August 24th, 2023
While holding steady from its opening count of 3,871 theaters, Blue Beetle becomes the latest film to become the widest release in its sophomore frame, partially due to Barbie finally dropping below the 4,000-theater mark after spending four of its five weeks as the most widely-available film in North America. Blue Beetle topped last weekend’s box office with just over $25 million and currently holds a six-day domestic total of $32.19 million. This week, however, brings on a slew of fresh films ready to challenge Blue Beetle and Barbie for the box office crown.
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December 16th, 2022
Avatar: The Way of Water is finally here. James Cameron’s epic is expected to dominate at the box office well into the New Year and rack up hundreds of millions of dollars domestically (not to mention potentially billions worldwide) in the process. Exactly how many hundreds is the question, of course. Expectations for its opening weekend have been hovering around $150 million for quite a while, and ticked a little higher in the lead up to its release. Our final analysis points to around $170 million. But, as I’ll explain, that comes with a lot of caveats.
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July 7th, 2022
Another week, another blockbuster movie arriving to theaters. This week we see the debut of Thor: Love and Thunder. The film is the second of three planned Marvel Cinematic Universe films set for release in 2022 after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and before the November release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Love and Thunder, which has already stirred up $15.7 million from 17 overseas territories starting Wednesday, opens in 4,375 theaters in North America (including IMAX locations) on Friday. The movie features a large ensemble cast, headlined by Chris Hemsworth.
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June 30th, 2022
After an exciting head-to-head contest at the box office last weekend, another newcomer arrives in theaters this week to challenge chart toppers Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis. Minions: The Rise of Gru will open in 4,391 theaters this week, making it the widest release. The prequel to 2015’s Minions and fifth film in the Despicable Me franchise has earned nearly $4 million overseas so far in rollouts that began in mid June. Set in the 1970s, the animated feature follows a 12-year old Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) as he grows up in the suburbs. The animated comedy from Illumination will also be available on IMAX screens throughout North America.
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June 23rd, 2022
While it has taken a back seat to both Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion this week at the box office, Lightyear will become the widest release this weeked, albeit due Dominion dropping 400+ locations. While the Toy Story spinoff didn’t exactly hold up to the majority of expectations, the film has still garnered over $67 million in domestic revenue as of Wednesday. Pixar’s Lightyear keeps its opening count of 4,255 theaters as it heads into its sophomore outing.
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June 16th, 2022
With Spring nearing an end and Summer upon us, big things are happening at theaters across North America. With the number one and number two films at the box office also holding two of the three top positions of widest release ever, each week seems to possess a new and exciting release. This week is no exception as Lightyear arrives in theaters. The sci-fi action-adventure film directed by Angus MacLane charts the origin story for Buzz Lightyear, the action figure in the popular Toy Story films. Starring Chris Evans as the titular character, Lightyear debuts in 4,255 locations including IMAX screens throughout the United States and Canada.
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June 2nd, 2022
After crushing it at the box office last weekend, Top Gun: Maverick ascends even higher than its record breaking opening theater count, adding 16 additional theaters to its already vast location count this week, coming in this week in 4,751 theaters. Two other wide releases land in theaters this week in Watcher and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future with the former set to debut in 764 locations, while the latter in an estimated 900 theaters. This week is much more subdued regarding new releases as next week another monster franchise sequel will release by way of Jurassic World: Dominion, which is projected to arrive in about 4,500 locations.
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October 30th, 2019
We've had a lot of helpful user feedback over the past week, and a popular feature we've been asked to implement is the ability to sort films on our franchise pages. Now, films can be sorted by Release Date, Title, Production Budget, Opening Weekend, Domestic Box Office, and Worldwide Box Office in ascending or descending order.
This makes it easy to see, for example, which Marvel movie had the biggest opening weekend or which Jurassic Park movie had the highest production budget. You can also search and sort all franchises on our main Movie Franchises list.
You can find franchises either by using the Search function from our navigation bar, from our franchise records page, or by clicking on the franchise link on a movie page. By the way, movies can be members of more than one franchise. For example, Avengers: Endgame is a member of both the Avengers franchise, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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September 11th, 2019
There are two monster hits coming out this week, Aladdin and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, and this has scared away almost all of the competition. Fortunately, John Wick is amazing and a clear Pick of the Week contender. There was only one other film in contention for that title, Echo in the Canyon. Granted, I like Parabellum more, but it was already awarded the Pick of the Week when it hit VOD, so Echo in the Canyon gets the honor this week.
