March 31st, 2008
New releases had an impressive one-two punch on the DVD sales chart with I Am Legend leading the way over second place Enchanted by 3.56 million to 2.82 million in terms of units and $66.39 million to $44.69 million in terms of dollars. They are not only the top two for the week, they are the top two openings of 2008 so far, and catapult both movies into the top four for the year to date.
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March 23rd, 2008
There were eight new releases to chart this week, including seven of the top eight spots. Needless to say, we had a new sales champion with Bee Movie leading the way with 1.41 million units sold for total revenue of $23.09 million. That isn't the best start of the year, but it is close. In fact, the film is already the ninth best-selling DVD of 2008
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March 23rd, 2008
New releases took the top four spots on the rental chart this week including No Country for Old Men, which earned first place with $10.20 million during its opening week.
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March 11th, 2008
A rather slow week for new releases, which is good because three DVDs arrived late last week and I was able to get caught up on spotlight reviews. (Actually, I'm not completely caught up as at least one failed to show up in time for this week.) As for the DVD Pick of the Week, the obvious choice would seem to be No Country for Old Men, but the lackluster DVD just screams double-dip and in the end I went with Stargate - Ark of Truth - Buy from Amazon instead.
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January 20th, 2008
Enchanted fell out of the top five but still had a very impressive weekend box office adding $8.12 million on 4348 screens in 43 markets for a total of $151.50 million. This includes a fifth place opening in South Korea where the film earned $1.08 million on 322 screens over the weekend and $1.34 million in total. Meanwhile it also earned fifth place in the U.K. with $1.59 million on 472 screens over the weekend for a total of $29.46 million after a month of release. Its chances at $200 million internationally depend heavily on its run in Japan staring mid-March, but $300 million worldwide is all but assured now.
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January 13th, 2008
Bee Movie slipped to sixth place this weekend with $14.34 million on 4820 screens in 49 markets for a total of $131.97 million. This includes a first place opening in South Korea where it earned $1.96 million on 334 screens over the weekend and $2.30 million in total, but this is not a particularly strong start.
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January 6th, 2008
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem opened in sixth place internationally with $16.43 million on 1877 screens in 20 markets. The film opened in second place in Germany with an impressive $4.64 million on 553 screens, while it debuted in fourth place in Australia with $1.86 million on just 182 screens over the weekend and $2.95 million since Boxing Day.
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December 19th, 2007
With two weeks to go, the international box office set a record bringing in $8.6 billion in total ticket sales. Additionally, all six major studios crossed the $1 billion mark during the same year, which is a first. On the other hand, the celebration is tempered by the fact that the American dollar hit record lows against the Euro this year, and was at decade old lows against the Pound, and other international currencies, which helped to artificially inflate the box office numbers.
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December 12th, 2007
Like it did domestically, His Dark Material: The Golden Compass debuted in first place on the international charts. However, unlike its performance domestically, its international haul was a hefty $44.31 million on 5263 screens in 27 markets for a total of $50.96 million including midweek numbers. In the U.K. the film opened first with $11.63 million on 507 screens over the weekend and $14.79 million in total, but that is significantly lower than Sunday's estimates. In France the film also took first place with $6.00 million on 776 screens, and in Spain with $5.17 million on 505 screens over the weekend and $8.07 million in total. The number one debuts continued in Germany at $4.80 million on 836 screens and in Russia with $3.68 million on 521. The Golden Compass's release schedule is certainly front loaded, but it still has openings in Italy next week, South Korea the week after, and Australia on Boxing Day, as well as Japan in March, and should earn between $200 million and $300 million internationally. Depending on how well it does on the home market in these markets, it could show a profit, but becoming a franchise is unlikely at this point.
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December 5th, 2007
Beowulf had its last major push into the international marketplace this past weekend and that helped it stay in first place with $19.06 million on 6229 screens in 56 markets for a total of $74.07 million. This includes a first place opening in Australia with $1.96 million on 269 screens, a third place, $1.81 million opening on 268 screens in Japan and first place, $1.11 million opening in 273 screens in Brazil. It's best holdover was Russia where it slipped to second while adding $1.83 million on 502 screens for a total of $6.99 million. At this point, $100 million internationally should not be an issue, but that's still not enough to be considered a financial boon.
