This graph shows Meryl Streep’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
There are a lot of excellent films on this week’s list. Not only that, but there are a wide selections of films as well. Do you want to watch a documentary? Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is your best bet. Want to watch a potential Oscar-winning performance? Then Judy is for you. Want a Neo-Noir love story? First Love has what you need. Want to stay home and watch something on VOD? There are several choices there, both big and small.
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June was amazing, with two absolutemonster hits and a solid $100 million hit. By the end of the month, 2018’s lead over 2017 will be well over $500 million, or close to 10%. Even if 2018 only managed to maintain this lead in terms of raw numbers for the rest of the year, it will be a massive jump at the box office. As for July, there are a couple of potential monster hits, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Mission: Impossible—Fallout, plus four potential $100 million hits. Last July, there was only one monster hit, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and three$100 millionhits. I don’t think 2018 will match 2017 at the top, but 2018 appears to have more depth and that should put it a little ahead over the full month.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I will be happy no matter who wins Best Supporting Actress. One last note: The contest is still going and the leading for Best Picture Switched from The Shape of Water to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to tied over the time I was writing this story. This is the closest I’ve ever seen it. Guessing the best picture correctly will go a long way to winning.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try to figure out who the favorites are and who should just feel honored to be nominated. This week we have been looking at the four acting categories, ending with Best Lead Actress. In this category, there is an overwhelming favorite. ... Most of the categories we will talk about next week are much more competitive.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year and no one has been able to adequately explain why to me. At least there were some interesting results this year. The Shape of Water led the way with 13 nominations, which is one below the current record and nearly as many as the next two films combined. Overall, there were seventeen films that earned two or more nominations.
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2017 wasn’t a good year. It started out well and ended on a high note, but the summer was a disaster and that proved to be too much for the rest of the year to overcome. Fortunately, The Last Jedi and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle are still doing very well and will help January get off to a fast start. Unfortunately, the biggest new release of January is Paddington 2 and it isn’t expected to match its predecessor at the box office; it certainly won’t top $100 million domestically. It is unlikely any of the Oscar contenders will hit the century mark in January either. This is really bad news, as last January, we had a new release, Split and an Oscar contender, Hidden Figures, which both topped that milestone with ease. 2018 should get off to a faster start in the first two weeks, but overall, this month will end with a loss.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. Sort of. (WGA announced the nominations for TV, radio, etc., but not their theatrical nods.) It is still very early in the year, so it is hard to say if there are any real snubs, or if there are any real favorites. The Shape of Water led the way with seven nominations, while The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were right behind with six a piece.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, 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. Today we look at Best Leading Actress, which is not competitive. There’s an overwhelming favorite, a long shot with a shot, and then everyone else.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at 5:18 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, it’s a boring year for nominations with very few surprises worth talking about, especially in the biggest categories. Leading the way was La La Land with 14 nominations, tying the record.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and it should come as no surprise what film lead the way... La La Land with 11 nominations, Nocturnal Animals and Arrival are tied for second with nine nominations a piece.
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The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. So far there have been three different films earning the most nominations. This could mean the Oscar race will be a lot closer than in past years. This time around Manchester by the Sea led the way with four nominations.
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The Golden Globes nominations were announced and we are starting to see a few names pop up over and over again. La La Land led the way with seven nominations, but Moonlight was right behind with six and Manchester by the Sea earned five. You will be hearing those three names over and over and over again this Awards Season.
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This is a strange week on the home market. We have one of the biggest domestic hits of the year, Suicide Squad, but it is one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year. (Granted, I’ve done fewer reviews this year and skipped a lot of terrible looking movies, like Independence Day: Resurgence, Warcraft, Gods of Egypt, Allegiant... Ben Hur, The Huntsman, The Legend of Tarzan. I could keep going. Wow! It was a bad year for $100 million movies.) After Suicide Squad, the next biggest release according to Amazon is the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series Collector's EditionBlu-ray. That’s a huge drop in sales. As far as quality is concerned, I have to give a shout out to that World Series Blu-ray. Real fans want full games and this one provides them. On the other hand, I personally find baseball boring to watch. Unfortunately, there’s no one release that stands out as an obvious Pick of the Week, but instead we have a lot of releases that are close, but wouldn’t be close enough during a good week. The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series on Blu-ray is the best, assuming you didn’t grab the individual seasons when they came out.
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Sausage Party actually earned first place on Friday with $13.5 million, putting it just ahead of Suicide Squad. That lead won’t last, as new releases almost never has an internal multiplier as big as holdovers do. The film does have excellent reviews, but only earned a B CinemaScore. This could mean critics liked the film more than its target audience and it will have short legs. Or it could mean it is a more niche market release and it will be a cult classic in a few years. Regardless, a $33 million opening is in the works, which is excellent for a film that cost $19 million to make.
