September 21st, 2010
While there were plenty of new releases on this week's sales chart, it was a case of quantity over quality, as none of them really made an impact on the chart. Leading the way was Killers with a mere 325,000 units sold for opening week sales of $5.15 million.
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September 13th, 2010
Six new releases reached the top 30 on this week's sales chart, including five new releases in the top five. A clean sweep of the top five is quite impressive. Leading the way was Why Did I Get Married Too? with 553,000 units / $9.91 million in consumer spending during its opening week on the home market. This is almost identical to the opening week of I Can Do Bad All By Myself.
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September 13th, 2010
TV on DVD season continues, which is great news for fans who want to relive last season, or missed many episodes of their favorite shows. It's bad news for these people's wallets, as they are quite expensive compared to first run releases. (Although TV on DVD releases tend to be inexpensive entertainment on a per-minute basis.) It's worse news for critics, as trying to review several full season releases in one week is tough to pull off. That's not to say there were no first run releases, but the ones that did come out were second-tier, or lower, leaving them out of competition for Pick of the Week. I'm going with The Big Bang Theory: Season Three for Pick of the Week, with both DVD and Blu-ray worth picking up, but the High Definition release is arguably the better deal.
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September 8th, 2010
Why Did I Get Married Too? is the latest film from Tyler Perry, whose fiscal record is amazing. His films tend to cost just a fraction of the average Hollywood release, while they almost always make more than their combined production and P&A budgets. Critically, on the other hand, he has been less successful with only one film, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, earning overall positive reviews, and even then it was barely able to do that. So obviously these films work within a certain target audience, but not with most critics. With that in mind, can Why Did I Get Married Too? live up to Tyler Perry's past work, or at least avoid living down to his past work?
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August 30th, 2010
It's a devastatingly slow week on the home market when it comes to first run releases with only a couple making an appearance, and combined these two films failed to reach $100 million at the box office. There are a few TV on DVD releases that try to make up the difference, but overall it is still a very slow week. Looking at the best of the best, House, M.D.: Season Six on DVD or Blu-ray gets serious consideration for Pick of the Week, but that honor goes to Thriller: The Complete Series on DVD.
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April 12th, 2010
New releases opened a little on the lower end of expectations, but holdover performed admirably for the most part. There was a close race for the top spot this weekend. Overall, the box office pulled in $127 million, a 28% drop-off from last weekend. However, last weekend was a holiday weekend and so that's not that surprising. Box office was also down 4.6% from last year, but last year this was Easter weekend, so the decline is acceptable. Year-to-date, 2010 maintains its 10% growth over 2009 at $3.03 billion to $2.76 billion.
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April 8th, 2010
There could be quite a battle for top spot at the box office this weekend. It all depends on how fast Date Night can start, as well as how far Clash of the Titans will fall. There was a similar dynamic this time last year when the newcomer, Hannah Montana, was able to come away with a relatively comfortable win over the holdover, Fast & Furious. This time around, I think it will be a closer race, while overall the box office appears to be a little weaker.
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April 6th, 2010
Not only did Clash of the Titans top the overall box office chart, it also led the way on the per theater chart with an average of $16,213. Breaking Upwards was right behind with $15,467 in one theater. Why Did I Get Married Too? was the only other film in the $10,000 club with an average of $13,591.
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April 6th, 2010
Easter weekend resulted in records being broken as Clash of the Titans became the biggest Easter opener of all time. The strength of that film and others in the top five helped the box office pull in $177 million overall. That's 38% more than last weekend and 14% more than the same weekend last year. 2010 has now pulled in $2.83 billion, a 10% advantage when compared to 2009's pace. Double-digit growth is amazing and if it can keep this pace up, we could be in for an amazing ride this summer.
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April 4th, 2010
Clash of the Titans continued the domination of 3-D movies at the box office this year with an impressive $61.4 million opening weekend, according to Warner Bros.' estimate released on Sunday.
Among other things, that's by far the biggest opening weekend over Easter, topping the $40.2 million earned by Scary Movie 4 in 2006.
3-D movies have now topped the chart for ten out of the first fourteen weeks of 2010.
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April 1st, 2010
It's the start of a new month and many are predicting that we will get off to a record start. The big release of the week is Clash of the Titans and its only competition is Fast & Furious, which opened with nearly $71 million this time last year. Will this movie be able to meet or exceed that figure? We shall soon find out.
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April 1st, 2010
March was a mixed month, with only three films surpassing expectations.
On the other hand, Alice in Wonderland will beat expectations by more than $200 million, so it alone makes up for a lot of the disappointing films.
On a more troubling note, the final big release, How to Train Your Dragon didn't get off to as fast a start as I would have liked, which could affect the box office going forward. Last year April got off to a fast start and that should happen this month as well. It better, as the quality of films quickly declines as the prospect of May blockbusters begins to loom large on the horizon.
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