June 14th, 2016
It is a much slower week than it was last time. In fact, the only two reviews this week were for releases that came out last week. That doesn't mean we don't have any good releases and there are a few contenders for Pick of the Week. Of these, Hello, My Name is Doris is the one I'm most interested in buying and the Blu-ray, while not loaded with extras, is the Pick of the Week. I'm also giving an honorary Puck of the Week to Dark Matter: Season 1, which is a Canadian Sci-fi series.
(On a side note, Amazon's list of new releases is a mess with a bunch of Game of Thrones and Star Trek titles, most of which don't even have images. This made sorting through the new releases a lot harder.)
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May 29th, 2016
It's a big week for first-run releases with four such films coming out. However, none of them are top-notch releases. Race is the best, but even then it is only worth a rental. Sadly, none of the limited releases, TV on DVD releases, catalog releases, etc. are really big releases either. Hello, My Name is Doris is a great movie, but it is only coming out on Video on Demand this week. I'm going with Veggie Tales: And Now It's Time for Silly Songs with Larry: The Complete Collection on DVD as the Pick of the Week. It really is a slow week for new releases.
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April 21st, 2016
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The Jungle Book roared to first place with $136.1 million in 49 markets for very early totals of $187.4 million internationally and $290.7 million worldwide. This includes a first-place, $49.26 million opening in China. It also dominated the chart in the U.K. with $14.80 million in 594 theaters. It also opened in first place in France ($7,99 million on 653 screens) and Germany ($5.13 million on 934). These openings are great, but not as great as its domestic debut. Then again, its domestic debut was stunning.
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April 15th, 2016
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice earned first place with $31.92 million in 67 theaters for totals of $486.8 million internationally and $783.4 million worldwide. At this pace, the film will hit $800 million early this weekend, but it looks like $900 million might be out of reach. This is bad news for the studio, as the film reportedly needed to hit $1 billion to break even. On other other hand, if the other films in the D.C. Extended Universe are good, then each time one of them comes out, BvS will gets a small boost on the home market. Maybe that will be enough to break even eventually.
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April 8th, 2016
The Boss pulled in $985,000 during its previews last night. This is below the $1.3 million earned by Tammy in 2014 and a little lower than the $1.08 million My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 opened with a few weeks ago. The all three films earned similar reviews. This isn't terrible, but it does make matching our predictions harder.
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March 23rd, 2016
Zootopia remained in first place with $64.8 million in 49 markets for totals of $389.9 million internationally and $590.8 million worldwide. The film's biggest opening was in Australia, where it earned first place with $3.08 million on 479 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $3.48 million including previews. It also topped the charts during its opening weekend in Brazil with $2.57 million on 774 screens. The film's biggest market overall was China, where it remained in first place with $37.24 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $172.79 million. This blows past Kung Fu Panda 3's record for an animated film and it will soon become the first such film to reach the $200 million mark in that market.
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March 15th, 2016
The weekend box office was mostly positive with both Zootopia and 10 Cloverfield Lane finishing on the very high end of expectations over the weekend. On the other hand, the less said about the other new wide releases the better. Overall, the box office fell from last weekend, down 17% to $135 million, but that's not a bad decline after Zootopia's monster opening. Compared to last year, the box office was up 2.5%, which isn't a great improvement, but any win now increases the chances 2016 will remain competitive with 2015 when we reach the point that Furious 7, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World opened last year. Speaking of the year-over-year comparison, 2016's lead over 2015 slipped to 8.7% at $2.15 billion to $1.98 billion. That is still an impressive lead and one that will hopefully grow by the end of the month.
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March 10th, 2016
There are four widish releases coming out this week, but only two of them are opening truly wide, while only one of them has any real box office power. That film is 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is the pseudo-sequel to Cloverfield. Very few people think it will match its predecessor, but it should open in a solid second place. That leaves Zootopia in the perfect spot to repeat on the top of the box office chart. This weekend last year, Cinderella led the way with $67.88 million. This is more than any one single film will make this year. However, the second biggest hit of last year was Run All Night at barely more than $11 million and no other film earned substantially more than $6 million. Perhaps the depth from 2016 will help it win in the year-over-year comparison. I'm not overly bullish that will happen, but we can't rule it out either.
