October 6th, 2009
Not a bad week for the home market with top-notch releases in nearly every category: classics, limited releases, TV on DVD, direct-to-DVD, etc. Every category, except first run releases, as the biggest theatrical hit to make its home market debut this week is Year One, which was a serious box office disappointment. There are several DVD Pick of the Week contenders, starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which makes its Blu-ray debut in a number of different packages (Snow White Packaging, Witch Packaging, Collector's Book, Plush Gift Set, or Limited Edition Collector's Set) Also in contention is Red Dwarf - Back to Earth on Blu-ray, Anvil! - The Story of Anvil on DVD, and Trick 'r Treat on either DVD or Blu-ray. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is obviously the best, but all four deserve DVD Pick of the Week honors. With plenty of spotlight reviews, the list has to be split into to and the second part can be found here.
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August 19th, 2007
Disturbia led a large group of new releases and took first place on the rental charts with $9.70 million in rentals.
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August 12th, 2007
New releases made their presence felt this week, earning five spots on the DVD sales chart, including the first two places.
The battle for first place wasn't even close, though, as
300 made a dominant debut, selling 5.10 million units, which was 2 million more than the rest of the top 30 combined.
Its opening week sales of $115 million was double the rest of the top 30.
Second place went to Hot Fuzz with a very respectable 676,000 units; you must remember, this is a film that only cost 8 million Pounds to make, roughly, which is about $17 million American.
The film made more than that in just one week on the home market in combined rentals and sales, so everyone involved must be very, very happy indeed.
Pathfinder's sales were stronger than its rentals as it moved 562,000 units for a total of $10.10 million in sales, which was more than it earned theatrically.
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August 5th, 2007
There was a close race on the DVD Sales Chart this week, with The Number 23 topping Zodiac 387,000 units to 352,000 units sold.
Premonition fell to third place with 190,000 units sold and 791,000 in total.
The Hills Have Eyes 2 placed third with 134,000 units sold for the week and 536,000 in total.
Rounding out the top five was Shooter with 109,000 units sold for the week and 1.90 million after a month of release.
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July 23rd, 2007
It's the busiest week in a long time and not only do we have more than three dozen films on this week's list (and six spotlight reviews), but we have plenty of releases worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week.
Hard Boiled - 2-Disc Collector's Edition, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law - Volume 3, The Host - 2-Disc Special Edition... and those are just the ones beginning with the letter H. All three of those deserve to be added to your DVD collections, as well as a few others, but I'm trying to limit the DVD Pick of the Week to one selection and that's The Host - 2-Disc Special Edition.
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May 13th, 2007
With Spider-Man 3 dominating the global market last weekend, there was very little else happening on the international charts that was newsworthy. With little in the way of new releases, or even expansion for holdovers, it was impossible just to fill out a top 30 chart. And with several films expected to attempt a worldwide opening over the next couple months, it will likely be that way till mid-August.
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May 6th, 2007
300 was knocked out of the top five this week but still added $3.82 million on 3,537 screens in 52 markets for a total of $223.77 million.
The film has yet to open in Japan, but that's about it at this point and there's little hope that the movie will hit any more milestones from now until then.
However, it is already a massive hit and a huge financial boon for the studio, so everything it does earn will be pure gravy.
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April 29th, 2007
The Reaping climbed into sixth place this past weekend with $5.98 million on 2634 screens in 39 markets for a total of just $20.38 million. The film had a couple respectable openings including South Korea where it made $1.17 million on 129 screens over the weekend and $1.34 million in total while it took in $335,000 in Brazil. However, in most markets the film stumbled, like in France where is placed seventh with $684,000 or the the U.K. where it placed eighth with $622,000 on 282 screens. The film debuted in ninth place in Australia, ($405,000 on 133 screens); in Russia, ($261,000 on 111); and in Germany, ($247,000 on 201). Mexico became the film's best market as it has pulled in $4.45 million in three weeks, including $589,000 on 350 screens this past weekend; this is just ahead of the $4.25 million the film has earned in Spain, but it only managed $334,000 on 299 screens this past weekend and will quickly disappear there.
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April 15th, 2007
Wild Hogs had its best performance of its run so far climbing into sixth place with $3.33 million on 817 screens in 8 markets for a total of $18.43 million after a month of release. About half of that came from the film's number one debut in Mexico where it earned $1.33 million on 355 screens over the weekend and $1.67 million including previews while the film did reasonable business in Taiwan with $345,000 on 40. Its best market to date has been Australia where the film has earned $11.30 million, including $907,000 on 263 screens this past weekend.
