August 28th, 2020
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It is a poor week generally for limited releases, with only a couple earning any real buzz: The Courier and Fatima. With actual wide releases this week, the competition is much greater than it’s been for months, which makes conditions challenging for these releases, to say the least. On the bright side, while things are still tough, this week sees a more typical mix of independent and genre films than we’ve seen recently. Here’s a rundown of the films that are doing their bit to help move the theatrical market back towards nomalcy.
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May 3rd, 2019
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There are not a ton of limited releases coming out this week, but there are some that are certainly worth checking out. This includes two documentaries, Ask Dr. Ruth and Meeting Gorbachev. However, the movie I most want to see is Shadow.
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April 14th, 2017
We have a bumper crop of limited releases this week, with several that are earning outstanding reviews. Unfortunately, this means there’s way too much competition for all of them to thrive. The Lost City of Z has the loudest buzz and I think that will give it the edge at the box office.
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April 7th, 2017
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It is a busy week for limited releases with more than a dozen titles on this week’s list. This includes a quartet of releases with good reviews and loud buzz. Gifted’s reviews are good, but likely not good enough for limited release. That said, it has a shot at becoming a sleeper hit. Their Finest is a stellar British World War II dramedy, but the cast is more famous in the U.K. than here. Your Name is arguably the best film on this week’s list and it is a monster hit worldwide. However, it is playing in over 300 theaters and that might turn out to be too many. This leaves Colossal as the film with the best shot at mainstream success. Its reviews are not the best, but the combination of reviews, cast, buzz, and commercial viability is.
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November 21st, 2016
This is the Tuesday before Black Friday / Cyber Monday. It is the last chance for a home market release to come out before one of the most important shopping weekends of the year. However, it also means the new releases coming out have to compete with massive sales and they will tend to get lost in the crowd. Overall, this is a negative for the new releases, which explains why there are not many big titles. The biggest release of the week is Kubo and the Two Strings, which is also one of the best. If you don’t have any of the Laika films, then the Box Set is easily worth picking up. However, I’m giving the Pick of the Week title to Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXXVII, because I’m a huge fanboy.
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August 19th, 2016
There are a number of interesting limited releases on this week’s list, including Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World, Morris from America, Imperium, and Closet Monster. Unfortunately, while all of them are earning good reviews, none of them are likely to be hits in theaters.
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March 17th, 2015
It's a busy / short week on the home market. There are four first-run releases coming out this week, which is more than most weeks. However, it is also a very shallow week and we run into filler on the first page of Amazon's list of best-selling new releases. The best of the first-run releases is Top Five, but the DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack isn't quite Pick of the Week material. For that honor, we have to look to a smaller release, Song of the Sea on DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack.
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May 19th, 2014
It's that time of year, the weakest time of year on the home market. This week there are four first-run releases, but only one of them earned overall positive reviews and only one of them did well at the box office. Fortunately, it was the same film, About Last Night. If you are a fan of romantic comedies, then the DVD or Blu-ray is worth picking up, but it is not Pick of the Week material. For Pick of the Week, I went with Nosferatu the Vampyre on Blu-ray.
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May 5th, 2013
During the holiday season of 2011, Tom Cruise starred in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I thought it was arguably the best action movie of the year and it became the stars biggest hit globally and his best domestic hit in a decade (not counting a cameo in Goldmember). A year later, Jack Reacher opened with barely a fraction of the buzz. I was one of the most Bullish analysts and I was only predicting $75 million. The film did pull in $80 million domestically, which is better than expected, but nothing compared to MI:IV. Is it really that much weaker? Or did it struggle in comparison, because it wasn't part of a popular franchise.
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January 25th, 2013
It's a relatively slow week for limited releases, especially if you go by the number of theater counts we've received so far. We only have a theater count for one film, Knife Fight, which likely won't have a significant opening. The film I'm most looking forward to seeing is the spoilerific John Dies at the End, but there are multiple reasons why it won't thrive in theaters. If there is only one release on this week's like that will thrive in theaters, it's Yossi, but even then it has just a 50/50 chance.
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December 1st, 2012
November was a strong month and left 2012 with a very easy path to a new all time record. There was only one major miss the entire month, Rise of the Guardians, while The Silver Linings Playbook was pulled from wide release at the last minute, so it is a little hard to judge its box office performance. On the positive side, Skyfall might top original expectations by $100 million. All this December has to do is maintain pace with last December to ensure 2012 sets the new record. I would like to say that will be easy to do, but I really don't know. Last year, there was only one $200 million hit, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, plus a few others that reached $100 million, so the bar isn't set too high. This year, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is expected to at least come close to $300 million. Some think it will earn more than $400 million. However, it could also be the last film to make $100 million till February. December is normally a very good month to release a film, but the release schedule is so messed up that it makes it very hard to predict what will happen. There appears to be just ten films opening truly wide this month (I'm getting mixed signals on a few of them). That's a really light schedule for a month and a light schedule tends to help maximize the box office potential for individual films. However, eight of these films open wide within a seven-day period. That's insane. There's no way all of those films will find an audience and there's a chance that due to the competition, none of them will. Let's hope the situation isn't as bad as that, but there are some serious reasons to be concerned for most new releases coming out this month.
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