March 15th, 2017
There are a few Oscar-nominated films on this week’s list. However, it was still hard to come up with a Pick of the Week release. Most of them were like Elle with great reviews and weak extras. The DVD for Drunk History: Season Four has more than two hours of extras, but I admit it is an acquired taste. Fortunately, we do have a clear winner: The Love Witch on Blu-ray.
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February 28th, 2017
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It is not a particularly long list of new releases this week, but there are several that are must haves. This includes Doctor Strange, which was named Pick of the Week last week. Other contenders for that title include The Gate on Blu-ray, The Raid: Collection on Blu-ray, and Moonlight on Blu-ray. In the end, it wasn’t too hard to select Moonlight as Pick of the Week. However, The Gate does earn Puck of the Week for Best Canadian Release.
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December 19th, 2016
As expected, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dominated the weekend box office chart with $155.08 million. This is well over twice as much as every other release combined. It is nearly twice as much as last weekend’s total box office. This helped the box office grow by 154%, reaching $211 million. Sadly, this was over $100 million or 32% lower than the same weekend last year when The Force Awakens dominated the chart. The year-over-year decline can be best summed up as within expectations. 2016 is still ahead of 2015 by a massive amount at $10.47 billion to $9.96 billion, but that will change as we see more numbers for Rogue One come in. On a more big picture look, Disney became the first studio ever to hit $7 billion worldwide in one year. They now have the record for biggest yearly domestic box office and biggest yearly worldwide box office, while it is just $160 million away from the international record as well.
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December 17th, 2016
There’s a lot of great news coming out of Friday. For starters, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned $70.07 million. This means its previews were 41% of its opening day figure, compared to 48% for The Force Awakens. I was expecting Rogue One to bounce back a little bit from its previews, but not this much. If Rogue One merely maintains The Force Awakens’ internal multiplier, it will earn $148 million over the weekend. There are some positive factors and some negative factors. For example, not all schools are closed on Monday, so it won’t be able to hold onto its box office numbers on Sunday, at least not as well as The Force Awakens did. However, its prospects improved from the afternoon shows to the evening shows and that shows word-of-mouth is strong. This makes sense, as its reviews have settled at 84% positive and it scored an A from CinemaScore. An opening weekend of $150 million is certainly within reach; our model is predicting $151 million. Disney is predicting a more cautious $145 million to $150 million.
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December 16th, 2016
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned a massive $29 million in previews on Thursday, easily topping the $25 million Civil War made earlier this year. It also topped Batman v Superman, which earned $27.7 million, which was the previous yearly record for preview. However, while it topped the yearly chart in that regard, it was barely more than half of the $57 million The Force Awakens managed this time last year. The film’s slightly weaker reviews could lead to shorter legs. However, I think the massive hype surrounding The Force Awakens made it more front-loaded than Rogue One will be, at least during its opening weekend. I’m still going with just over $140 million during its opening weekend, but maybe $141 million is more likely now. I am a little less bullish than most and an opening north of $150 million would not be shocking.
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December 15th, 2016
It is a deceptively busy weekend, as there are two wide releases, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Collateral Beauty, and two films that are “expanding wide”, Manchester by the Sea and La La Land. However, while that looks like a lot, in reality Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the only film most people are talking about. In fact, it is going to dominate the box office to such a degree that its only real competition is The Force Awakens, which opened this weekend last year. Unfortunately for Rogue One, there’s almost no chance it will match The Force Awakens. In fact, there’s almost no chance the entire box office will match the $247.97 million The Force Awakens opened with. 2016 is going to get crushed in the year-over-year comparison. That said, 2016 has a nearly $460 million lead over 2015, so has long as Rogue One tops $100 million over the weekend, it should be enough to keep 2016 ahead in terms of raw box office numbers.
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December 1st, 2016
November was good, but not great. Fortunately, 2016 had a large enough lead going into November that the month only needed to be good. In fact, it could have been mediocre and 2016 would have still had an excellent shot to end the year above 2015. As for December, it’s a race between Star Wars and Star Wars. Almost no one thinks Rogue One is going to match The Force Awakens, but if Rogue One earns just half of what The Force Awakens managed, then 2016 will come out on top in the year-over-year comparison. There are only two other films with a better than 50/50 chance of hitting $100 million, Passengers and Sing. Either one could earn second place for the month, but Passengers will likely start faster. Last December, the only other film to earn more than $100 million was Daddy’s Home, which earned just a hair over $150 million. There’s a chance both Passengers and Sing will earn more than $150 million, which would be a boon to the box office. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was just too strong last year and it would take a miracle for 2016 to have a stronger December. That said, it would take a complete collapse for 2016 not to top 2015 in raw dollars. The growth might not be enough to keep pace with ticket price inflation, on the other hand.
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