February 13, 2012
The Adventures Of Chuck And Friends is a preschool show from HubBub, a block of kids shows on Hub, which is a cable channel that is a joint venture from Discovery and Hasbro. The network has many popular shows, including Transformers: Prime, R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, and of course My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The Adventures Of Chuck And Friends is obviously aimed at a much younger audience than those shows, and Friends To The Finish has competition from many preschool shows that release DVDs on a regular basis. So can it compete and will preschoolers enjoy the show?
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February 13, 2012
The latest Dora The Explorer DVD, Dora's Easter Adventure, features three episodes, including the Easter special that gives the DVD its name. What are the other episodes found on the DVD and are there enough extras to make it worth picking up?
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February 12, 2012
It wasn't that long ago that I was reviewing this Most Wanted, but now Beavis and Butthead has returned with new episodes and their first all new DVD / Blu-ray release hits the home market this week. But has the show been able to make the transition to this decade? Or does it feel terribly dated?
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February 12, 2012
Texas Killing Fields had quite a bit of buzz going into its release, at least compared to most limited releases. It was only the second film directed by Ami Canaan Mann, daughter of Michael Mann, who acted as the producer for this film. It has a cast that most limited releases couldn't hope to dream of. It stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is best known for his part in Supernatural, as well as Watchmen and other TV shows and movies; Sam Worthington, who starred in Avatar, the biggest movie of all time; Jessica Chastain, who was earning Oscar buzz from her performances in Tree of Life and The Help and recently earned an Oscar nomination for the latter; and Chloë Grace Moretz, who despite being just 14 years old, has proven she can more than hold her own against actors who have been in the business for much longer than she's been alive. That said, the film struggled during its opening and disappeared just a few weeks later. Does it deserve to find an audience on the home market?
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February 12, 2012
The industry's good start to 2012 gained some more momentum this weekend as all four new releases performed at or beyond expectations. The Vow will lead the way, based on Sony's projection, with $41.7 million, which is a little less than 2010's Valentine's Day, although that film had the advantage of both Valentine's Day itself, and a four-day weekend. Safe House will open with around $39.3 million for Universal, which will be the studio's best opening since Fast Five in April of last year. Journey 2: Mysterious Island is set for $27.55 million, according to Warner Bros., and Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace will pick up $23 million or so for Fox. That foursome will ensure a record is set this weekend: for the first time, four films will open with over $20 million on a non-holiday weekend.
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February 10, 2012
Up the Creek is one of many Slobs vs. Snobs films that populated the 1980s. Animal House helped invigorate the genre in 1978, but there were countless examples of the genre in the following decade. Caddyshack, Meatballs, Revenge of the Nerds, Real Genius, The Sure Thing, etc. The story of the rich and popular vs. the underclass and outcasts is a classic one, but Up the Creek is not one of the better known examples of the story. (In fact, there are no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.) So is this a buried gem that is finally getting a chance to be rediscovered? Or should it have remained buried.
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February 10, 2012
First of all, I'm equally proud and ashamed for making that pun in the title. Secondly, it's another Oscar week on the limited releases with three Oscars nominees on the list: Chico and Rita, In Darkness, and 2012 Oscar Shorts coming out. Additionally, while Rampart didn't earn any Oscar nods, it did pick up an Independent Spirit Award nomination, so there are some high quality movies to check out this week.
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February 10, 2012
Next weekend, the widest release of the week will be This Means War; however, while the film opens on Friday, it has previews on Tuesday, Valentine's Day. I don't know how this will effect the film's box office numbers. I'm not even sure Tuesday's numbers will be kept separate from the weekend numbers. Because of this added complication, we are going to use Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance as the target film in this week's Box Office Prediction Contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
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 Rebecca on Blu-ray.
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 Spellbound on Blu-ray.
Meanwhile, an additional entrant will be chosen and they will win a copy of Notorious on Blu-ray.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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February 9, 2012
Releasing films on DVD-R is a convenient way to deal with lesser known catalog titles. Being able to burn a DVD on demand reduces the upfront cost, you don't need a warehouse to store the Blu-rays, etc. It has become popular for studios releasing their third and fourth titles that no one expects special features for. Last November 23rd, there was a flood of such releases, including Inside Out, but the screener for that film arrived just last week. Is the 1975 film worth checking out? Or was is best forgotten?
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February 9, 2012
2012 has beaten 2011 every single weekend so far and we could see that streak survive at least one more weekend thanks to three wide releases: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Safe House, and The Vow, plus a re-release, Star Wars Ep. I: The Phantom Menace. That's a crowded slate and normally I would assume one or more of the films would be squeezed out at the box office, but now I'm not so sure, as even the weakest amongst them is tracking for close to $20 million. By comparison, this weekend last year three films earned more than $25 million and only one new release failed to connect with audiences. So it could be a tough race, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
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February 9, 2012
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 Feature-Length Documentary, which is about as competitive as Best Animated Feature Film, for the same reasons. The two films I thought were most likely to win, Bill Cunningham New York and Project Nim, weren't even nominated. There are still favorites and long shots, but there should be a competitive race.
