April 29th, 2013
New releases did better on Blu-ray than they did on DVD with eight films charting on the March 17th, 2013 edition of the Blu-ray sales chart. They were led by Rise of the Guardians, which sold 584,000 units / $11.77 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 42%, which is strong, for a kids movie.
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April 29th, 2013
There were not a lot of new releases on the March 17th, 2013 edition of the DVD sales chart, but one of them took top spot. Rise of the Guardians sold 804,000 units and generated $12.45 million in sales. This is a solid opening for this type of release.
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April 24th, 2013
Wreck-It Ralph led a group of five new releases earning first place on the March 10th, 2013 edition of the Blu-ray sales chart. The film sold 1.01 million units and generated $28.29 million in opening week sales, for an opening week Blu-ray share of 50%. This is is amazing for a kids film. Granted, it does have a high nerd nostalgia factor, which helped on Blu-ray, but this is still impressive.
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April 24th, 2013
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 remained on top spot on the March 10th, 2013 edition of the DVD sales chart, while there were seven new releases to put in an appearance in the top 30. Part 2 sold an additional 1.35 million units / $20.23 million during its first full week of release for early totals of 3.47 million units / $51.87 million. It is the best selling DVD of the year.
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March 5th, 2013
It's a strange week for home market releases. On the one hand, there are some terrific films that should do really well. On the other hand, after the top couple of titles, the quality of the releases plummets really fast. By the time we get outside of the top ten, we start to get mostly filler. The best film coming out this week is Schindler's List, which makes its Blu-ray debut this week. It is absolutely a must have; however, the Blu-ray is shovelware, which precludes it from being the Pick of the Week. The release that gets that honor is Wreck-It Ralph on either Blu-ray or 3D. It is worth paying the extra money for 3D, but not a lot of people have made the leap to 3D just yet.
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December 3rd, 2012
It was a close race for top spot as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 just held off Skyfall by less than $1 million. Unfortunately, the best new release, Killing Them Softly, failed to match low expectations, while The Collection barely managed a spot in the top ten. The overall box office fell 45% to $114 million. However, as sharp as that decline was, it was still 41% higher than the same weekend last year and December begins with 2012 ahead of 2011 by 5.9% at $9.91 billion to $9.36 billion.
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November 26th, 2012
The Thanksgiving long weekend was stronger than anticipated with nearly every film topping predictions, some by pretty big margins. In fact, some earned more over three days than they were expected to earn over five days. Despite this, the box office was actually down 17% from last weekend to $208 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. This was 26% higher than the three-day portion of last year's Thanksgiving long weekend. Over five days, the box office pulled in $291 million, which is the most ever for a Thanksgiving weekend and 25% higher than last year. Year-to-date, 2012 has pulled in $9.75 billion, which is 5.5% higher than last year's running tally of $9.24 billion. If 2012 can simply match 2011 the rest of the way, then we will set a new all-time yearly box office total with about $10.7 billion.
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November 25th, 2012
As expected, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 and Skyfall are dominating the Thanksgiving charts, and, with some help from three new releases and two strong holdovers, will produce the most lucrative Thanksgiving holiday in history. All told, we should see something a little over $200 million in revenue for the three-day portion of the weekend, placing it in the top 20 weekends of all time. Breaking Dawn, Part 2 is tracking about in line with Part 1 at this point in its run. In contrast, Skyfall is well ahead of James Bond's previous outing, and has become the first Bond movie to top $200 million domestically (before adjusting for inflation).
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November 21st, 2012
It's the beginning of Thanksgiving long weekend tonight, which means it is a busy day for new releases. There are three new releases opening wide, plus another film that is expanding wide enough that is has a shot at the top ten. Unfortunately for the new films, there's little hope any of them will top The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 over the weekend. In fact, there's a chance none of them will top Skyfall for second place. Rise of the Guardians is the only one with a real shot at second place, while Life of Pi and Red Dawn will be in a tough battle for fifth place. Finally, Silver Linings Playbook is expanding to more than 400 theaters and could grab tenth place. The box office last year looks very similar to the box office potential this year. With a little luck, there will be mostly pleasant surprises rather than serious disappointments and 2012 will have another solid win.
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November 1st, 2012
October was pretty good with a few films really crushing expectations, which made up for the few duds that opened at the end. 2012 gained about $100 million over 2011 during the month of October. We really needed this success and hopefully November will continue this push forward. However, November is a bit of a weird month. There are five weekends, but only eight true wide releases, half of which open on the Thanksgiving long weekend, leaving the other four weeks with just one true wide release each. There are a couple others opening in the semi-wide level and another opening in limited release with a planned wide release, but even so, it is not a busy month. That said, it is a case of quality over quantity. There are four films that are pretty much guaranteed to reach $100 million, one of which should reach $300 million. By comparison, last November only produced one $100 million film. Granted, that film was The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, which made nearly $300 million, which is a huge number no matter how you look at it. But this year, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 should top that number and with the other $100 million movies pulling in more than $400 million combined, it should be a very profitable month at the box office.
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