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December 3rd, 2007
There were very few shocks at the box office this weekend as Enchanted remained the dominant film.
However, there was an unsettling malaise as the overall box office reached just $85 million.
This is barely more than half of last weekend's $162 million holiday-inflated haul, but that was to be expected.
What wasn't as expected was the 8% drop-off from the same weekend last year.
At the moment, 2007 is ahead of 2006 in terms of box office and ticket sales.
However, while a gain at the box office is academic at this point, a slide in ticket sales is likely if things don't turn around.
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December 3rd, 2007
Lions for Lambs climbed a spot to sixth place with $4.34 million on 2453 screens in 53 markets for a total of $25.97 million, while only managing $1 million or more in one market this past weekend, ($1.40 million on 390 screens during its sixth place debut in France). It opens in Italy later this month and Japan in the spring of '08, but there's almost no chance the film will show a profit at this point. Normally one movie losing money isn't a big issue because the studio can rely on one or two monster hits to pay for their misses, (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made enough money to pay for the entire budgets of half-a-dozen misses for Warner Bros. this year, and that's before the home market). However, United Artists is a newly relauched studio and they don't have a war chest built up from past victories. Stumbling out of the gate like this hurts.
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November 29th, 2007
The weekend after Thanksgiving is the only slow weekend during the entire Holiday Season.
So it comes as no surprise that only one movie is opening wide, but it is a bit surprising that the weekend is a weak as it is.
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November 27th, 2007
Thanksgiving provided plenty of reasons for studios to give thanks, especially since every single film managed to earn enough to be called a hit in one form or other.
Even the weakest releases of the week did well compared to their modest costs.
Overall, the box office brought in $162 million over three days, which is 55% more than last weekend.
More importantly, it is virtually identical to the same weekend last year.
Over five days, movies earned an estimated $229 million, which is up just shy of 2% from last year.
This is great news after a Fall that most would like to forget, but the growth is still lower than ticket price inflation, meaning actual attendance was down.
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November 25th, 2007
As expected, Enchanted won the Thanksgiving box office race, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
With a solid $35 million over the three day weekend, and $50 million in five days, the family fantasy had an excellent debut.
If strong reviews translate into good word-of-mouth, this could be the first blockbuster of the Holiday Season.
The biggest surprise of the weekend, though, was This Christmas, which blew past its tracking numbers and beat everyone's expectations with an estimated $18.6 million in just 1,858 theaters.
It has already notched up $27.1 million in its first five days.
Also out-performing expectations was Hitman, which finished fourth with a very creditable $13.035 million.
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November 24th, 2007
There are not a whole lot of movies on this week's list, but at least we had a race for top spot with both This Christmas - Official Site and Enchanted - Official Site. Both had their strong points, but in the end Enchanted was able to take home the crown.
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November 21st, 2007
The five-day Thanksgiving long weekend officially starts tonight, as does the lucrative holiday weekend. From now until the New Year, there we should see hit after hit released, as well as a number of Oscar contenders.
With the box office slowing down, this couldn't come at a better time.
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November 1st, 2007
After a horrible October, we finally get to November and the start of the holiday season.
Just like the summer season doesn't officially begin until Memorial Day, the winter holiday season doesn't officially begin until the Thanksgiving long weekend.
However, studios are trying to stretch the lucrative box office season as long as possible and the holiday-like releases start during the first weekend of the month.
This means practically every weekend this month, there's at least one potential $100 million movie. There are also a few that might be Oscar contenders, although not as many as I had expected.
In fact, so far Award Season has been particularly slow, but at least this means there should be more buzz surrounding the upcoming films as the race is wide open.
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August 26th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Valkyrie, The International, The Spirit and more!
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August 25th, 2007
After a few busy weeks in a row, there was a total collapse in the number of sites on this week's list. Not only are there only a couple dozen sites this week, nearly half of them are films that are coming out this week and most of those had no updates to report. This leaves us with no sites that are award-worthy, and precious few that have to potential to make it there in the coming weeks.
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June 30th, 2007
One of the slowest weeks I can remember for this list, but at least we have a top-notch site to give the Weekly Website Award to: Ratatouille - Official Site.
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February 11th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Indiana Jones 4, The Mummy 3, Hellboy 2 and more.
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