Link, all of which will lose money. This caused the overall box office to fall 24% from last weekend to just $110 million. This is also 25% lower than this weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2019 has fallen further behind 2018 and it now behind with $550 million or 17% at $2.68 billion to $3.23 billion. Avengers: Endgame will have to be unreasonably big at the box office for 2019 to turn things around any time soon.
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April 14th, 2019
Shazam really bounced back from a poor Friday performance. So much so that it almost match our prediction with an estimated $25.14 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $94.31 million. Internationally, the film is projected to earn $35.9 million on 23,752 screens in 79 markets to push its international total to $163.9 million. This means its worldwide total rose past $250 million after just two weeks of release. The film will have no trouble breaking even after a run like this, even with Avengers: Endgame looming large.
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April 13th, 2019
It’s going to be a terrible weekend at the box office with almost no film living up to expectations. Shazam fell faster than anticipated, down 69% from its opening Friday to just $6.37 million yesterday. Because it’s a holdover, it will bounce back more than the new releases, but it will still likely fail to match our prediction and is on pace for between $23 million and $24 million for the weekend. It is still going to break even, but if it doesn’t bounce back before Avengers: Endgame debuts, it will merely be very profitable and not amazingly profitable.
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April 12th, 2019
Hellboy opened with $1.38 million in previews last night, which is not enough to be a hit. This would have only put the film in third place last Thursday, well behind both Shazam and Pet Sematary. Furthermore, due to the film’s terrible reviews, it will likely be more front-loaded. Fortunately, this wasn’t too far below expectations.
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April 12th, 2019
There are four wide releases this week, but it seems Shazam will remain the top draw, potentially by a significant margin. Hellboy was supposed to challenge for top spot, but its reviews are going to kill its box office chances. Little is earning better reviews, but its reviews are not good enough to overcome its smaller stature. Missing Link is earning amazing reviews, but that hasn’t helped other stop-motion animated films succeed in the recent past. After has the quietest buzz of the week and almost no reviews. This weekend last year wasn’t a great weekend at the box office, but it will certainly be better than this weekend will be. Avengers: Endgame can’t come soon enough.
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April 1st, 2019
March was a good month at the box office with most films beating expectations. The biggest hit was Captain Marvel, which is still on pace for $400 million domestically and may have crossed $1 billion worldwide by the time you read this. The biggest “miss” was Dumbo, but it is still going to top $100 million domestically with ease. This month, it is a battle between Avengers: Endgame and last year’s Infinity War. To be fair, A Quiet Place got last April off to a very fast start and Shazam! should do the same this year, so there will be more than one potential box office hit to talk about. That said, Endgame will almost certainly open with more than any other April release earns in total and if 2019 is going to cut into its deficit with 2018, it will be on the back of that one film.
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November 9th, 2018
Animated adventure with the voices of Zach Galifianakis, Hugh Jackman, and Zoe Saldana opens April 12 ... Full Movie Details.
Mr. Link is the slightly silly, surprisingly smart and soulful beast who is the last living remnant of Man’s primitive ancestry, the Missing Link. As species go, he couldn't be more endangered; he’s the last of his kind and he’s lonely. Proposing a daring quest to find his rumored distant relatives, he enlists the help of Sir Lionel Frost, the world’s foremost investigator of myths and monsters, and Adelina Fortnight, who possesses the only known map to the group’s secret destination, in an odyssey around the world to find the fabled valley of Shangri-La.
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