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September 19th, 2018
This week, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is coming out on DVD, Blu-ray Combo Pack, 3D Combo Pack, or 4K Combo Pack and not surprisingly, it is scaring away the competition and it is the only significant first-run release of the week. Unfortunately, it is not a Pick of the Week contender, so we have to look to smaller releases My Man Godfrey is a classic and Supergirl: Season Three is still fun. There are also some Anime titles worth considering, including Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Complete Series and Gosick: The Complete Series. It was close, but My Man Godfrey won in the end.
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September 17th, 2018
I hated Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom actually earned weaker reviews, so I was apprehensive about reviewing this film. On the other hand, while the film’s Tomatometer Score was lower, as was its box office, I’ve heard some people say this is the better film. Am I going to be pleasantly surprised? Or will this be the last time I bother with this franchise?
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July 10th, 2018
The two biggest releases of the weekend couldn’t quite match expectations, while the two big holdovers weren’t able compensate, resulting in a rare loss for 2018. Ant-Man and the Wasp still had an excellent opening with $75.81 million over the weekend, the seventh-best opening weekend of the year. The First Purge started out well on Wednesday, but slipped below the pace needed to match predictions by the weekend. That said, the overall weekend haul was still impressive at $188 million, which is 5.8% higher than last weekend. Granted, it is 8.7% lower than the same weekend last year, but Spider-Man: Homecoming opened with $117.03 million, so this is still a good result. Furthermore, 2018 remains ahead of 2017 by a substantial amount: $570 million, or 9.6%, at $6.47 billion to $5.90 billion. If the year ended with a lead of $570 million, we would be very happy.
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July 8th, 2018
Ant-Man and the Wasp did not have as good a Saturday as hoped, and this has left it with a projected $76.03 million over the weekend, according to Disney’s Sunday morning estimate. While, this is more or less in line with original predictions, it is lower than previews and Friday estimates suggested. Fortunately, with great reviews and an A minus from CinemaScore, it should have legs long enough to get to $200 million domestically, with a little help from the studio. This would be a little more than a 10% increase from the first Ant-Man. Internationally, the film opened with $85 million in 41 markets, including a monster opening in South Korea. The film managed $20.9 million debut there, including previews, which was 78% higher that the first film’s opening in that market. Overall, the film saw 45% growth internationally compared to just under 33% growth here.
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May 23rd, 2018
Black Panther came out on DVD, Blu-ray Combo Pack, or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack last weekend and it is still scaring away a lot of the competition. That’s not to say there are no new releases that are worth picking up. In fact, A Fantastic Woman, I Kill Giants, and Early Man are all contenders for Pick of the Week. In the end, that title went to Early Man on Blu-ray.
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March 27th, 2016
Batman and Superman not only had to fight each other this weekend, but also mediocre reviews. They have come through in some style, however, posting a record for March of $170.1 million, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday morning estimate. Our model has the film coming a little below that mark, at $165 million or so, which might mean it won’t quite top Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II’s $169 million, which is currently the studio’s best ever weekend. But the fact that we’re comparing the movie to the Harry Potter franchise is nothing but good news for them.
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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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June 23rd, 2015
It looks like Jurassic World is on pace to top The Avengers to become the biggest movie ever, not directed by a Canadian. It earned over $100 million at the weekend and has already passed $400 million. Meanwhile, Inside Out had the second-best opening for a Pixar film. It was a great weekend at the box office and we really needed it. The overall box office was down 9.5% from last weekend, but it was still at $248 million, which is the ninth-biggest combined weekend box office. Compared to last year, the box office was 70% higher this year. Year-to-date, 2015 has pulled in $5.08 billion, which is 5.2% or $250 million over 2014's pace.
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June 16th, 2015
After disappointing weekend after disappointing weekend, I had become pessimistic about any film's chances of being a breakout success this summer. Jurassic World changed that. The film didn't just top expectations, it broke all-time records. Over the weekend, the film pulled in $208.81 million. That is the record for biggest single weekend and it helped take the overall weekend box office to an all-time high with $273.67 million. This is 106% more than last weekend; that's right, the weekend box office was more than double last week's result. Additionally, and more importantly, it was 46% higher than the same weekend last year. Jurassic World itself earned 12% more than all films combined this weekend last year.