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February 9, 2012
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 Animated Feature Film, which is surprisingly competitive this year, especially compared to most years. There's no Pixar film nominated, one of the best-reviewed cartoons was snubbed, the winner at the Golden Globes and PGAs was also snubbed, and two of the nominees were virtually unknown films before they were announced. It could be hard to pick a winner.
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February 8, 2012
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol has reached two milestones since last week, reaching $400 million internationally and $600 million worldwide. It added $24.31 million on 6,259 screens in 51 markets over the weekend and now has $420.83 million internationally and $626.03 million worldwide. Of its weekend haul, $20 million came from China, which was $7 million more than last week's opening.
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February 8, 2012
The winners of our Black Friday contest were determined and they are...
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February 8, 2012
An Inconsistent Truth repeated on top of the per theater chart with $12,176 in one theater. However, while it won, it fell more than 40%, which is closer to a wide release than a limited release. W.E. was very close behind with an average of $11,769 in four theaters.
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February 8, 2012
There was no competition on the Blu-ray sales chart, as Real Steel topped all new releases and holdovers by a healthy margin. It sold 799,000 units and generated $22.36 million in sales giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 54%. Hopefully we will see a lot more films crack 50% as the winter blockbusters start to come out.
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February 8, 2012
This was not a deep week for new releases, as only two of them cracked the top 30. (One major new release was only released as a Blu-ray / DVD combo pack, so we will get to those numbers shortly.) We did have a new number one on the DVD sales chart, as Real Steel sold 691,000 units and generated $12.03 million in revenue. This is not a great start, but it performed better on Blu-ray.
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February 7, 2012
The biggest release of the week on the home market is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray ... on Saturday. So you still have a few more days to wait. As for the best release of the week, that's Lady and the Tramp, which is making its Blu-ray and is our Pick of the Week.
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February 7, 2012
Love Story opened in 1970 and was one of the first films to reach $100 million during its initial run. It also reinvigorated the melodrama and practically created the tearjerker chick flick, at least what we think about the genre now. It earned seven Oscar nominations, winning for Best Score. That said, the film didn't earn great reviews during its initial release and at the moment its Tomatometer Score is under the overall positive level. So who was right?
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February 7, 2012
Our annual Predict the Academy Awards competition is back again for its 15th year, and once more we're
giving you the chance to win all of the Best Picture nominees. As an added bonus, this year the winner
will get to choose between the DVD and the Blu-ray versions of each film.
To win, all you need to do is predict the winners in each category. Whoever gets the most predictions
correct, and enters their predictions the first will win. As regular contestants will know, we have
a couple of special rules to make things more interesting. First, once you have entered your predictions,
you can see running vote totals for all the films. And second, if you change your mind once you've seen
how everyone else has voted, you can go back and change your entry! In fact, you can change your votes
as many times as you like, up to the deadline of noon on Oscar day, February 26.
Once the contest is closed, we will publish predicted winners in each category based on the vote totals.
Over the years, The Numbers readers have been remarkably accurate in predicting the winners in all
categories, with our current score running 11 out of 14 for Best Picture winners, and 9 out of 10 for
Best Animated feature. A list of the top 50 players of all time in the contest is available
here.
See our complete set of rules for more information.
Click Here to Enter!
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February 7, 2012
The latest Disney cartoon classic to get a Blu-ray release is Lady and the Tramp. The film is close to 60 years old and perhaps times have changed. Or maybe it's considered a classic for a reason. If it is a classic, does the Blu-ray do it justice?
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February 7, 2012
It was Super Bowl weekend, which apparently some people care about. (Not me. Go B.C. Lions!) The crossover audience between the Super Bowl and most movies is quite high, so it is no real shock that the box office was down compared to last weekend. However, it was only down 8% to $116 million. This was 33% higher than the same weekend last year. Both Chronicle and The Woman in Black topped expectations by significant degrees, while the weakest movie the top five missed weekend predictions by less than $1 million. Year-to-date, 2012 is ahead of 2011's pace by 12% at $964 million to $850 million. Before we get too excited, by this weekend in 2010, the box office had already pulled in $1.21 billion.
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February 6, 2012
A couple of weeks ago, I thought Project Nim was the favorite to win the Best Documentary at the Oscars. However, it wasn't even nominated. Was I sucked into the hype? Or was this one of this year's big Oscar snubs.
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February 6, 2012
Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred is the second movie starring Lucas Cruikshank as Fred Figglehorn. For those who don't know, Fred Figglehorn was an YouTube sensation and combined his videos were seen more than 800 million times. I'm not in the legion of his fans and quite far outside of his target demographic (tweens), but I have seen many other films and TV shows aimed at the same target demographic, so I should be able to tell how strong this one is in comparison.
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February 6, 2012
Father Dowling Mysteries ran during the late 1980s and 1990s at a time when there were an plethora of murder mystery shows on network TV. And I mean that literally. There were simply too many of them at the time and this show was never a big hit and lasted only two half-seasons and one full season. Now that it is coming out on DVD for the first time, will old fans want to check it out again? Will new fans be impressed by what they see?
