This graph shows Anthony Hopkins’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
After spending its first two weeks as the widest release in North America, Dune: Part Two slips into the second place spot this week, dropping 227 locations, while still playing in a solid 3,847 cinemas. Taking its place this week is last week’s newcomer , Kung Fu Panda 4, which increases its viewing opportunities by adding 32 theaters for a total of 4,067 locations. The fourth installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise diced up $58 million in its opening weekend, and currently enjoys a six-day domestic total of just over $73 million. This week both films will have to contend with a bevy of new films making their theatrical debuts.
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To no great surprise, Black Adam will once again be the week’s widest release in North America as the superhero feature will retain all of the 4,402 theaters from its debut weekend in its second outing. The Dwayne Johnson movie snagged a very respectable $67 million over its first three days and has settled in with just over $80 million in domestic earnings and a global take of nearly $156 million so far. This week sees two new films opening in wide release: the pre-Halloween horror flick Prey for the Devil and Call Jane.
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With the COVID-19 outbreak causing mass shutdowns of non-essential businesses in a lot of places, theatrical releases are, for the most part, non-existent. However, the movie industry is trying to rapidly adapt to this and so are we. They are fast-tracking lots of theatrical releases to VOD and we will be expanding our coverage of VOD releases. Like last week, there are a lot of fast-tracked theatrical releases coming out this week, but we also have the more typical VOD premieres to talk about. Of the former category, Bad Boys for Life is clearly leading the way, although Birds of Prey is coming out on Friday rather than Tuesday, so it gets a jump on the action. Of the latter category, Banana Split is the film that I’m most interested in seeing. Sadly, there are so many major VOD releases this week that I fear it will slip between the cracks.
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Our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway so now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. We are continuing our schedule with Best Supporting Actor. This might be the least competitive category we talk about this year.
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The Oscar nominations were announced on Monday, and the results were... well, there were some puzzling results. Joker led the way with eleven nominations. ... A film with 69% positive reviews earned the most nominations. It’s not the worst-reviewed movie to earn a Best Picture Nomination—after all, Bohemian Rhapsody was nominated just last year. However, this film is arguably the worst-reviewed movie to ever earn the most nominations in a single year.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. It is still very early in the year and the predictive value of the Golden Globes is a little suspect, but there are still some things to learn here. (This is especially true on the TV end, as there’s talk about how strange the nominations are this year.) Marriage Story led the way with six nominations, just ahead of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, both of which picked up five nods.
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Thanksgiving is one of the biggest weekends for wide releases, but it is a terrible week for limited releases. If I kept my usual rule about minimum number of reviews to be on this list, then there would be just a handful of films to talk about. Fortunately, all of them are worth checking out. The Two Popes is the biggest in terms of buzz, but its limited theatrical release window will keep it from doing particularly well in theaters. I’m most interested in Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary, but I hope The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open does very well.
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Thor: Ragnarok opened with some of the best reviews of the MCU and was easily the biggest hit in the Thor franchise. And now it is being completely overshadowed by Black Panther’s success. Is it worth checking out? Is it really one of the best films in the MCU?
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October wasn’t a good month; then again, outside of a few bright spots, the overall box office has been a disaster since early summer. I would love to say November will turn things around, but, while it should be better, in this case “better” is a relative term. There are two films on this list with a chance at $300 million, Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League, while Coco is nearly a guarantee for $200 million. By comparison, last November had a similar result with three films earning between $200 million and $300 million, but none topping that figure. This means, if Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League both get to that milestone, then 2017 could cut into 2016’s lead during the month. It will still take a minor miracle for 2017 to catch up in the end, but just cutting the lead in half by the end of December would be a reason to celebrate at this point.
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story scared away most wide releases and limited releases. That’s not to say there is nothing on this week’s list worth checking out. In fact, Fences was bumped up a week before its wide expansion on Christmas day. That is the only film on this list likely to have any presence at the box office.
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Noah was a risky movie to make. It is a Bible Epic, which is to say, it uses a Bible story to tell an epic movie, as opposed to a faith-based film aimed at churchgoers. It was bound to offend that target audience, while being based on the Bible was bound to turn off those who get annoyed at those who get offended by films like Noah. Should either of these audiences give the film a second chance? Will it appeal to churchgoers? Is it an entertaining film, even for those who don't believe?
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I don't think it is unfair to call Amistad Oscar-bait. It is a film based on a powerful real life story that came out in theaters in December, right in the heart of Oscar season. However, it didn't live up to expectations, either with critics or at the box office. It did pick up four Oscar nominations, but it failed to convert any of those into wins. Then again, "Not quite good enough for Oscars." is hardly a damning statement. Was the movie hurt by unrealistic expectations? Has it aged well in the years since it came out? And is the Blu-ray worth picking up?
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2014 continued its strong run in February with The Lego Movie beating even the high end expectations and will become the first film released in 2014 to reach $200 million. March doesn't look as strong, as no film is on track to hit $200 million, but there are five films that have a chance at $100 million. Granted, not all of them will get there; in fact, there's a chance only one of them will get there. Divergent is the film I think has the best shot at the century club, but it could be joined by Mr. Peabody and Sherman, for instance, which is earning surprisingly strong reviews. Noah is a big-budget Bible epic and the studio has to be hoping for at least $100 million, but the buzz is quite negative and there have been reports of troubles behind-the-scenes. Last March was led by Oz The Great and Powerful, which pulled in more than $200 million domestically. I don't think any film opening this March will match that figure. In addition, The Croods and G.I. Joe: Retaliation also hit the $100 million milestone, while Olympus Has Fallen came very close. Granted, there were also some big bombs last March, like The Host, but even so, I think 2014 will lose ground in the year-over-year comparison.
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Thor came out in 2011 and cost $150 million to make. However, it barely made a profit. In fact, had it been a stand-alone movie, it would have very likely lost money. Had it not been for The Avengers boosting the home market numbers, it might have lost money. On the other hand, Thor: The Dark World cost $170 million to make and pulled in 40% more at the worldwide box office. Is it also 40% better? Or did it benefit from the big picture The Avengers movie universe has pulled together?
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Red opened in the fall of 2010 and became a surprise hit. When you think of action films, you generally don't think of retirees. The combined age of the four actors who played the retired secrets agents was 250 years old when the movie came out. But because the film was something different, it won over critics and moviegoers. Needless to say, they started working on a sequel soon after. However, when Red 2 came out, it wasn't as successful at the box office or with critics. Is it really weaker? Is it so weak that it isn't worth checking out if you liked the first one?
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Hitchcock opened in limited release earning an per theater average of nearly $17,000 in 17 theaters. It went on to make more than $6 million in total, including more than $1 million during its biggest weekend. This is an impressive run compared to most limited releases. However, Hitchcock was expected to be a player during Awards Season and many thought it would be able to expand wide, or at least semi-wide. Granted, there were a lot of Oscar hopefuls that opened during the same time period. Did this one just get lost in the crowd? Or was there a reason it missed admittedly high expectations?
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It's a pretty light week for limited releases. Hitchcock is by far the biggest release, but its reviews are only mixed, so its box office chances are not strong. On the other hand, The Central Park Five is earning reviews that are strong enough that it should thrive, at least in limited release. It is very rare for a documentary to expand wide, even under the best of circumstances.
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