This graph shows Jennifer Lopez’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
While Spider-Man: No Way Home is still far from finished at the box office, the mega-hit has finally been overtaken on our theater count list. The film currently enjoys a worldwide total of over $1.7 billion. This week however ushers in two new wide releases in jackass forever and Moonfall, arriving in 3,604 and 3,446 locations respectively.
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Kat Valdez is half of the sexiest celebrity power couple on Earth with hot new music supernova Bastian. As Kat and Bastian’s inescapable hit single, “Marry Me,” climbs the charts, they are about to be wed before an audience of their fans in a ceremony that will streamed across multiple platforms. But, on learning her on-stage partner has been having an affair behind her back, Kat decides to marry a stranger, math teacher Charlie Gilbert, who is holding a “Marry Me” sign by accident at her live concert.
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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 Screen Actors Guild announced their nominations this week and we are starting to see some patterns with similar names appearing over and over again. This time Bombshell led the way, earning four nominations, but four other films earned two or more nominations.
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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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The Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced and thus the 2020 Awards Season begins. There are two changes to this year’s coverage of Awards Season. Firstly, we’re going back to using the year the awards are handed out and not the year the movie came out, even though the latter makes so much more sense. We are doing this, because every one else does this and being accurate takes a back seat to being easily understood. Secondly, since the Independent Spirit Awards are not particularly good indicators of Oscar success, we are just going to do summaries and not a full list of nominees.
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It is shaping up to be a great weekend at the box office with both Hustlers and It: Chapter Two topping expectations. It: Chapter Two is going to repeat on top, with an estimated sophomore stint of $40.74 million for a running tally of $153.80 million. This represents a 55% decline, which is certainly fantastic for a horror sequel. It still likely means $250 million domestically is out of the question, but even $200 million is amazing for a movie that cost less than $70 million to make. Internationally, the film pulled in another $47 million in 78 markets for a two-week total of $169.5 million. It has already made over $300 million worldwide, which might be enough to break even, depending on its advertising budget and exact share of the box office. If not, it will break even very shortly.
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Hustlers did surprisingly well to earn first place on Friday with an estimated $13.1 million. This puts it on pace for $32 million over the full weekend, which is more than enough for the biggest opening in STX Entertainment’s history and the biggest live-action opening in Jennifer Lopez’s career. It is not that far behind Crazy Rich Asians’ five-day opening and will also be Constance Wu’s best opening. There’s more good news: The film’s reviews are the best in the top ten at 87% positive and STX Entertainment has tended to have a lot of success giving their films long legs. The Bad Moms franchise is evidence of that. On the downside, the movie only managed a B minus from CinemaScore, but it is a dark comedy and those can be divisive. Additionally, while it earned first place on Friday, it won’t stay there for long.
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Hustlers started its box office run with $2.5 million in previews last night. This is a faster start than other comparable releases, including the $2 million earned by Bad Moms in 2016. There is some bad news, but only for analysts like myself. There are not a lot of films like this released each year, so there is still a lot of uncertainty going forward. On the positive side, its reviews remain just shy of 90% positive, so the word-of-mouth should be phenomenal. Meanwhile, its target audience isn’t the kind that rushes out to see a movie opening night, so it should do even better during the rest of the weekend. On the low end, it will open with $20 million, which is very close to its $20.7 million production budget. On the high end, it could reach $30 million and break records for both the studio, STX Entertainment, and the lead actress, Jennifer Lopez. (Although in the latter case, it would be her live-action record.) I think the higher end is more likely, which means the movie should top our $24 million prediction.
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It is a busy week, as there are seven films opening wide over the next seven days. Not all of these will be hits—the competition is just too great for that. However, there could be a real race for Christmas champion this year. Because of its fast start in China and its strong pre-sales numbers, many believe Aquaman will top earlier expectations and earn first place over the three-day weekend. However, I think Mary Poppins Returns will be number one over the full week, partially because it should earn a bigger boost over Christmas, but also because it is opening two days early. Meanwhile, Bumblebee’s surprisingly strong reviews are lifting its box office potential.
