November 20th, 2017
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It is a slow week on the home market for two reasons. Technically it is one reason, but it is having two effects. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means the schedule is really busy and I need to keep this list short in order to save time. Also, while Thanksgiving means Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of the busiest shopping days of the year, you don’t want to release something new into that storm of chaos. The biggest release of the week, not counting VOD releases is The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which I reviewed. As for the best release on this week’s list, I’m torn between Good Time, NEW GAME: The Complete First Season, and The Villainess. It was down to a roll of the dice, but The Villainess on Blu-ray Combo Pack is the Pick of the Week.
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November 8th, 2017
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It is not a particularly strong week on the home market. Cars 3 is the biggest new release, but it is far from the best. There were not a lot of contenders for Pick of the Week. The Philadelphia Story and Your Name were the two best with the latter coming out on top and its Blu-ray Combo Pack is the Pick of the Week.
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October 5th, 2017
September ended on a slow note, but it looks like October will open fast. Blade Runner 2049 has been setting October pre-order records for a few sites, but it will also need strong walk-up sales in order to actually break the October weekend record, currently held by Gravity, with $55 million. I don’t think that’s likely, but at this point I would be shocked if it didn’t land in the top ten weekends for the month. The Mountain Between Us looks more and more like busted Oscar-bait. Its reviews have fallen from just over 70% positive to under 50% positive. As I started writing this, My Little Pony: The Movie still had no reviews, which is almost worse than bad reviews. (Reviews are starting to trickle in.) Finally there’s Victoria and Abdul, which is expanding. It isn’t expanding wide, or even semi-wide; however, it should still earn a spot in the top ten. This weekend last year, The Girl on the Train opened with $24.54 million. Blade Runner 2049 could earn twice that. If 2017 does win in the year-over-year comparison, then it will be on the back of Blade Runner 2049.
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September 6th, 2017
The last weekend of the summer had no new wide releases, so it made sense that the box office would drop even further. However, that was not the case. I think the combination of the last long weekend of the summer and terrible recent box office results led a lot of people to go to the movies one last time before school starts. After all, it is likely most moviegoers haven’t seen a movie in theaters for several weeks. The Hitman’s Bodyguard easily led the way with $10.54 million over three days and $13.27 million including Monday. It earned more over three days than any of its competitors earned over four. Overall, the box office rose 9.8% from last weekend to $76 million. Sadly, this is still 24% lower than the same weekend last year, but it could have been worse. Year-to-date, 2017 has pulled in $7.45 billion, which puts it 6.3% or $500 million behind last year’s pace.
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September 3rd, 2017
This weekend is somewhat uncharted territory for the movie industry, with no new releases rolling out in over 1,000 theaters and no dominant film already playing. Fortunately, the result is looking like a glass that is at least half full. Thanks in part to the holiday weekend, and the start of recovery from Hurricane Harvey, several returning films improved their box office from last weekend, and the number one film, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, will remain flat from its last outing, with $10.25 million expected by Lionsgate, and a total around $55 million by the end of the day on Sunday.
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September 2nd, 2017
Expectations for this weekend were really low. They were so low that when I saw The Hitman’s Bodyguard had earned $2.43 million on Friday, I was pleasantly surprised. That’s only 20% lower than last Friday and the holiday should boost its three-day legs, helping it earn just over $9 million. It’s on pace for $12 million over four days for a running tally of over $55 million. That’s enough for Lionsgate’s share to cover its entire $30 million production budget.
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August 31st, 2017
Not only will this weekend likely be the worst weekend of the year, there’s a very high likelihood it will be the worst weekend in over a decade. It arguably could be the worst weekend of all time. There are no wide releases, or even semi-wide releases. The widest “new” release of the week is the 40th Anniversary re-release for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but last week’s 3D re-release for Terminator 2: Judgment Day suggests it won't come close to the top ten. Tulip Fever is a long-delayed Weinstein Co. release and just avoiding the Mendoza Line would be a reason to celebrate. Up next in terms of theater counts is Hazlo Como Hombre. It is a Chilean film and films aimed at Hispanics have had success in recent years. They only need to earn just over $2 million during the three-day weekend to reach the top ten, so one of them could get there, but that’s not a sure thing. This leaves The Hitman’s Bodyguard with an easy path to first place. This weekend last year, the biggest new release was The Light Between Oceans, which earned just under $5 million. Sadly, this might be more than all three new releases earn this year. Last year the overall box office finished just under $100 million.
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August 30th, 2017
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The winners of our Leap of Faith contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Leap!’s opening weekend were...
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August 29th, 2017
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Amazingly, the weekend box office was actually worse than expected, as every new release we talked about in our predictions missed the Mendoza Line*. This left The Hitman’s Bodyguard with an easy first place with $10.26 million during its second weekend of release, just avoiding the bottom ten worst number one films of the 21st century. It could break the record next weekend, as there are no new wide releases looking to take top spot. Overall, the box office plummeted 28% to just $69 million. This is in the bottom ten smallest domestic weekends of the 21st century, 13th worst including the year 2000. (Interestingly, the year 2000 produced 5 of the worst 7 weekends in that time frame and September 2000 alone has 4 of the 5 worst weekends.) Again, since there are no new wide releases next weekend, we could see this record fall. The $69 million weekend total is 41% lower than the same weekend last year, which is a decline you normally only see when there is a misalignment in holidays. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a similar decline several times in recent weeks. Year-to-date, 2017 has pulled in $7.32 billion, which is $490 million or 6.2% less than 2016’s pace. We really need 2017 to put up some wins soon, or we simply won’t be able to turn around the deficit before the end of the year.