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February 5, 2012
It's a little hard to describe this DVD release. It's for the TV movie Geek Charming. However, the extras including ten episodes of Shake It Up!, which are more episodes than most Tween TV on DVD releases have. So is this a TV movie release with a TV show as extras? Or is it a TV on DVD release with a TV movie as an extra? Are either of them worth checking out?
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February 5, 2012
The industry's healthy start to 2012 will continue this weekend thanks to two more good opening weekends. Chronicle is currently favorite to win the weekend, with Fox predicting a $22 million opening. CBS Films is pegging The Woman in Black at $21 million (a record for the fledgling studio). Both figures are predicated on historical models for SuperBowl Sunday, which can be a difficult day to predict, so the final order between the two could yet switch, although Chronicle is heavily favored to win at this point. Overall box office will be up about 35% from last year, although that reflects the very weak start to 2011. This weekend looks as though it will be about average for a SuperBowl weekend overall.
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February 5, 2012
Continuing the Oscar theme today, we have a triple-shot from arguably the greatest director to never win an Oscar: Alfred Hitchcock. A couple weeks ago, Rebecca, Spellbound, and Notorious made their Blu-ray debuts. These are three of his earliest American films and combined they won three Oscars and nineteen nominations. So they were considered classics back then. But do they hold up today? And are the Blu-rays worth picking up?
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February 4, 2012
Woody Allen had the biggest hit in his career this year with Midnight in Paris (in terms of raw dollars, not ticket sales). It just picked up several Oscar nominations and there's a chance it could win. It makes perfect sense with the publicity surrounding that film to release some of his older films on Blu-ray. Recently Annie Hall and Manhattan came out on high definition, but have they aged well? And are the Blu-rays worth picking up?
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February 3, 2012
Talk of Oscars is still dominating art house aficionados, so it comes as no surprise that the list of limited releases is not particularly strong this weekend. That's not to say there are no films worthy of watching, but it is unlikely any of them will be major hits. There are a few noteworthy releases, including W.E., Madonna's attempt at winning an Oscar. It won't. The Innkeepers is the widest release of the week and it is also earning good reviews. However, its the wrong genre for limited release. And finally, there's Moon Point, a Canadian film opening in Toronto. There are Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and cast for the evening shows over the weekend as an added bonus.
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February 3, 2012
The widest release of next week is Journey 2: The Mysterious Island; however, I think Safe House will have the biggest opening weekend of the four wide releases / re-releases. As such, it is the target film in this week's Box Office Prediction Contest. Meanwhile, since our Oscar Prediction contest begins next week, this week's prizes are two films that battled for Oscar glory in the past. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Safe House.
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 Annie Hall on Blu-ray.
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 Manhattan of Blu-ray.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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February 3, 2012
The Apartment came out on Blu-ray a couple weeks ago, maybe. I received an offer to review the Blu-ray, I jumped at the chance, but then the Amazon.com link said, "Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available." However, I got a screener in the mail anyway, so maybe this is just an issue with Amazon, one that they will clear up shortly. In the meantime, how is the movie? And how is its Blu-ray debut.
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February 2, 2012
There are two important dates in February: Valentine's Day and Presidents Day. This weekend deals with neither of those, so it is probably going to be a little soft at the box office. On the other hand, all three films opening this weekend, Big Miracle, Chronicle, and The Woman in Black, have overall positive reviews and are averaging around 75% positive (That might change by the end of the evening as more reviews come in.) By comparison, this weekend last year saw the release of The Roommate and Sanctum, both of which earned terrible reviews and neither of which earned a lot at the box office. Those two films combined earned just under $25 million over the weekend, while there's a slim, slim chance The Woman in Black will make that much by itself. Even on the low end, the top two new releases should match that, while this year appears to have the advantage with depth as well. I'm almost feeling optimistic. ... I may have just cursed the box office.
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February 1, 2012
It was a good weekend for Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It crossed $200 million domestically and jumped back to first place on the international chart with $25.23 million on 6,411 screens in 56 markets. It now has $369.37 million internationally and $571.93 million worldwide, which is the best in the franchise. The film earned first place with $12.7 million on 3000 screens in China, but had to settle for second place in Italy with $3.01 million on 575. It will quickly cross $600 million worldwide, even though it has no more major markets left to open in.
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February 1, 2012
The winners of our Colorful Character contest were determined and they are...
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February 1, 2012
2012 got off to a great start, with January earning four wins in a row in the year-over-year comparison and finishing the month with a double-digit lead over 2011's pace. This has made me very hopeful going forward. That said, there are fourteen films opening wide or being re-released wide in February, and I don't think there's a $100 million hit in the group. In fact, I don't think any will get all that close to the century mark. There are several that should be solid mid-level hits and with a little luck, half of them could reached $50 million and there are five that could reach $75 million. Last February, Just Go With It topped $100 million while Gnomeo and Juliet came within $33,000 of doing the same. We won't replicate that this year, so we have to hope for a lot more depth. If films like Safe House, Journey 2, Ghost Rider 2, The Phantom Menace: 3D and The Vow all meet expectations, then perhaps 2012 will continue its hot start.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