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November turned out to be a really, really good month. I thought 2018’s lead over 2017 would shrink, potentially by $200 million to $300 million. However, the lead actually managed to grow a little bit, thanks to hits like Ralph Breaks the Internet, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and Bohemian Rhapsody. December has an equal number of potential hits, led by Mary Poppins Returns, which some think will top $300 million. Additionally, Spider-man Into the Spider-Verse, Aquaman, Bumblebee, and Holmes and Watson all have a realistic shot at $100 million or more. On the other hand, last December was stronger, at least on top. The Last Jedi earned more than $500 million just during December, which is more than any December release this year will earn in total. It could be more than the top two films earn in total. 2018 will win the in year-over-year competition; however, its lead won’t be as large as it is at the start of the month.
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Home is a 3D digitally animated family film that opened in March. Nearly every year there is at least one such film that cracks $100 million and this year it was Home, which not only earned more than $100 million, it came relatively close to $200 million. Is it as good as its box office numbers? Is it at least good for a kids movie?
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There are very few films on this week's list that have a real shot at earning mainstream success. I would like to think Court or A Hard Day could do so, but they are both foreign-language films and that's usually too big of an obstacle to overcome. Mr. Holmes has both the cast and the reviews to thrive, but it is playing in more than 300 theaters. That might be too many to thrive. Let's hope I'm being too pessimistic.
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The Boy Next Door only cost $4 million to make and even if its P&A budget was just north of $20 million, it made enough worldwide to cover that. All it needs to do on the home market is cover any additional production and advertising costs to break even. However, it earned reviews that were just 11% positive. Is it really this bad? Or were the critics unfairly harsh on the movie?
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February was strong thanks to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and Fifty Shades of Grey, both of which beat expectations. This March could actually be even better, as there are three or four films that have a decent shot at earning $100 million or more. The top film will likely be Cinderella, which has a real shot at $200 million. Insurgent will almost assuredly get beyond the $100 million mark, while Get Hard, Home, and perhaps Chappie will also get to the century mark. Last March, there were four $100 million hits, led by Divergent, which pulled in $150 million. While this March should be better than February, I'm not sure it will be better than last March. I don't think March 2015 will be much worse than last year, but I think its percentage lead will be chipped away at by the end of the month.
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2014 is over and for the most part, December was a soft ending to a weak year. This is bad news for two reasons. Firstly, it means the overall box office is still soft and it is unlikely that January will start strong. Secondly, last January was a great month, thanks in part to Frozen and other holdovers. The slump can't last forever and Taken 3 should help 2015 get off to a reasonably fast start and it even has a shot at $100 million. American Sniper got off to a really fast start in limited release, so it too could be a hit when it expands wide. By comparison, last January was led by Ride Along, but there were only two other films that didn't completely bomb. I want to say 2015 will start out on a winning note, but given the box office losing streak, it will likely pay to be pessimistic.
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While there are a lot of new releases listed on Amazon.com, it isn't long before you run into filler. Worse still, the top two selling movies, Jack Reacher and Save Haven, are just mediocre movies. The Great Escape is coming out on Blu-ray this week, which would normally be a reason to celebrate. However, a lot of reviewers are complaining about the poor video quality. The film needed, and deserves, a full restoration, but that didn't happen. We need to look further down the list to find a Pick of the Week contender, and we find one in 30 Rock: Season Seven.
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This movie came out during the height of the Bennifer backlash. Gigli did so poorly with critics and moviegoers that a lot of people were prejudging this film as soon as it was announced. It earned three Razzie nominations; however, Raquel Castro won a Young Artist Award for her performance in the film. Now that the mess surrounding the film is nearly a decade in the past, is it worth checking out? Or would it have failed under the best of circumstances?
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December ended on a positive note with 2012 topping 2011 with a week to spare. Hopefully this will translate into strong box office numbers going forward. There are several January releases that actually look very interesting, but you always have to ask, if the films are as good as they look, why are they opening in January? The biggest hit on this list will likely not be a January release, but a limited release from December that is expanding wide in January. Zero Dark Thirty opened in limited release the Wednesday before Christmas and right away it got off to an incredible start. If it can turn some of its Awards Season nominations into wins, which seems very likely at this point, it should be the biggest hit of January. If it can earn some major Oscars, then it might crack $100 million. Unfortunately, no other film on this release list is likely to come close to the $100 million mark. Last January was unseasonably strong with three films opening with $20 million or more and four films finishing with $50 million or more. It is possible that none of the new releases will reach those relatively weak standards.
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