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Sausage Party got off to a fast start with $3.25 million in previews. By comparison, Bad Moms earned $2 million during its previews two weeks ago, on its way to a $23.82 million opening weekend. If the two films had the same legs for their opening weekends, then we would be looking at a $38 million debut. Sausage Party does have better reviews that Bad Momsearned, but Bad Moms is aimed at a female demographic and generally speaking, women are less likely to rush out to see a movie during previews. So I think it is wise to be a little more cautious, but an opening weekend of over $30 million is still reason to celebrate.
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Before we talk about the weekend predictions... If you can read this, it means my transfer worked well enough and I can do work from my parents house while pet-sitting. I will be at my parents place for three weeks looking after their dog and cat. I was at their house for less than 30 minutes before stepping into a puddle of dog drool. It is going to be a very long three weeks. ... As for the releases for the week, they are all amazing. The film earning the weakest reviews at the moment is Sausage Party, which is earning 82% positive reviews. 82% positive is the weakest of the three wide releases. That's amazing. On the other hand, it won't be the biggest release of the week. Pete’s Dragon has a better than 50/50 chance at reaching $100 million in total; however, as a family film, it will start relatively slow, but have good legs. Finally, there’s Florence Foster Jenkins, which is an early Oscar contender. It is not opening in a lot of theaters, so it is going to need great word-of-mouth to thrive. None of these new releases will match last year’s number one film, Straight Outta Compton, so it will be up to Suicide Squad to keep 2016 on the winning track. I think it will collapse by more than 60%, but 2016 has a lot better depth than 2015 and it will come out on top.
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July did reasonably well, thanks mostly to The Secret Life of Pets, which will top $300 million shortly and could earn double its nearest competitor when all is said and done. That said, there were also a quartet of $100 million hits as well, so the month had good depth as well. August isn’t as lucky. There is one film that is expected to earn $100 million during its opening weekend, Suicide Squad, and one more that is expected to reach $100 million in total, Pete’s Dragon. There could be a surprise hit among the rest of the releases, (my long shot with a shot is Sausage Party) but for the most part, the rest of the wide releases would be happy with just $50 million at the box office. Last August was a disaster and Straight Outta Compton was the only hit of the month. Unless Suicide Squad bombs compared to expectations, 2016 will come out ahead in the year-over-year comparison.
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The Oscar nominations were announced at 5:30 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, this was a terrible year for snubs, especially when it comes to diversity of the nominees. The voters for the Oscars are 94% white and 77% male... but that's still more diverse than the list of nominees. The Revenant led the way with 12 nominations and it is expected to win a few of those, while it is a serious contender in most of the categories it was nominated in.
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This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, which means Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While the sales usually mean a massive increase in units sold, the sales also tend to scare away new releases. This is certainly the case here and this week's list is very short as a result. That's not to say there are no releases worth picking up. In fact, there are several Pick of the Week contenders, led by Shaun the Sheep on Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray Combo Pack. Meanwhile, for the second week in a row, we have a Puck of the Week, for best Canadian release, Guidance on DVD.
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There's quite a few strong limited releases on this week's list, including Suffragette, which is earning by far the loudest buzz. Its reviews are good, but not great. On the other hand, Difret's reviews are great, but it has far less mainstream appeal. Bone Tomahawk has the potential to become a cult favorite, but it is playing on Video on Demand, so it likely won't make an impact at the box office.
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Straight Outta Compton destroyed expectations earning even more than the outlier prediction I saw. Sadly, our predictions for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. turned out to be too optimistic, but overall the box office was still very strong. In fact, it grew 12% from last week to $148 million. Growth like that almost never happens at this time of year. Compared to last year, the box office was also strong, albeit by a smaller 3.7% margin. That said, a win is a win and worth celebrating, especially after a couple of strong declines. Year-to-date, 2015 maintains a strong lead over 2014 at $7.09 billion to $6.73 billion. A 5.4% lead year-over-year is a great margin for this time of year and it would take a really serious collapse to put that lead at risk. I don't think that's going to happen. In fact, there are three potential $1 billion hits yet to open in theaters, which is actually better than it was last year. Add in the number of potential $100 million hits and the lead could grow through till the end of the year.
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There could be a close race on top of the box office chart with Fantastic Four trying to unseat Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation as box office champion. This should be the number one story of the weekend; however, if I'm right and Fantastic Four does as poorly as I think it will, then the franchise will be in the hands of Marvel Studios by the end of the weekend. None of the other three wide releases are guaranteed to top $10 million over the weekend. In fact, it is very likely that one of them, Shaun of the Sheep, will miss the top five. This weekend last year was led by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with $65.58 million. Guardians of the Galaxy was second with $42.12 million. I don't think any film opening this weekend will match Guardians of the Galaxy, while there's a chance all four combined won't match TMNT. 2015 is going to take a beating on the year-over-year comparison.
