December 9th, 2008
There were not many new releases to chart this week, but we did have a new number one as Hancock took top spot on the sales chart. That film sold 3.02 million units during its first week of release for a total of $61.23 million in consumer retail spending.
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December 9th, 2008
There were not that many new releases to chart this week, but Hancock was able to open on top with about 40% more rentals than Tropic Thunder.
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November 25th, 2008
Strange week. There are a dozen spotlight reviews on the list this week, but only one is for a DVD coming out this week. Ten are for DVDs that arrived late, and one spotlight review is actually early. As for this week's releases, there are not that many that seem like must-haves and none rise to the level of a DVD Pick of the Week. If I were to choose the best release found below, it's WALL-E, which came out last week. But even then I would chose the Blu-ray I reviewed last week over the DVD. Despite the lack of a top tier release, there were still more than enough that it was necessary to split the list into two parts. Part two can be found here.
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December 16th, 2007
The Heartbreak Kid slipped a spot to sixth with $5.04 million on 2029 screens in 46 markets for a total of $79.44 million internationally, which is more than twice what it earned domestically. This includes France where it pulled in $1.10 million on 320 screens while lifting its running tally to $3.37 million in that market.
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December 13th, 2007
This weekend promises to give us the biggest opening box office for a film since August when The Bourne Ultimatum opened with nearly $70 million. I Am Legend won't earn that much, but it will easily win the box office race.
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December 11th, 2007
The box office has been soft practically since summer ended, but things are starting to get desperate.
This was another week of significant declines at the box office, with overall business of just $82 million.
That's down more than 2% from last weekend, and, more significantly, down more than 15% from the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2007 is still ahead in terms of raw dollars, but ticket sales are now trailing last year's pace.
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December 9th, 2007
Bee Movie returned to the charts in sixth place with $6.71 million on 1288 screens in 11 markets for an early international total of $19.43 million after a month of release. This includes a pair of first place debuts in Spain and Mexico. In the former it earned $2.81 million on 421 screens while in the latter is earned $2.60 million on 389 screens. While Spain is the larger marker, I thought the family friendly nature of Mexico would give it the edge. Even so, there are great openings for the film.
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December 9th, 2007
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass made a thoroughly disappointing debut in theaters over the weekend, earning just $26.1 million, according to estimates released on Sunday.
That's substantially short of the $30 million - $40 million that New Line had announced as their target, and leaves their $300 million plus investment horribly in the red.
Only a miracle can save it now.
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December 6th, 2007
It's another slow week for wide releases -- like last weekend, there's only one.
However, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass should do significantly better than last week's Awake.
It better do significantly better or the holiday season is in real trouble.
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November 29th, 2007
The weekend after Thanksgiving is the only slow weekend during the entire Holiday Season.
So it comes as no surprise that only one movie is opening wide, but it is a bit surprising that the weekend is a weak as it is.
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November 27th, 2007
Thanksgiving provided plenty of reasons for studios to give thanks, especially since every single film managed to earn enough to be called a hit in one form or other.
Even the weakest releases of the week did well compared to their modest costs.
Overall, the box office brought in $162 million over three days, which is 55% more than last weekend.
More importantly, it is virtually identical to the same weekend last year.
Over five days, movies earned an estimated $229 million, which is up just shy of 2% from last year.
This is great news after a Fall that most would like to forget, but the growth is still lower than ticket price inflation, meaning actual attendance was down.
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November 25th, 2007
Elizabeth: The Golden Age nearly reached the top five with $5.79 million on 1579 screens in 12 markets for a total of $21.80 million. This includes a first place, $1.89 million opening on 470 screens in Russia, while the film added $933,000 on 394 screens in the U.K. for a total of $8.40 million so far.
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November 21st, 2007
The five-day Thanksgiving long weekend officially starts tonight, as does the lucrative holiday weekend. From now until the New Year, there we should see hit after hit released, as well as a number of Oscar contenders.
With the box office slowing down, this couldn't come at a better time.
