February 24th, 2009
Nights in Rodanthe led a troop of five new releases to take first place on the rental charts, pulling in 16% more rental revenue than second place Madagascar 2 - Escape to Africa during its first full week on the chart.
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February 10th, 2009
One of the busier weeks in the past several weeks, but there's little in the way of top-notch releases. The biggest box office hit was Nights in Rodanthe, which struggled to become a mid-level hit. The best release in my opinion is My Name is Bruce on Blu-ray, but only if you are a Bruce Campbell Fanboy. I am, and I'm awarding it the DVD Pick of the Week. While there were not as many top-notch releases, there were still more than enough bulk to force this column to be split into two. The second part can be found here.
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December 7th, 2008
Bolt started its run on the international charts in sixth place with $7.90 million on 1417 screens in 4 markets. This includes a second place, $4.30 million opening on 570 screens in Russia, while it Italy it also placed second with $2.19 million on 467 screens. Meanwhile in Poland, it topped the charts with $855,000 on 120 screens, but this is par for the course as films of this nature tend to do very well in Poland.
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November 30th, 2008
Body Of Lies opened in a quartet of major markets, the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Russia, and that helped it climb into second place with $10.17 million on 2837 screens in 32 markets for a total of $33.62 million. It earned second place in both the U.K. with $1.48 million on 393 screens and in Germany where it scored $1.43 million on 427 screens. On the other hand, it earned more in Italy with $1.64 million on 357 screens, but had to settle for third place. Meanwhile in Russia it struggled landing in eighth place with $500,000 on 142 screens.
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October 13th, 2008
With four wide releases this past weekend, I knew not all of them would be hits, but I also didn't expect all of them to be misses. Perhaps that's not entirely fair, and given the production budgets involved, not all films flopped at the box office, but enough did that overall box office receipts dropped 10% to $102 million. Compared to the same week last year, that still represents an increase, albeit by less than 3%, which is more or less in line with ticket price inflation. Year-to-date, 2008 and 2007 have both brought in $7.38 billion, but 2008 has had the edge the past few weeks and could retake the lead this upcoming weekend.
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October 7th, 2008
Of the eight films that opened or expanded on Friday, only two were able to do some serious business, while most were lucky if they topped the Mendoza line by earning more than $2,000 per theater. It was just a disaster, in many ways. That said, it was still the first weekend in October and the overall box office was up 13% from last weekend to $113 million. More importantly, it was 35% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2008 closed the gap with 2007. 2008 is just a little below and 2007 a little above $7.25 billion. By this time next week, 2008 could retake the lead, at least in terms of raw dollars.
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October 5th, 2008
A busy week for new releases with more than a dozen sites here, but most were just average. The best of this week's selection was the Official Site for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which has enough of the basics, extras, and style to stand out.
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October 3rd, 2008
If you thought last weekend was too busy, this weekend is worse with eight films opening or expanding wide, or at least wide-ish. However, only one film is opening at saturation level (3,000 or more theaters) and one other is opening truly wide (2,000 or more theaters). After those two films, the rest of the new releases will be forced to fight over the table scraps.
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October 1st, 2008
September ends, and for that we are all very grateful. However, while we are entering the final push for 2008 at the box office, things don't look too rosy for the upcoming month. First of all, there are way too many films opening, including eight that are opening or expanding on the first weekend. Of those two, maybe three will thrive. Most will sink without being noticed, which could negatively affect the overall box office going forward. On the other hand, there are a few films opening this month that could be players come Awards Season, which is just around the corner. Perhaps this will help a few mid-level hits rise above the crowd.
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September 1st, 2008
A pretty bland month with no wide release that look likely to surprise, either becoming a potential $100 million hit, or bombing so bad that they fail even to reach $10 million. The latter is a lot more likely, however, with a number of films that have serious obstacles to overcome, and it is very unlikely all of them will avoid bombing. On the other end of the scale, there are no films that have a legitimate shot at $100 million, while The top film of the month could make less than $70 million.
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August 28th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for City of Ember, Flash of Genius, Toy Story 3, and more!
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July 28th, 2008
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Madea Goes to Jail, Julie & Julia, Whiteout and more!
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May 18th, 2008
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Igor, Soul Men, Hotel for Dogs and more!
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April 10th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for Bride Wars, I Love You Phillip Morris, New York, I Love You, and more!
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October 7th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Case 39, Inkheart, Four Christmases and more!
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