February 9th, 2010
Not a particularly great week for DVD or Blu-ray releases. The biggest movie to hit the home market is Couples Retreat, but it was a terrible movie and should be avoided at all costs. The best film coming out this week is A Serious Man and while the DVD is worth picking up, the Blu-ray is the better deal. However, the Pick of the Week goes to The Guild: Season Three, which is one of the funniest things on the Web.
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February 4th, 2010
In 2003 Cheaper by the Dozen was released in theaters. It was a pseudo-remake of a film from 1950, which in turn was based on the Gilbreth family and the book they wrote about their life. Cheaper by the Dozen wasn't exactly a critical success, but for much of the cast it was and remains their biggest box office hit. It was inevitable that there would be a sequel and in 2005 Cheaper by the Dozen 2 came out. However, it wasn't able to live up to the original at the box office (although it was still a very solid midlevel hit and I'm sure it made the studio a profit). Was this drop-off at the box office a direct result of a similar drop-off in quality, or was there something else in play here?
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January 4th, 2010
The new year starts with a few prime releases, which is surprising, as this time of year we normally have a flood of late August / September releases, which are usually dumping grounds for films that didn't work. However, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs defied the odds and not only did it earn amazing reviews, it earned more than $100 million, while the Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack is a clear contender for the Pick of the Week. Other contenders include the special edition for 10 Things I Hate About You and 50 Dead Men Walking. I would like to wait until Cloudy's screener turns up before making a final decision, but all signs point to it being the Pick of the Week.
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June 10th, 2006
It turns out
Date Movie was a good excuse to stay at home this week as in pulled in $8.09 million in DVD rentals, easily putting it into first place.
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June 3rd, 2006
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 opened its home market run with an easily win pulling in $7.24 million during its first week of release. That's probably enough for the film to show a profit, something it just missed doing during its worldwide theatrical run.
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May 22nd, 2006
It was a big week for DVD releases, but most of them were of the older variety and there were no recent, high-quality, box office hits in the mix. I was tempted to go with Patton - Special Edition as the DVD Pick of the Week, but in the end went with Transamerica - Buy from Amazon instead.
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March 5th, 2006
On the weekend before the Oscars are announced,
Brokeback Mountain climbed a couple of spots to sixth with $4.44 million on 1368 screens in 30 markets for an international total of $53.89 million. New openings include Belgium where the filmed debuted in second place with $312,000 on a mere 27 screens for the best per screen average in the market. It wasn't as potent in Poland where it had to settle for fourth place with $194,000 on 40 screens over the weekend and $217,000 in total. The film also benefited from soft in the U.K. where it slipped just 5% to $442,000 on 245 screens for a very impressive total of $15.83 million so far. It was even better during its second weekend in Holland where it rose 1% to $210,000 for the weekend and $562,000 in total.
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February 12th, 2006
Fun with Dick and Jane fell to sixth place with $6.45 million on 2487 screens in 43 markets for an running international total of $53.27 million so far, which is less than half of what it earned domestically. The film opened in Singapore with $450,000 from 30 screens and managed to repeat in first place in Italy with $1.33 million on 314 screens over the weekend and a $3.96 million total after two weeks. Meanwhile in the U.K. the film fell from first to third, but it still earned $1.59 million on 374 screens for a three-week total of $9.34 million.
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February 5th, 2006
Jey Li's latest
Hong Kong production, Fearless, (a.k.a. Huo Yuan Jia) started its international run in sixth place with $7.35 million on 596 screens in 6 markets. The film finished first in four Asian markets including China with $1.39 million, Taiwan with $630,000, Singapore with $605,000 and Malaysia with $590,000. Paradoxically, the film's best market was its home market of Hong Kong, where it had to settle for a close second place with $2.03 million on just 48 screens over the full week. So far there is still no North American release date, but with this start, that should change soon.
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January 29th, 2006
Late updates have changed some of the results on in
International Top Five this week as My Boss, My Student crushed the competition in
South Korea with $7.59 million on 450 screens over the weekend and $9.31 million in total. This meant that despite
Brokeback Mountain earning a better than initially reported $7.39 million, it was pushed out of the top five and into sixth place.
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January 22nd, 2006
A few more markets helped Fun with Dick and Jane remain flat last weekend at the international box office with $5.25 million on 1,458 screens in 18 markets for an early total of $18.09 million.
Its best market was Mexico where it opened in first place with $1.87 million on 418 screens while in Germany the film added $1.47 million on 478 screens for a two-week total of $4.39 million.
The film's biggest running total still came from Australia, where the film has managed $7.39 million after three weeks, including $710,000 over this past weekend.
