October 14th, 2013
It's a good week on the home market with two $100 million hits coming out: The Heat and Pacific Rim. I've heard good things about both films, but unfortunately, neither screener has arrived. Also, while we have two big release on top, there's not a lot of depth and we quickly run into releases that would be filler during a normal week. At the time I started this column, no new releases for the week had arrived on time, but at least that gave me a chance to get a bit caught up on some of the previous late arrivals. This list includes two contenders for Pick of the Week: White Collar: Season Four and Modern Family: Season Four on DVD or Blu-ray. Both are must haves, but the latter won out for Pick of the Week honors.
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July 1st, 2013
For the most part, June was a really strong month at the box office with nearly every film either matching expectations, or at least coming close enough to call it a victory. Looking forward, there are a dozen films opening wide in July, more or less. One of them, The Smurfs 2, is opening on a Wednesday, so I'm going to hold off talking about that movie till the August preview. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain is opening in less than 1000 theaters, but it has a shot at reaching the top ten during its opening weekend. If we include both of them, there are twelve films, but I think it is better to stick with the ten truly wide, truly July openings. Of these, Despicable Me 2 is clearly going to be the biggest hit at the box office. It could become the second biggest hit of the year so far. It is not the only film that could be a $100 million hit. In fact, there are six films opening in July that I think have a better than 50% chance of reaching that level. There is currently only one film that I think won't at least become a midlevel hit. By comparison in 2012, there were three $100 million movies, led by The Dark Knight Rises, but the rest of the new releases struggled. There's no chance any movie opening this month will top $400 million, in fact, it is quite possible no film will get to $300 million. That said, 2013 has a lot better depth, so it might come out on top in the end.
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