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March 8th, 2016
As expected Zootopia dominated the weekend box office earning $75.06 million. This is half of what The Hunger Games opened with, but it was still the fifth Biggest March Opening. It also broke a couple of smaller records, but more on that down below. Second place went to London Has Fallen, but it was way, way back with just $21.64 million. This is terrible for a film that cost more than $100 million to make. Overall, the box office was $159 million. This is 41% more than last weekend and 77% more than the same weekend last year. 2016's lead over 2015 rose to just a hair under 10% at $1.97 billion to $1.79 billion. Granted, by this time in 2015, none of the year's $1 billion hits had been released, so things can change rapidly, but this is still a great start so far.
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March 6th, 2016
Buoyed by excellent reviews and limited competition, Zootopia will launch this weekend to a huge $73.7 million, the fourth-best weekend in March and best-ever weekend for Walt Disney Animation Studios, ahead of Frozen’s second weekend back in 2013. With a 93% favorability score among audiences, and an A CinemaScore, the film should enjoy long legs going into the Easter season. Aside from The Little Prince (which is expected to open in limited release), Zootopia doesn’t have much competition from other family films until The Jungle Book opens on April 15. It’s already shaping up to be another good year at the box office for Disney.
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March 5th, 2016
Zootopia started its run with $19.47 million on Friday. This tops The Lorax's opening by almost exactly $2 million. The film’s reviews remain Oscar-worthy, and its CinemaScore is an A (A+ among its target demographic). This should result in a great internal multiplier, meaning a $75 million weekend is within reach, and becoming the Biggest March Opening for an animated film seems like a lock.
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March 4th, 2016
Judy Hopps and the rest of the cast of Zootopia got off to a great start earning $1.7 million during its Thursday previews. This doesn't sound like a lot compared to Deadpool, which earned more than $12 million just a few weeks ago. However, family films rarely do this well during previews. In fact, Kung Fu Panda 3 didn't even bother with previews. A good comparison is Home, which opened this month last year. That film earned $650,000 during its previews and its reviews were only mixed. As expected, Zootopia is no longer earning 100% positive reviews, but its Tomatometer Score is still a stunning 99% positive. This should help its word-of-mouth and a record-breaking run is still well within reach.
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March 4th, 2016
March begins with three wide releases and there is a potential record-breaker in that list, sort of. Zootopia isn't going to challenge The Hunger Games for Biggest March Opening, but it has a good shot at topping The Lorax for biggest opening for an animated film in March. London Has Fallen needs to make close to $30 million this weekend, if it is to have any real shot at breaking even any time soon. This isn't going to happen. Meanwhile, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is just hoping to come close to $10 million over the weekend. This weekend last year, the box office was led by Chappie with just $13.35 million. Zootopia will earn way more than that on opening night. It should be a great weekend for 2016 in the year-over-year comparison.
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March 1st, 2016
It's March 1st, which is not only the beginning of the month, but also Super Tuesday. If you are not American and don't pay attention to American politics, Super Tuesday is sort of like the Oscar night of the primary season. I was going to write about my predictions, but it looks like the race is about to be over. On the Republicans side, if Trump gets more than 50% of the delegates, then he has won. It will be too late to stop him. If he gets less than 40%, then it becomes a real race again. If the polling is correct, then he will get closer to 50% than 40%. On the Democratic side, Sanders needs at least 45% of the delegates, or it is over for him. Anything less than that and Hillary Clinton will have too big a lead to overcome. If the South Carolina result is an indicator, Hillary Clinton could get two-thirds of the delegates awarded tonight.
As for the box office, February was amazing, thanks to Deadpool's record-breaking opening and better than expected legs. The month ended with 2016 being nearly 4% higher than 2015's pace. Additionally, there are some big releases coming out this month with both Zootopia and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice looking to get more than $200 million, while Allegiant should hit $100 million. Last March, there were also three films that earned more than $100 million, but only one $200 million hit, Cinderella. It should be a really close race between 2016 and 2015.
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