July 27th, 2010
Sales numbers continued to be soft this week with none of the new releases doing strong business. We did have a new number of seller, as The Bounty Hunter opened with 560,000 units and $9.71 million in consumer spending at retail.
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July 19th, 2010
The dead zone on the home market continues with only three wide releases... well, two and a half wide releases, none of which matched expectations at the box office.
There's not even a lot of limited releases, catalog titles, or TV on DVD releases to compensate.
There are some, just not a lot.
My favorite title on this week's list is actually a late review: White Collar: Season One on DVD and Blu-ray.
Meanwhile, the two best new releases this week have a Canadian Connection, Degrassi: The Next Generations: Season 9 and NHL: Greatest Stanley Cup Moments, both of which earn Puck of the Week honors.
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July 16th, 2010
Next week could mark the unofficial end of Summer with the release of Salt, which could be the last $100 million hit till October, maybe even November. Let's hope not, but it could be. In the meantime, 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 Salt.
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 Our Family Wedding on DVD.
Meanwhile, 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 Our Family Wedding on DVD.
Finally, one additional person will be chosen at random and they will win the final copy of Our Family Wedding 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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July 14th, 2010
Our Family Wedding takes the very familiar theme of an upcoming wedding and adds in an interracial twist.
However, and here's the real twist, instead of there being one white person and one black person, it's one black person and one Hispanic.
Is this enough to set it apart?
Or will this one point of originality be lost in a sea of mediocrity?
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July 12th, 2010
The dog days of summer continue on the home market.
The best selling release of the week is also one of the worst films of the year.
Also, there are not a lot of limited release / TV on DVD releases to pick up the pace, so the odds are that it will be a slow week in terms of sales.
Looking for a Pick of the Week contender, there are a couple of TV on DVD releases that are prime contenders, Psych: The Complete Fourth Season and Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XVIII.
Both are worth picking up, but I'm going with MST3K as the Pick of the Week.
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March 22nd, 2010
For the third weekend in a row, Alice in Wonderland topped the chart at the box office. The number one new release was also bigger than expected. However, the rest of the chart failed to live up to expectations, which led to a total weekend of $126 million, a nearly 14% drop-off from the previous weekend. That said, this was a 20% increase from the same weekend last year, which is obviously a much more important number. Year-to-date, 2010 has pulled in $2.42 billion, 9.0% higher than the same pace last year. It's still way too early to crack open the champagne, but this is a great start.
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March 16th, 2010
The box office results were mostly fantastic over the weekend, thanks almost entirely to one film, Alice in Wonderland. The movie was able to hold on better than almost everyone predicted, but the rest of the new releases failed to connect. This resulted in a 26% drop from last weekend, as the overall market pulled in $147 million. However, this was 45% higher than the same weekend last year. Meanwhile, year-to-date 2010 has now pulled in $2.24 billion, which is nearly 9.0% higher than last year's pace.
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March 14th, 2010
Alice in Wonderland comfortably held top spot at the box office this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
In these days of 60% drops for big releases, its decline of 47% can be considered a victory for Disney and earned it an impressive $62 million in its second outing.
Its total cume to date passed $200 million, and the movie is already Tim Burton's second-highest grossing movie after 1989's Batman.
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March 11th, 2010
There are three or four new wide releases coming out this week (depending on your definition of wide) but it appears that none of them have a real shot at taking top spot away from Alice in Wonderland.
This is true despite the overwhelming majority of analysts who are predicting that the film will suffer at least a 55% drop-off this weekend. Fortunately for the box office as a whole, this should still be more than enough to keep pace with last year, even if none of the new releases match the best of last year's crop.
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March 1st, 2010
February was a stronger than expected month, for the most part, but 2010 continued to lose ground to 2009. Hopefully this trend will reverse itself, but it could be tough. Last March started with Watchmen, which earned just over $100 million at the box office. The month ended with Monsters vs. Aliens, which earned nearly $200 million. Granted, between these two releases there were a fair number of bombs, but it might be hard for this year to match last year at the top.
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