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April 8th, 2007
Norbit saw its weekend haul sliced neatly in half landing in sixth place with $4.09 million on 2270 screens in 39 markets for a total of $49.38 million. The film wasn't able to crack $1 million in any single market, but Italy came the closest with $940,000 on 263 screens for a two-week total of $3.19 million.
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April 1st, 2007
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started its international run this past weekend and just missed the top five on debut.
It did manage $3.92 million on 1,004 screens in 8 markets over the weekend and $4.53 million including previews.
Of this box office, nearly half of it came from a pair of third place openings in England ($1.27 million on 368 screens over the weekend and $1.86 million in total), and Australia ($379,000 on 58 screens).
The film also opened in Russia where the strong mutant demographic helped the film capture second place with $1.38 million on 360 screens.
(That was a Chernobyl joke, by the way.)
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March 18th, 2007
There was quite an international flavor on the charts this past weekend with five local hits charting, and one more just missing that mark. The best of these was Lubov Morkov, which opened in sixth place with $5.38 million on 492 screens in 4 markets over the weekend and $6.28 million in total. Of this amount, $4.90 million on 427 screens was earned over the weekend in Russia while it managed $5.80 million including midweek numbers.
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March 11th, 2007
Music and Lyrics remained in sixth place with $5.64 million on 1645 screens in 18 markets for a total of $32.01 million internationally. The film disappointed domestically, but it appears to be making up for that softness on the international scene. The film's best opening of the weekend came from South Korea where it placed second with $2.06 million on 144 screens while it also grabbed second place in Brazil with $490,000 on 140. Holdovers were led by the U.K. where the film earned $1.09 million on 364 screens during its fourth week of release for a total of $15.71 million in that market alone. That's close to a $100 million run here, taking into account the relative sizes of the two markets.
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March 6th, 2007
March came in like a lion, with Wild Hogs earning the third best opening ever for the month.
Even with the other new releases missing expectations, the overall box office still climbed to $124 million.
That's up nearly 6% from last weekend and 20% from the same weekend last year.
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March 1st, 2007
March starts off this weekend with three releases, two of which are currently earning overall positive reviews. However, it is the third wide release that is tracking well above the other two and is the clear favorite to win the weekend box office race.
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February 26th, 2007
Practically every new release missed expectations this weekend, some by small margins while others were significantly off the mark. On the other hand, holdovers held as well as expected, which helped the box office total reach $117 million.
This was a 25% drop-off from last weekend; however, that can be explained by the holiday last weekend and the Oscars this weekend.
Year-to-year the drop-off was a much more reasonable 3%.
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February 23rd, 2007
Big week in terms of flash sites launching, but a tough one when it comes to picking a winner. There were several sites that were contenders, and a few that will likely be winners after a few more updates, but none that stood out as the best for the week. It's almost like there were so many that were so close to winning the award that none were able to stand out and get me excited. However, there was one site that was updated this week that did, The Simpsons Movie - Official Site. This site did get a new look, but the real draw here is the first full trailer, to go along with the three previous teasers. Is that enough to make it award worthy? No. But while my rational side was distracted by a game of Sudoku the Fanboy in me made that decisions, and all Fanboy freak-outs are legally binding. Hopefully the final site will live up to the award. I have a feeling it will.
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February 22nd, 2007
Another busy week for wide releases with three or five such films, depending on how you define wide.
Only three of the new releases have a theater count of 2,000 or more, which is a higher threshold than most require to call a movie wide, but probably the most accurate definition.
On the other hand, there are two other films opening in just under 1,000 theaters and both have a shot at entering the top ten.
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February 9th, 2007
Still waiting sites for the big summer blockbusters to come online. In the meantime, this week is relatively busy, but with only a couple sites that look like they could be award-worthy once the features are added. The best of the best, and I use that term loosely, is
Norbit -
Official Site with a site that could be more entertaining than the movie it promotes.
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February 1st, 2007
February is the shortest month of the year, but not the slowest at the box office. It doesn't have the stigma of being a dumping ground, and with Valentine's Day fitting nicely in the middle,
romantic comedies have a leg up at the box office. However, for the most part, movies released during this month are aiming for midlevel hit and there are few, if any, that will become blockbusters.
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January 6th, 2007
Big list as I try to catch up after the holidays. I think I caught all the updates. Not only are there a lot of sites on this week's list, several of them are potential award winners with the best of the best being
Smokin' Aces -
Official Site.
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November 11th, 2006
There was a clear winner amongst this week's batch of websites as
Stranger than Fiction -
Official Site took home the Weekly Website Award.
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September 2nd, 2006
Another busy week with plenty of top-notch films to chose from In the end, however, it was a two-way race between
The Black Dahlia -
Official Site and
Stranger than Fiction -
Official Site with the former site winning out by a narrow margin.
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