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November 20th, 2007
It was another tough week at the box office. No film missed Thursday's prediction by a significant margin, but there was an overall weakness. This pushed the box office to $104 million, down 8% from last weekend. More importantly it was down 28% from the same weekend last year. It is getting close to the time to panic. Granted, this year is safe but there's little evidence that this slowdown at the box office, which has lasted almost the entire fall, is going to end now that the Holidays have started. The only good news is that last Thanksgiving was a terrible weekend for new releases.
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November 15th, 2007
It's looking like 2007 is going to end on a really soft note. Since mid-September, only one weekend has been above the same weekend last year, and there's almost no chance that things will turn around this weekend. This time last year, we had two $40 million openers. This weekend, we might not have a single film top $30 million.
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November 12th, 2007
There was little to cheer over the weekend, as all four of the new releases missed expectations, some by substantial margins.
This left the overall box office struggling with $113 million over the weekend, down 16% from last weekend and 11% from the same weekend last year.
This means the streak of year-to-year growth ends at one.
On the other hand, had the four wide releases mere met expectations, the overall box office would have been within a rounding error of last year.
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November 11th, 2007
A soft week for movie sites with only a few that stand out and none that are award-worthy. Next week should be different.
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November 8th, 2007
With the streak of year-to-year declines finally over, the winter holiday season is looking to start earning back some of the loses from October. The good news is, this weekend there are three films that should top $20 million at the box office compared to just one that did last year. Bad news, that one film was Borat, which earned more than $28 million and there's a chance no film will replicate that performance this time around.
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November 8th, 2007
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for The Box, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sleepwalking, and more!
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November 2nd, 2007
Next Friday, the only film that is opening in more than 3000 theaters is Fred Claus, and it is the target film for this week's box office prediction contest.
To win one must simply predict the box office opening for Fred Claus.
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 Twin Peaks - Definitive Gold Box Edition.
Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a copy of Buried Alive.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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November 1st, 2007
After a horrible October, we finally get to November and the start of the holiday season.
Just like the summer season doesn't officially begin until Memorial Day, the winter holiday season doesn't officially begin until the Thanksgiving long weekend.
However, studios are trying to stretch the lucrative box office season as long as possible and the holiday-like releases start during the first weekend of the month.
This means practically every weekend this month, there's at least one potential $100 million movie. There are also a few that might be Oscar contenders, although not as many as I had expected.
In fact, so far Award Season has been particularly slow, but at least this means there should be more buzz surrounding the upcoming films as the race is wide open.
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October 14th, 2007
Quite a few full sites launched this week, but as is the case most times, there were pretty Spartan at the moment and it will take a few more updates before we can tell if they are award-worthy or not. That said, it was a site for a movie that opens this week, Lars and the Real Girl - Official Site, that won the top prize as it finished adding all the material marked coming soon this week.
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September 29th, 2007
Another slow week, but at least we have a clear contender for the Weekly Website Award. That site is The Kingdom - Official Site, which combines all the usual features with a good mix of extras as well as enough sound and animation to keep surfers interested.
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September 22nd, 2007
Not a long list this week, but at least we had a clear winner for the Weekly Website Award, Resident Evil: Extinction - Official Site. IN the coming weeks we should see some big sites launch as award season starts to heat up.
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August 30th, 2007
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for American Gangster, The Informers, Nothing but the Truth, and more!
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July 29th, 2007
Server upgrades went... less smoothly than anticipated, which delayed this column, but at least there are a huge number of sites to check out. Many of these sites are making their first appearance on the list while quite a few are making their last appearance. Unfortunately, while it's a big list, there are not many that are even close to being award worthy at the moment. 30 Days of Night - Official Site comes the closest, but I'm waiting for the missing features to be added before I make that decision.
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January 26th, 2007
This year's crop of summer blockbusters still haven't started opening movies site in earnest yet, and until they do, this column will be lacking. It's yet another week without a truly award-winning site but
Catch & Release -
Official Site is the best of the rest.
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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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August 6th, 2006
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a sequel to Madagascar and more.
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