April 6th, 2020
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The movie industry is still reacting to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak and the changing release schedule has resulted in not a lot coming out this week. Even worse, there are only three first-run releases on the main list and two of them are serious bombs. Fortunately, the third first-run release, Little Women, is an easy Pick of the Week winner. In fact, it’s only competition is the Slings & Arrows: Complete Series DVD, a Canadian TV show that most people reading this have never even heard of.
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March 17th, 2020
It’s a relatively good week on the home market, as we have Jumanji: The Next Level coming out. On the other hand, that’s the only big release of the week, at least on physical media. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is hitting Video on Demand. Neither are Pick of the Week contenders, although Jumanji could get there when the screener arrives. As for the best of the rest, The Point: Ultimate Edition and Superman: Red Son Blu-ray / 4K Ultra HD are worth checking out. The Point came out a while ago, but the screener arrived late. That said, it is still the best release on this week’s list.
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December 31st, 2019
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The last weekend of the year had some good news and some bad news. Unfortunately, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was part of the later, as it fell 59% to $72.39 million over the weekend. However, this was still a dominate performance at the box office, earning more than the next three films combined. It helped the overall weekend remained strong at $197 million. Granted, this is 20% lower than last weekend, but more importantly, it is 5.0% higher than the same weekend last year. Furthermore, 2019 cut the deficit with 2018 by about $100 million since The Rise of Skywalker came out and now it is fighting with 2016 to be the second biggest year at the box office of all time. It is true that the year is still behind 2018 by a massive 4.5% / $520 million at $11.04 billion to $11.56 billion, but not being able to maintain a record pace for two years in a row is hardly a serious concern. Even if you look at ticket sales and take into account inflation, then 2019 was a reasonably good year, as it isn’t too far behind 2017 and hardly the worst we’ve seen in the past decade. There are reasons to be optimistic going into 2020.
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December 24th, 2019
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker recovered a little bit from Sunday’s estimates to earn $177.38 million for the full weekend. While it is always better to beat estimates, this isn’t a large enough margin to really matter in the long run. Its reviews and its B plus are fine for a blockbuster, but aren’t going to help draw in more moviegoers, unlike The Last Jedi. Internationally, the film made $197.7 million in 52 markets to give it a worldwide opening of $375.1 million. It enjoyed the third-biggest weekend in December, the third-biggest day in December, and it is already the 21st biggest worldwide release in 2019. Granted, most thought it would open faster than this, but the film is, at worst, a profitable disappointment.
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December 22nd, 2019
There are some mixed results on the weekend chart with some films topping expectations, while others are struggling mightily. Fortunately, the former category includes Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which is topping my prediction, albeit by a very small margin at $175.5 million, well below the $190 million projections based on Friday’s estimates. Yesterday, it looked like Rise of Skywalker would have similar legs to The Last Jedi. Granted, this film’s reviews and its B plus rating from CinemaScore are weaker than the previous film, but this one will have more help with the holidays. Christmas break has begun, so that should have boosted Sunday’s numbers, but sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case. However, and this is an important point, the film is still doing fantastic business, with the third-biggest December weekend ever, and it should be a monster hit in the end.
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December 21st, 2019
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Despite earning weaker-than-expected reviews, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is going to have no trouble topping my prediction for the weekend, as it earned an estimated $90 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $190 million over the full weekend. Granted, not everything is rosy, as the film only managed a B plus from CinemaScore. That’s not fatal, but it certainly won’t help its legs. On the other hand, the lack of direct competition and the Christmas break will certainly help it sell many more tickets over the next two weeks.
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December 20th, 2019
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Expectations for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s previews had a rather large range, but most were between $30 million and $40 million. It earned $40 million on Thursday. Granted, it’s just the previews and a film like this can be hard to judge, because the hype is just so ubiquitous, but Disney has to be at least a little optimistic after this start. Assuming general audiences like the movie more than the average critic did, it could have similar legs as The Last Jedi had, meaning $200 million during its opening weekend isn’t out of the question. We will know more this time tomorrow when the Friday estimates come out.
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December 19th, 2019
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This weekend, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens, and it is widely expected to be one of the biggest hits of the year. However, its reviews are merely mixed and this is dragging down expectations. Cats was confusing box office analysts since the first trailer was released and now that its reviews are a mess, things are not looking any better. Finally, Bombshell is expanding wide, but it looks like it won’t be a major factor at the box office this weekend and will have to rely on long legs to carry it to profitability. Meanwhile, this weekend last year, Aquaman earned $67.87 million over the weekend. The Rise of Skywalker should earn more than that during its opening day, helping 2019 end on a wildly successful note.
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December 11th, 2019
The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. It is still very early in the year and the predictive value of the Golden Globes is a little suspect, but there are still some things to learn here. (This is especially true on the TV end, as there’s talk about how strange the nominations are this year.) Marriage Story led the way with six nominations, just ahead of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, both of which picked up five nods.
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December 1st, 2019
Frozen II wasn’t the only box office hit to debut in November, but it was by far the largest. It helped save November and kept 2019 from turning completely sour at the last minute. As for December, we have several potential $100 million hits, plus a couple of monster hits. There are some who think Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be the biggest domestic hit released in 2019, but most think it will have to settle for second place. Jumanji: The Next Level should also be a monster hit, even if it doesn’t come really close to its predecessor. As for last December, Aquaman was the undisputed champion, earning almost as much as the next two films combined. Jumanji could top Aquaman at the box office, while we could also have more $100 million films than we had last year. Add in Star Wars and the year should end on a really positive note, making up for the extended slumps we had to deal with through a lot of the year. 2019 won’t be able to close the gap entirely, but it will do enough that we will be able to celebrate.
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November 19th, 2019
Musical with an ensemble cast led by Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, and Judi Dench opens December 20 ... Full Movie Details.
Over the course of a single night, a tribe of cats called the Jellicles make what is known as “the Jellicle choice” and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.
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July 19th, 2019
Musical with an ensemble cast led by Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, and Judi Dench opens December 20 ... Full Movie Details.
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