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June 14th, 2015
Universal have announced a $204,596,380 projected opening weekend for Jurassic World, leaving it just short of The Avengers’ weekend record, which stands at $207,438,708. According to Universal’s estimates, the film made a revised estimate of $82.6 million on Friday, $69.7 million on Saturday—just ahead of The Avengers’ $69.5 million Saturday haul—and is projected to make $52.3 million today, down 25% from Saturday’s number. The Avengers made $57 million on Sunday, and the same number for Jurassic World would edge it over the record line with $209 million. With stratospheric numbers like this, it’s obviously hard to predict the final weekend outcome precisely, but it’s still clearly possible that Jurassic World will take the all-time record.
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June 13th, 2015
After pulling in $18.5 million on Thursday night, Jurassic World amassed $82.8 million for the full day. This blows past the biggest June day and is officially the third-best day ever. It’s actually the biggest 24-hour Friday in box office history, after one subtracts the Thursday night shows: The Avengers held the previous mark with $62.1 million, while Jurassic World earned an estimated $64.3 million.
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June 12th, 2015
Jurassic World is the only wide release this week and its box office potential is so high that it has scared away even the counter-programming. It isn't the only film playing in theaters this weekend, but it will very likely make more at the box office than the rest of them combined. Spy will be a distant second place and is hoping not to be crushed. If it can avoid falling 50%, it should have enough legs to reach the century mark. ... with a push from the studio. The only other film that is on track to earn more than $10 million over the weekend is San Andreas, which already crossed the $100 million mark. This weekend last year, two films opened wide, 22 Jump Street and How to Train Your Dragon 2. Neither film will match Jurassic World individually, but they might have the advantage if you combine their openings. Additionally, there will only be two $10 million films this weekend, while there were three last year. 2015 will win on top, but 2014 has better depth and I think 2015 will lose the year-over-year comparison... again.
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June 4th, 2015
The second major change in news articles this week is the consolidation of the home market columns and using the Combined DVD and Blu-ray Sales Chart. It is kind of a bad week for this change, as the new releases were a disappointment; 50 Shades of Grey remained on top on both the Blu-ray sales chart and the DVD sales chart. It sold an additional 896,000 units and generated $15.82 million for the week giving it totals of 2.27 million units / $40.20 million.
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June 1st, 2015
May turned out to be softer than anticipated with The Avengers: Age of Ultron missing expectations by about $100 million. Additionally, only Pitch Perfect 2 really topped expectations. May 2015 kept pace with May of 2014, more or less. June doesn't have any films as strong as Age of Ultron, but there are two films that should have no trouble getting to $200 million. Those two films are Jurassic World and Inside Out and I'm not sure which one will turn out to be the biggest hit of the month. Last June, the biggest hit was Transformers: Age of Extinction, but both Jurassic World and Inside Out should top that film, albeit by small margins. On the other hand, last June had four other films that reached $100 million, while this time around only Spy! and Ted 2 have a real shot at that milestone. 2015 is stronger at the top, but has weaker depth. It will be interesting to see if 2015 will keep pace with 2014 over the course of the full month.
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May 11th, 2015
It is a typical summer week on the home market with little to no prime releases. The biggest release of the week is Still Alice, which earned $18 million in theaters. That's not bad for a limited release. It is better than some of the wide releases that came out earlier this year. Fortunately, the Blu-ray is also the best new release of the week and it is the Pick of the Week. In fact, it isn't even close as there are no other contenders for that title.
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September 22nd, 2013
Top-grossing people in technical roles
Last week I unveiled our new People Records section and talked about some of top performers across different types of acting, from the blockbusting superstars to the unsung heroes, to the cameo kings and queens. We've added some more charts to the record section this week, this time covering technical roles, and once more there's a lot of data to be mined.
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March 27th, 2013
It is a shallow week on the home market. Lincoln is coming out and should dominate the sales chart, but after that, there's almost nothing to talk about. Given its reviews and its Awards Season success, it is the easy choice for Pick of the Week, right? Not so fast. I'm still waiting for the screener. Speaking of late reviews, Skyfall finally showed up and despite not coming out this week, or this month, I'm giving the Blu-ray Combo Pack Pick of the Week honors.
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