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August 27th, 2017
Things are so bad at the box office this weekend that it’s hard to figure out just how bad. We’ve been tracking box office since 1997, and have researched weekend reports back to the beginning of the 1980s, and a diligent search of our database doesn’t offer a weekend that’s clearly been worse than this one. Based on current ticket sales, it’s the 9th-worst in terms of consumer spending since 2000, with $66.6 million reported so far. That number will go up a bit when numbers are announced for all movies on Monday, but most likely only fractionally (I think we have numbers for everything that made over $500,000). But that figure doesn’t account for ticket price inflation. If we do so, things look even more dire…
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August 26th, 2017
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As expected, The Hitman’s Bodyguard earned first place on opening Friday, and better than average for the summer. It will likely finish with just under $10 million instead of just over $10 million. This isn’t a major issue for the film, but if it does earn first place with less than $10 million, it will be only the tenth film to do so in the 21st century. Being on this list isn’t necessarily a bad sign for the film and instead is a bad sign for the overall market. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy earned first place during its sixth weekend of release, with just $10.4 million, not because it was struggling, but because the competition was terrible. In this case, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is on pace to become a midlevel hit, while the new releases are all bombs. In fact, the film is on pace to earn enough domestically for Lionsgate’s share to cover its entire production budget and this is reason to celebrate.
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August 25th, 2017
Three films open wide this weekend, but only two of them started out with midnight shows. Birth of the Dragon did the best with $200,000 in 1,350 theaters. It is not a shock that this film did the best Thursday night, as it is the only film with a target audience likely to rush out to see the movie. That said, this is a weak result. The $200,000 preview is so low that it is hard to find a comparison to judge it by. The average so far this summer has been a 10 multiplier, which would put the film on pace for a $2 million debut. That’s obviously not good, but it is also close to our predictions. Hopefully it will top the average, but with reviews that are only 25% positive, that’s could be asking too much.
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August 24th, 2017
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This will likely be the worst weekend of the year at the box office, at least so far. There’s only one wide release, Leap!, while there are two other films opening “nationwide” that both have a real shot at the top ten, All Saints and Birth of the Dragon. All three films combined might not earn more than $10 million over the weekend. By comparison, this weekend last year, Don’t Breathe opened with $26.41 million. 2017 is going to lose in the year-over-year comparison yet again and we can hardly afford to fall further back.
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August 23rd, 2017
The winners of our Lucky Hit contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s opening weekend were...
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August 18th, 2017
There is one wide release coming out next weekend, Leap!, and it only has about a 50/50 chance of opening in more than 2,000 theaters. Birth of the Dragon and All Saints are opening in less, but both have a shot at the top five. In fact, All Saints could be the biggest new release of the weekend, as faith-based films are notoriously unpredictable. However, I’m going with Leap! as the target film in this week’s box office prediction contest, because All Saints is just too unpredictable. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening three-day weekend box office number for Leap!.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film’s opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a Frankenprise consisting of their choice of either one TV on DVD release, two movies, or a kids package (could be a theatrical release, a couple of single-disc TV on DVD releases, or a full season TV on DVD release).
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film’s opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a Frankenprize, as described above.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven’t won, or haven’t won recently, and they will win the final Frankenprize, as described above.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don’t delay!
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August 1st, 2017
July is over and we should all be happy about that. Granted, there were some positive results we can talk about. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a huge hit and Despicable Me 3 will pull in a sizable profit before it reaches the home market. There were also a couple of other $100 million hits and a midlevel hit or two; however, overall, 2017 wasn’t able to compete with 2016 and the box office finally lost its lead over last year. 2017 started the summer about $200 million ahead of 2016, but will finish July about $100 million behind last year’s pace. August doesn’t look any better. There are a couple of films that have a reasonable shot at $100 million, The Dark Tower and Annabelle: Creation, as well as a few that should be solid midlevel hits. However, last year we had Sausage Party and Don’t Breathe, both of which nearly hit $100 million, then we had midlevel hits like Pete’s Dragon, Kubo and the Two Strings, and War Dogs. I don’t know if 2017 will be able to compete with that. ... Now some of you are thinking I forgot about Suicide Squad. Trust me, I will never forget that movie. I ignored it to make a point. Even without Suicide Squad, I don’t think 2017 will make up the deficit it has with 2016. With Suicide Squad, it is going to be a disaster. I want to be optimistic, but there’s no evidence to suggest I should be.
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March 24th, 2017
Animated adventure with the voices of Elle Fanning and Nat Wolff opens April 21 ... Full Movie Details.
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