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It is still a little too soon to tell how July will finish, as we don't have any numbers for the final weekend at the time of writing. We know Minions was a monster hit and that Ant-man will be a financial success. However, until we see how Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation does, it will be impossible to call the month a true success. If Rogue Nation bombed this weekend, then the month is only a partial success. It would also mean the summer of 2015 could be coming to an abrupt end. As for August, only Fantastic Four has a better than 50/50 chance of reaching $100 million; although some people think Straight Outta Compton also has a shot at that milestone. Besides those two, only a couple of other films even have a realistic shot at becoming midlevel hits. Worse still, last August was amazing with Guardians of the Galaxy breaking records. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also did better than expected with a domestic haul of nearly $200 million. No release this August is going to match that figure. There's a good chance the top two releases combined won't do so. Fortunately, 2015 has a sizable lead over 2014, so even a soft month will keep 2015 ahead in the year-over-year comparison.
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Into the Woods first debuted 30 years ago in 1985 starting its Broadway run a year later. The show's original Broadway run earned three Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards, while the 2002 revival was nearly as well received with award voters. It is not a surprise that the film was turned into a big budget musical. However, does the theatrical version of Into the Woods live up to the source material? Will fans of musicals who haven't seen the original like it?
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, 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. Today we look at the two supporting actor categories, starting with Best Supporting Actress. Three of the four acting categories have almost no suspense to them, as there is an overwhelming favorite amongst the five nominees. This is not the exception.
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The Oscar nominations were announced early in the morning, when all sensible people were asleep. There were some surprises, as well as some results that would have been surprises had it not been for the previous Awards Season nominations. Seventeen films earned two or more nods, led by Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, both of which picked up nine nominations, while The Imitation Game was right behind with eight.
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The Golden Globes nominations were announced this morning, at three in the morning, because the people at Golden Globes are under the delusion that news announced at 3:00 a.m. is somehow more important if it is announced before anyone is awake. As for the actual nominations, like with the Independent Spirit Awards and the SAG nominations, Birdman led the way. It earned seven nominations, while Boyhood and The Imitation Game tied for second with five apiece. Starting to notice a pattern here? This could be a really dull Awards Season with very few surprises. On the other hand, predictable means less work for me. Plus, predictable probably means the Awards Season voters are making the right choices, as surprises usually mean someone made the wrong choice.
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November is over and there are not a lot of positive things to say about what happened during the month. There were a couple of films that matched expectations, but there were no breakout hits and a few that missed expectations by wide margins. Granted, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 will top $300 million with relative ease, but that's still nearly $100 million lower than some people were predicting. The month ends with 2014 about $300 million behind 2013's pace and there's really no chance to catch up in December. That doesn't mean there are no films that will be worth watching in December. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies should at least earn $200 million, while $300 million is not out of the question. Additionally, there are several films that at least have a shot at $100 million at the box office, but not all will get there. At least this December and last December are on par with each other. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug topped $250 million while there were three others that topped $100 million. I think we will get the same result this month. Last year there were a lot more wide releases, but many of them bombed. I think this year the lack of competition will help more films reach their potential.
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July was... well... let's just pretend it didn't happen. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes did well, but week after week 2014 fell further behind 2013 in the year-to-date comparison. At the moment, we are roughly $400 million behind last year's pace and while I don't think August will continue the losing streak, there's really no chance August will put a dent in that number. It looks more and more likely that Guardians of the Galaxy will be a hit, especially given its early reviews, but it could be the last $100 million hit till October, if the bad buzz surrounding Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turns into bad ticket sales. Last August there were two films that reached $100 million, plus two others that came close. This August might match that, while the biggest film this year should top the biggest film from last year. I think the slump 2014 is suffering through will end the first weekend and overall I think it will cut the deficit a little bit. That said, summer 2014 will still end as one of the worst recent summers at the box office.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, 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. This week we will look at the four acting categories, finishing with Best Lead Actress. Unlike last year, this year the race is far more competitive in nearly all of the of the four acting categories this year. The person seen as the favorite has switched, more than once, and at the moment, I'm not sure who is going to win.
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The Oscar nominations were announced this morning and there are some surprises mixed in with the predictable results. Gravity and American Hustle led the way with ten nominations each while 12 Years a Slave was right behind with nine. The fact that 12 Years a Slave wasn't the leader is the first of the surprises.
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Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their Golden Globe nominations this week, and a clear picture is forming. 12 Years a Slave was again the recipient of the most nominations, but this time it was a tie, as it and American Hustle both grabbed seven nominations. If you look down the list of other multi-nominated films, you will find a number of familiar faces.
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The latest film in the Disneynature line is Wings of Life. However, unlike Earth or Oceans or most of the rest, this one didn't get a big theatrical release, but instead came out direct-to-DVD. Is there a reason it wasn't released in theaters?
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The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations and the same list of films that have been mentioned since the beginning of Awards Season were rewarded today. Lincoln led the way with seven nods, while Argo and Django Unchained were close behind with five.
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