May 30th, 2024
The Memorial Day weekend box office turned out to be a disappointment in what should have been a healthy four-day stretch to kick off the Summer movie season. Topping the domestic charts were two of the three newcomers, with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga narrowly edging out The Garfield Movie, with $32.34 million to $31.26 million from Friday through Monday. This weekend will undoubtedly see the two reigning leaders remain on top, although there’s a good chance the roles will be reversed.
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May 23rd, 2024
IF made its theatrical debut last weekend and took in a respectable $33.72 million in its opening attempt, making it the top movie at the domestic box office. The John Krasinski-directed film was relegated to second place as the widest release, but will itself play spoiler to another newcomer as it becomes the widest-playing film in the land this week. Another trio of new films make their appearance this week, including another animated feature in the way of everyone’s favorite comic book cat, as The Garfield Movie makes its arrival into North American cinemas.
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May 16th, 2024
After a solid opening week at the box office for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the latest primate venture rolls into its second week retaining its debut count of 4,075 theaters, making it once again the most widely-available film in North America. It outperformed most expectations by earning $58.4 million in its opening weekend, and currently enjoys a six-day total of $72.32 million. This week sees another trio of films arriving in wide release, one of which holds a good chance of toppling reigning box office title holder from its top spot.
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December 5th, 2016
There are a few releases on this week’s list that are worth picking up. The Secret Life of Pets is by far the biggest release of the week. That said, Don’t Think Twice is the best and the Blu-ray is our Pick of the Week.
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October 24th, 2016
It’s not a great week on the home market, as the biggest release of the week is the low-budget horror film, Lights Out. It is worth picking up on Blu-ray, but it is not worth the Pick of the Week title. The best film on this week’s list is Finding Dory, but it is only coming out on Video on Demand and it is worth waiting for the Blu-ray. That said, there’s no top-notch competition, so it is the Pick of the Week.
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November 27th, 2015
It's Thanksgiving weekend, which means Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and of course the first installment of our Holiday Gift Guide. This week we will tackle first run releases, as well as franchise box sets. I'm going to try to keep it to a dozen or so releases, as these columns are notorious for getting out of hand. Also, while there were a record number of $1 billion box office hits, there were not as many first run releases that earned stellar reviews this year.
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September 28th, 2015
There were eight releases from the week of September 1st to reach the top 30 on the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for September 6th. This includes Mad Max: Fury Road, which sold 1.04 million units and generated $23.75 million in sales. There are three important notes. Firstly, the film's opening week Blu-ray share was 56%, which is excellent. Secondly, this was the first release to have opening week sales above 1 million units since Home debuted five weeks ago. Finally, these numbers don't include the Franchise Box Set, which opened in 16th place with 27,000 units / $1.51 million.
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September 1st, 2015
Summer is officially over, both in theaters and on the home market. This week, the new releases are led by Mad Max: Fury Road, which was not only one of the biggest hits of the summer, it was also one of the best. Nearly everything else of note is TV on DVD, so if you are a fan of those releases, it will be an expensive week. There were several contenders for Pick of the Week, including two TV on DVD releases (Castle: Season 7 and New Girl: The Complete Fourth Season), a documentary (Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me on DVD), but the winner is Mad Max: Fury Road on 3D Combo Pack.
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June 18th, 2015
Jurassic World completed the trifecta over the weekend. Not only did the film have the largest domestic debut, it broke the same record internationally and worldwide. The film pulled in $315.61 million on 19,612 screens in 66 markets for a worldwide opening weekend of $524.42 million. It broke the previous international and worldwide records that were held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. It is also the first film to open with more than $500 million worldwide and it is just a matter of when, not if, it will top $1 billion globally. The only downside is the number of markets it has yet to open in, which is one. It debuts in Japan in August and it might be the biggest global hit of the year before it even gets there.
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May 27th, 2015
The Memorial Day long weekend was not as strong as anticipated, as no film in the top five really topped expectations. Tomorrowland did earn first place, but it barely earned more in four days as it was expected to earn in three. Pitch Perfect 2 crossed $100 million over the weekend and The Avengers: Age of Ultron crossed $400 million, so those milestones helped cushion the blow. Even so, the overall box office fell 18% when compared to last week, falling to $152 million over the three day weekend. It was also down 19% from last year over the three day period. Over four days, the box office pulled in $191 million, which was 17% lower than the same weekend last year. This is a disappointing loss. 2015 is still ahead of 2014, albeit by a margin of just 2.1% at $4.02 billion to $3.95 billion.
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May 22nd, 2015
It's Memorial Day long weekend, which is one of the best weekends of the year at the box office. There are two new releases trying to take advantage of the holiday, Tomorrowland and Poltergeist. There are also three major holdovers that will remain potent over the weekend: Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect 2, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. There's a chance all five of these films will made $30 million or more over the next four days. Like we've seen most weeks this summer, this weekend last year had a much bigger hit on top. X-Men: Days of Future Past opened with more than $90 million, but only one other film, Godzilla earned more than $15 million over the three-day weekend. So again, 2015 won't match 2014 at the top, but the depth should help 2015 win in the year-over-year comparison.
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May 14th, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road and Pitch Perfect 2 both open wide this week. It is normally not a good idea to have two films competing for limited box office dollars, but these two films have divergent enough target audiences that it is unlikely that they will cannibalize each other too much. The Avengers: Age of Ultron will also still do well this weekend and help the overall box office do well. This weekend last year, Godzilla led the way with $93 million during its opening weekend. Neither Mad Max: Fury Road nor Pitch Perfect 2 will earn that much this weekend; however, they should earn more than that combined. Additionally, Age of Ultron should earn more than last year's second place film, Neighbors, and this depth could give 2015 the win in the year-over-year comparison.
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May 1st, 2015
April is over and there was good news and bad news. Good news: Furious 7 crushed the competition, and broke records along the way. Bad news: Furious 7 crushed the competition and no other April release will earn as much in total as Furious 7 earned during its opening day. Fortunately, Furious 7 was so strong that it carried April of 2015 to a draw when compared to April of 2014. May has a lot of similarities to April. The Avengers: Age of Ultron is expected to break records during its opening weekend and even the low end has it earning more than $1 billion worldwide. Unfortunately, no other film is going to come close to that figure. There are five other films with a potential to reach $100 million at the box office. The keyword there is "potential". There's a chance less than half of those five films will get to that milestone. And like last April, last May had much better depth with five films that reached $100 million, including four that surpassed $200 million. Age of Ultron will earn more than the combined totals of Maleficent, last month's winner, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which placed second for the month. I am a little concerned about the lack of depth this month and this could cause May to lose in the month-over-month comparison in the end.
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