November 22nd, 2016
It’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and of course the first installment of our Holiday Gift Guide. This week we will tackle first run releases, as well as franchise box sets, although there aren’t many of the latter to talk about. In fact, the best movie box set of the year includes more TV shows than movies in its running time and I’ve decided to include it in our second part, which deals with TV on DVD releases. There are still a number of big first-run releases this year that are definitely worthy gifts. We are going to start with the biggest domestic hit of the year...
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September 27th, 2016
It is a pretty good week on the home market with a few releases worth picking up. The biggest of these is Central Intelligence, but while it is worth picking up, it isn’t a contender for Pick of the Week. There are some smaller releases that were up for that title, including The Shallows, An American Werewolf in London and The Innocents. However, in the end, I went with Captain America: Civil War. The Blu-ray screener arrived late, and I held off on naming it Pick of the Week when it came out for that very reason.
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September 16th, 2016
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Blair Witch led the way during Thursday’s previews with $765,000. This is well short of the horror films we had during the summer, including The Shallows at $1.33 million and Lights Out at $1.8 million. Then again, it isn’t really fair to compare previews during summer when a lot of the target audience doesn’t have to go to school the next day. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of horror films that come out in September and previews like this have only been ubiquitous for the past few years. I think it is a good sign, but I’m not sure. Maybe if moviegoers like it more than critics do, the film will be a hit.
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September 14th, 2016
There were two films that could lay claim to top spot on the international chart. Star Trek Beyond has the better claim earning $16.6 million over the weekend in 40 markets for totals of $161.5 million internationally and $318.1 million worldwide. Its biggest debut came from Mexico, where it pulled in $1.29 million over the weekend for a four-day opening of $1.43 million. This was enough for first place. The film also remained in first place in China with $11.41 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $53.66 million.
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July 22nd, 2016
Star Trek Beyond got off to a fast start with $5.5 million during its midnight previews. This is $2 million more than Ghostbusters made last weekend, plus it has better reviews. On the other hand, it is a sequel, so the comparison isn’t perfect. We could compare it to the previous installment in the franchise, but that film opened on a Wednesday. X-Men: Apocalypse earned $8.4 million in its previews, but that film earned weaker reviews and is a comic book movie, which tend to be more front-loaded. I was a little more bullish than most with my prediction, but this result make me feel a lot better.
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July 6th, 2016
The Fourth of July weekend went very well as two of the three new releases beat expectations. However, none of them were able to top Finding Dory, which earned its third win in a row. The Legend of Tarzan was very close in second place, which surprised a lot of analysts, but there might be a logical reason for its success. The Purge: Election Year more than tripled its production budget during its opening three-day weekend, so there’s no chance the studio isn’t giddy over that. The only real disappointment was The BFG, which got lost in the crowd. The overall box office was up from last week, which is a pleasant surprise. Granted, it grew by just under 1.0% to $192 million over the three-day weekend. More importantly, it was 41% higher than the same three-day weekend last year. Add in Monday, and the year-to-date lead rose to $120 million or 2.2% at $5.71 billion to $5.58 billion.
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June 28th, 2016
As predicted, Finding Dory repeated as the box office champion and came very close to matching our prediction with $72.96 million over the weekend. This is well above Independence Day: Resurgence's opening of $41.04 million. The Shallows was great as a low-budget horror film. The other two films... let's not talk about them. Overall, the box office fell 19% from last weekend to $188 million; however, this is to be expected, given how big Finding Dory opened. The weekend box office was even better than the same weekend last year, albeit by only 2.3%, which is not enough to keep up with inflation. Likewise, the year-over-year comparison is not great either. 2016 still leads 2015, but only by $5.38 billion to $5.31 billion, which is a lead of just 1.2%. Hopefully this weekend's win is a sign of things turning around, but I'm not so sure of that.
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June 26th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is getting crushed at the box office this weekend, thanks in part to a strong second weekend for Finding Dory, but mostly because it failed where the original succeeded. Back in 1996, Independence Day pretty much invented the event movie, as it became the film everyone wanted to watch over the July 4 holiday weekend. Its $50.2 million 3-day weekend fell fractionally short of the then-record $52.8 million earned by Batman Forever over its opening weekend in June, 1995, but the $96.1 million it earned over its first five days was unprecedented. Resurgence had a storied past to live up to, and is falling well short.
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June 25th, 2016
Finding Dory held on to first place on Friday and that’s not good news, at least not for the box office as a whole. The film pulled in $23.21 million last night, which puts it on track to earn approximately $76 million. We predicted $74 million, so I’m calling this a victory. This will give the film close to $290 million after just ten days of release and puts it on pace to reach $300 million late Monday / early Tuesday. It will obviously hit $400 million at this pace, and it could become the first film of 2016 and the first animated film of all time to reach the $500 million milestone. That’s not a sure thing, but I think it’s at least 50/50 at this point.
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June 24th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence started its box office run with $4 million during Thursday previews. That's not good. That's twice as much as the $2 million Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows earned a few weeks ago, but half as much as the $8.2 million X-Men: Apocalypse earned the week before that. It is identical to Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which opened last summer. If you compare its opening to all three films, taking into account Out of the Shadows' younger target audience and Apocalypse's Fanboy nature, then Resurgence will likely opened with between $50 million and $60 million. Hopefully it is performing better internationally.
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June 23rd, 2016
This is the last weekend in June and there are three wide releases hoping to challenge Finding Dory for top spot. I don’t think any of them will come close. Independence Day: Resurgence is the only new release with a shot at first place and it should come out on top on Friday. It better win on Friday, or the month will end on a soft note. The Shallows and Free State of Jones will be fighting for fourth place. The Shallows cost less than $20 million, so a fourth place finish wouldn’t be a bad start. On the other hand, Free State of Jones cost $65 million to make, so a fourth place finish would be a disaster. Also opening this week is The Neon Demon. It isn’t opening wide, but it is opening wide enough to compete for a slot in the top ten. This weekend last year, there were two wide releases that earned less than $50 million combined. On the other hand, the top two films, Jurassic World and Inside Out both earned more than $50 million. Can the top four this year out-earn the top four last year? I think they can. We might get an actual win in the year-over-year comparison.
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June 1st, 2016
May was great, as long as you don't compare it to last May. Captain America: Civil War was a monster hit and is closing in on $400 million, while both X-Men: Apocalypse and The Angry Birds Movie will earn over $100 million. Looking ahead, every week in June, there is one movie that should top $100 million; however, only Finding Dory is expected to make more than $200 million. In fact, that film is expected to make close to $400 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Last June, there were two monster hits, Inside Out and Jurassic World, plus one $100 million hit, Spy. I don't see how 2016 will top that. Even if every film with a shot at $100 million gets to that milestone, 2016 still might not top last year's pace. Fortunately, 2016 does have a large lead and that could be enough to keep 2016 ahead of 2015's pace in the year-over-year competition. It could be really close at the end of the month, on the other hand.
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