March 21st, 2012
As it was on the DVD sales chart, there was a battle for first place on the Blu-ray sales chart between two new releases. Immortals beat Game of Thrones: Season Two in terms of units, 927,000 units to 680,000 units. However, Game comes out ahead in terms of revenue at $29.89 million to $21.31 million. As far as the two releases opening week Blu-ray share, Immortals managed 59% while Game earned 57%. Both of those results are fantastic.
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March 6th, 2012
The number of big releases coming out this week can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The biggest theatrical release of the week is Immortals, but its reviews were weak enough that I think it might struggle on the home market in comparison. There are also a few catalog titles coming out on Blu-ray that are note-worthy, like To Catch a Thief. However, by far the biggest release, and the best, is Game of Thrones: Season One on DVD or Blu-ray, the latter of which is the Pick of the Week with To Catch a Thief not too far behind.
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March 4th, 2012
The original Footloose came out nearly 30 years ago. Its reviews were moderately good, but it became a massive hit at the box office. (If you take into account inflation, it would have earned $175 million today, more or less.) Remaking Footloose for 2011 was a bit of a risk. Updating the story could be a little difficult without offending fans of the original movie. While if they didn't do enough, those who are in the target demographic now might think the story is too much a relic of the 1980s to bother seeing. Were the filmmakers able to walk that tightrope?
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October 31st, 2011
It was a rare winning weekend at the box office, although it came too late to salvage the month, which was a bloody affair and 2011 fell tens of millions of dollars further behind last year's pace. The lone bright spot over the weekend was Puss in Boots, which easily led the way. However, even here there was darkness, as it failed to live up to the low end of expectations. The overall box office was a macabre $105 million, or 14% lower than last weekend. We did get a jolt with the box office creeping up 11% from last year. However, while double-digit growth would normally send chills up your spine, not having to deal with Halloween on the weekend itself explains much of that success. Year-to-date, 2011 remains lifeless down 4% from last year at $8.52 billion compared to $8.86 billion and unless some dark magic can revive the box office, and soon, we will have the second year in a row of year-over-year declines and 2011 could see the lowest ticket sales in about a decade and a half. That's truly scary.
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October 27th, 2011
Puss in Boots was pushed up a week and will likely dominate the pre-Halloween weekend with last weekend's winner, Paranormal Activity 3, coming in a distant second. There are a couple of other new wide releases, In Time and The Rum Diary, but neither are generating a lot of buzz. There is some good news, as this weekend last year was a real disappointment and there's a chance both Puss in Boots and Paranormal Activity 3 will earn more than last year's number one film, Saw VII. Hopefully October can end on a high note, because it's been a bad month so far.
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October 24th, 2011
The industry as a whole has to be breathing a small sigh of relief after the weekend numbers started to come in. Paranormal Activity 3 broke records over the weekend helping the overall box office along the way. It grew 38% compared to last weekend, hitting $121 million. Unfortunately, that was still 6% lower than the same weekend Last year. Year-to-date, 2011 is 4% behind 2010's pace at $8.38 billion to $8.73 million and there's little hope that deficit will go away by the end of the year.
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October 20th, 2011
The box office was terrible last weekend, so much so that it is hard to imagine things won't turnaround this weekend. There is one film, Paranormal Activity 3, that's almost guaranteed to be a hit, but expectations for the other wide releases range from expensive bomb, The Three Musketeers 3D; international hit that will flop here, Johnny English Reborn and niche market film just hoping to reach the top ten, The Mighty Macs. Last year Paranormal Activity 2 opened with just over $40 million. Paranormal Activity 3 might be able to do the same, but the rest of the new releases and the holdovers are not looking good, so there could be a sizable decline in the year-over-year comparison.
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October 18th, 2011
The winners of our Prizes are Fancy Free contest were determined and they are...
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October 17th, 2011
This past weekend was one the industry would love to forget. It was one of the worst weekend of the entire year. The total box office haul was just $88 million, which was 7.5% lower than last weekend and an absolute stunning 33% lower than the same weekend last year. A year-over-year discrepancy like that usually only occurs when there's a misalignment in the calendar. (Summer starting a week later than it did the year before. A major holiday falling a week later than it did the year before. Halloween or Christmas Day landing on the weekend.) It was so bad, that the top five films this year barely made more than Jackass 3D opened with last year. Footloose was the only new release that made any real impact, but it wasn't enough to overtake Real Steel on top of the chart. Meanwhile, 2011 lost more ground to 2010 and it is now down by 4% at $8.23 billion to $8.56 billion. If we are to see a recovery, it will have to happen really fast.
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October 16th, 2011
A decent opening for the Footloose remake wasn't quite enough to take top spot at the box office this weekend thanks to a good second weekend for Real Steel. The inspirational robot boxing movie dropped 40% from its debut to $16.3 million, which will most likely be enough to keep Footloose in second place. It is projected to make $16.1 million this weekend. Well behind them is The Thing, which is expected to make just $8.7 million. Thanks to the general weakness of the market, that's going to be enough for third, but it's not going to make much of a dent in the marketing costs for the movie, let alone its production costs.
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October 13th, 2011
Firstly, I would like to apologize for the Footloose / Footlose pun in the title. It is unacceptable, even by my standards. Secondly, we are going to lose. This weekend last year Jackass 3D broke the record for biggest October weekend and there's no chance that feat will be replicated this weekend. In fact, there's almost no chance this weekend will match Red's opening last year. Footloose, The Thing, and The Big Year won't earn $50 million over the weekend combined. We really need the win, but all evidence points to a tough loss in the year-over-year comparison.
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October 7th, 2011
While there are a trio of wide releases coming out next week, including the one film I'm most looking forward to all month (The Thing) the biggest hit of the week will likely be Footloose, which is the only saturation level release of the week. Because it is opening the widest and should top the chart, it is the target film in this week's box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Footloose.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Degrassi: Season Ten on DVD.
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 copy of Degrassi: Season Ten on DVD.
Meanwhile, two additional entrants will be chosen and they will each win a copy of Degrassi: Season Ten on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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October 1st, 2011
There is a little bit of good news going into October, as September did help close the year-to-date deficit, even if it was by a small amount. Unfortunately, we really needed a better result to be optimistic about our chances of closing that gap entirely by the end of the year. Even worse, this month represents the last chance 2011 has to catch up to 2010. I know there are two additional months left in the year, but October of 2010 was a soft month with four of the five weekends showing year-over-year declines. If October 2011 is even weaker, the odds of making up the $300 million deficit will be all but gone. It becomes even more troubling that there are no movies opening in October that are guaranteed to be monster hits. So, while October of 2010 was weak compared to October of 2009, it looks like it will be stronger than October of 2011. Hopefully I'm just being pessimistic. There are a couple films that have a shot at $100 million and I will be surprised if none of them at least come close to that milestone, but the slate of films is weaker than I would like.
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