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January 15th, 2006
The King and the Clown did something most films in
South Korea can't, it showed strong legs. In fact, in grew by 22% to $5.76 million on 369 screens over the weekend and $16.82 million in total.
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January 9th, 2006
Nearly every film on Friday's column was able to meet or beat expectations this weekend, and that really helped ease the post-holiday transition.
Granted, on a week-to-week basis the box office was down 14.2% to $128 million, but that was still 7.7% higher than the same weekend last year.
Last year the box office got off to a great start, so this is either are really good sign for 2006, or symptoms of a significant change in behavior that could make the January dumping grounds a thing of the past.
Either way, it's good news.
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January 6th, 2006
The first full weekend of 2006 brings us three wide releases, two of which were not screened for critics. The only film that is being reviewed is the latest sadistic horror film from Lionsgate. But while the overall box office will suffer, there is quite a race for top spot brewing, with three films having a legitimate shot at winning the box office crown.
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January 4th, 2006
Narnia extended its lead on the international scene this weekend with $41.5 million on 6,584 screens in 31 markets for a total of $225.5 million. (Total included an estimated $12 million on Monday.) The film opened in second place in South Korea with $3.94 million on 262 screens over the weekend and $5.22 million overall. Meanwhile, in Taiwan the film earned $1.3 million on 60 and $1 million on 95 in Thailand. Its best market overall was France where the film earned $8.4 million during its second weekend of release while in the U.K. the film was up 5% for the weekend with $5.13 million on 526 screens for a total of $58.86 million.
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January 3rd, 2006
The New Year's Eve weekend helped 2005 go out on a strong note, even though four of the top five films missed Friday's predictions.
In total, the weekend saw earnings of $150 million, which was up 35.2% from last week and 2.0% from last year. However, the overall box office for 2005 was down roughly 5% from 2005, which marks the worst year-to-year drop-off since 1984-1985.
We'll have more details on the year at the end of March when the State of the Industry address is given at ShoWest.
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December 31st, 2005
As previously stated, in many markets the box office was closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and as a result some studios didn't tracks the international box office numbers. This has left precious little to report outside of a few big hits. What little there is to report is here.
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December 30th, 2005
The final weekend of 2005 starts tonight and every film in the top five should see significant growth from last weekend, a couple of them could see triple-digit growth. That will help the movie industry end on a positive note, but the yearly figures will still lag well behind 2004.
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December 27th, 2005
Christmas wishes went unanswered this year as almost every film missed expectations, some by large margins.
This led to a 14.4% drop-off from last weekend, but more importantly, a 18.0% drop-off from last year.
Granted, the fact that Christmas fell on a Saturday helps explain some of that, but not all. Year-to-date, 2005 is still down 6% from last year and with less than one week left, that's roughly where it will end up.
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December 22nd, 2005
This week's list of movie site is abridged and only contains the films that are opening this week, unfortunately, of those eleven films, only one had any significant updates this week. That site was
Munich -
Official Site, but I can't say its an award-winning site. I guess that means the Weekly Website Award is taking a vacation over the holidays.
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December 21st, 2005
Over the next five days a total of eight movies will either open wide or expand wide. With that much competition, there is literally zero chance that all the films will succeed. In fact, chances are none will be able to unseat King Kong as the box office champ. Further complicating the prediction process, there are three groups of releases with two movies opening wide tonight, three more on Friday and three on Sunday. This column will deal with all of them.
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December 15th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. We've hit another slow patch for movie websites, which is not unexpected since the most of the new site on this list are for films that open months from now so there's hardly any content, or open during the dead zone that is January. I would say the best of the rest would be
King Kong -
Official Site, but it is not strong enough to win the Weekly Website Award.
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December 1st, 2005
After Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire saved last month, we have two potential monster hits leading the way this month. However, both will be compared to Lord of the Rings, and neither will be able to live up to that high standard.
Even so, it should be a better month than December last year, but will it be too little, too late to save 2005's box office?
Since this is the heart of award season, there are plenty of films that are first opening in limited release.
Some will get a wide release later in the month, while others, like Munich, The New World and Match Point, don't open wide untill after the new year, and will appear in January's preview.
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November 21st, 2005
As Christmas approaches, each week more and more DVDs are being released that theoretically would make perfect gifts.
But for the DVD Pick of the Week I went with the perfect Re-Gift, Seinfeld - Re-Gift Set.
There are a couple others I would recommend (like the King Kong - Collector's Edition), but overall it feels like a really slow week.
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October 6th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Waiting... -
Official Site.
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