May 3rd, 2011
The combination of factors ranging from the Fanboy Effect to Easter sales were in relative balance, and this helped Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I remain strong. It led all new releases to earn first place on the DVD sales chart this week with sales of 1.99 million units / $27.89 million for the week for totals of 4.43 million units / $62.35 million.
Tangled grew more than 100% thanks to Easter sales, selling an additional 1.04 million units for the week to give the film total sales of 5.59 million units / $85.30 million after a month of release. The King's Speech opened in third place with 893,000 units / $13.39 million, which is great for a limited release, but a little soft for the big Oscar winner.
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April 18th, 2011
This year's big Oscar winner, The King's Speech, is hitting the home market this week. It leads the way in terms of quality and is likely to be the best-selling new release. It's certainly the Pick of the Week, with neither the DVD nor the Blu-ray being a substantially better deal than the other. The only other real contender is the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack, but that came out on Friday.
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April 16th, 2011
Gulliver's Travels is a family film that cost more than $100 million to make and that opened on Christmas Day. Expectations by the studio must have been massive. However, by the beginning of December, analysts were warning it could be a bomb. Then when it opened, it actually missed the low end of lowered expectations. It did find a much more receptive audience internationally, but its worldwide total haul was still middling. Is the film as bad as its box office record here would indicate? Or was its performance overseas more inline with its worth?
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February 9th, 2011
Tangled's international run is coming close to an end, but it has a couple of major milestones left to reach. Over the weekend it added $23.90 million on 5186 screens in 42 markets for a total of $288.33 million internationally and $479.40 million worldwide. At this point next week it will have $300 million internationally and $500 million worldwide. In order to reach profitability before it hits the home market, it will need to get past the $600 million mark worldwide, which is likely out of reach. However, assuming it does well on the home market, reaching profitability is inevitable at this point. This week it opened in Spain with $5.61 million on 650 screens, which was enough for first place over the weekend and the third best Disney debut in that market. Meanwhile, the film was down just 11% during its second weekend of release in the U.K., adding $7.38 million on 448 screens over the weekend for a running tally of $17.35 million. And, it has yet to open in Japan, so it is not done yet.
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January 20th, 2011
International numbers were a day late due to the holiday, but there were some interesting stories to report. Firstly, Tangled climbed to top spot with $16.01 million on 4187 screens, in 38 markets, for a total of $214.02 million internationally and $395.03 million worldwide. It was able to climb to the top, despite no major market openings. It did add $3.33 million on 432 screens during its second weekend in Australia. That was enough for second place in that market over the weekend, while it lifted its total there to $13.23 million. In Brazil it remained in first place with $2.69 million on 447 screens over the weekend and $12.98 million after two. Up next is the U.K., while it has yet to open in Spain, Scandinavia, and Japan and by the time its done, it could have $500 million worldwide.
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January 12th, 2011
We are again stuck with studio estimates, which is a bit troubling, as I was hoping the schedule would have returned to normal. Also, this has resulted in a bit of confusion with Tangled and The Tourist finishing in a very close race for the number one position. Tangled led the way according to the studio estimate with $26.3 million on 3,636 screens in 43 markets for a total of $179.3 million internationally and $355.1 million worldwide. This week it debuted in first place in Australia with $5.74 million on 462 screens over the weekend, for a total opening of $6.08 million. Meanwhile in Brazil it topped the charts with $4.53 million on 446 screens over the weekend and $5.98 million in total. In both cases the film opened better than it did here.
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January 5th, 2011
The Christmas break is just ending, but as it is normally the case, international numbers are late. We do have studio estimates for a few films, as well as last week's final numbers, which had a surprise change at the top. We'll start with this week's possible number one film. Gulliver’s Travels led the list of studio estimates with $24.9 million on 3,964 screens in 33 markets for a total of $48.9 million. This includes a massive $10.98 million opening on 497 screens in the U.K. That's like a $50 to $60 million opening here; granted, that was since boxing day, but since it won't make that much in total domestically, it is still an impressive opening. On the other hand, it opened in second place in Australia with $2.85 million on 411 screens. Still better than its opening here, but more inline with expectations.
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January 3rd, 2011
2011 has begun but it didn't get off to a strong start. It didn't even get off to a better than expected start, as only one film in the top five really topped expectations. Overall, the box office grew by 10% from last week hitting $159 million, but that's not great given Christmas Eve landed on a Friday. It was also down 28% from the same weekend last year, so 2011 is off to a bad start. Granted, it's incredibly early, but there are not a lot of hopeful signs for the rest of the month and double-digit declines will likely be the norm.
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January 2nd, 2011
With no new wide releases over New Year's weekend, this week's was a battle of the holdovers at the box office, and thanks to the fact that Christmas Eve (a slow day at the box office) fell on a Friday in 2010, the weekend-to-weekend comparison for each movie generally looked good.
Curiously, though, the top three movies all declined from last weekend while all the other movies in the top 20 saw increases.
With plenty of films to choose from, audiences spent over $4 million on at least 13 different films, seven of which topped $10 million.
That's not quite a record (no less than nine movies earned over $10 million over MLK weekend in 2001), but it is unusual.
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December 27th, 2010
It was a good news, really bad news weekend. Let's start with the good news. The overall box office for the year reached $10 billion for only the second time in history. Bad news, the box office this past weekend was so bad that 2010 lost its lead over 2009. It did rise from last weekend by 8% to $145 million, but that's 47% lower than the same weekend last year. Granted, Christmas Eve landing on a Friday did have a lot to do with that, but this is still a terrible result. Year-to-date, 2010 has now earned $10.33 billion, which is about $50 million behind last year's pace. It won't get better next weekend, so 2010 won't be setting the record.
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December 22nd, 2010
This weekend could be a disaster at the box office. Not only is it likely that the biggest release will under-perform, but Christmas Eve lands on the Friday. Christmas Eve is a black hole at the box office and it basically cuts nearly a full day off the weekend. Worse still, last year was incredibly strong and it is very possible that the number one movie this year won't make as much as the third place film did last year.
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December 1st, 2010
It's the end of the year and there are certainly some question marks that will be answered over the next 31 days. Are there any monster hits left for 2010? Will 2010 manage to stay ahead of 2009? Will it actually start winning again at the box office? Unfortunately, the answer to all three of those questions might be no. First of all, of the November wide releases, only two will really match expectations, with a couple of others coming close. So December starts on the weak side. Additionally, last December saw the release of Avatar, the biggest box office hit of all time. There's no film coming out this month that will match that movie. In fact, there's a chance no movie coming out this month will match last December's second place film, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. This means that even though 2010 had a $300 million lead over 2009 just a few weeks ago, by the end of the year, 2010 might fail to break last year's record.
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