February 16th, 2010
One of the weakest weeks on the home market for a long while, with only one wide release of note. Granted, Law Abiding Citizen's performance at the box office was much better than expected, but it still only managed to become a midlevel hit. The best of the best is Good Hair, which would be a clear Pick of the Week if the DVD had all the extras they mentioned on the audio commentary track. Alas, there's just the audio commentary track.
More...
February 12th, 2010
Post Grad opened in late August of last year, which is a terrible time to open a movie.
It also opened with some of the worst reviews of the year.
Finally, it opened in less than 2,000 theaters, missed the Mendoza line, and quickly disappeared from theaters.
My expectations could not be lower for this film.
More...
January 11th, 2010
As it is usually true at this time of year, there are very few major releases hitting the home market this week.
Most of the films on this week's list that opened wide were critics and / or box office disappointments, but at least there are a number of smaller films to pick up the slack. This includes Big Fan, which features what should be a star making performance by Patton Oswald, but the DVD isn't exactly loaded with extras. That's not an issue with Moon, as both the DVD and the Blu-ray are loaded with extras. The best release of the week is arguably The Hurt Locker and both its DVD and Blu-ray are Pick of the Week material. However, it is likely that it will be joined by Transformers - Season 2 - Volume 2, once the screener arrives.
More...
August 31st, 2009
It was a great weekend at the box office as all but one film in the top five films met or exceeded expectations, some by large margins. This helped the box office pull in a very healthy total of $125 million over the weekend, which was just 1.7% lower than last week. More importantly, it was a stunning 28% higher than the same weekend last year. Wow. Granted, this weekend last year was Labor Day weekend, which is a terrible time at the box office, but this is still a fantastic result. Year-to-date, 2009 has pulled in $7.24 billion, which is 7.4% higher than last year's pace.
More...
August 24th, 2009
Overall the box office was weaker than expected this weekend with only one of four releases meeting expectations, while the holdovers were not able to completely compensate. This led a 10.5% drop-off in ticket sales from last weekend; however, the $127 million total box office take is still 20% higher than the same weekend last year.
2009 stretched its year-to-date lead over 2008 to 6.9%, earning $7.06 billion to $6.60 billion so far.
More...
August 23rd, 2009
Quentin Tarantino enjoyed the best opening of his career over the weekend, according to Weinstein Co.'s estimate released on Sunday morning.
With $37.6 million, the movie tops his previous best, which is either Sin City (if you count his single scene as a legitimate directing credit) or Kill Bill: Volume 2, depending on your perspective.
Either way, it's an impressive debut for a late Summer movie.
More...
August 21st, 2009
This week we have two saturation level releases and two releases that don't even qualify as truly wide but could still reach the top ten. Realistically, even with four wide-ish releases, only one of them has a real shot at top spot and that will hurt the overall box office. On the other hand, this week last year was much worse in terms of high powered releases and 2009 should continue its winning ways.
More...
August 20th, 2009
August 1st, 2009
July was a mixed month with several of the big hits failing to live up to great expectations, while still being big hits. There were no surprise hits, but no outright bombs either. No outright bombs is what the industry is hoping for August, but that seems less likely. We could see a monster hit opening on the first week, but that potential hit, G.I.Joe, could also be a monster bomb. There is at least one movie opening each week that I'm personally interested in, although for the most part it is not the widest release of the week that piques my interest.
More...
