December 8th, 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and Super 8 had legitimate claim to top spot in this week's Blu-ray sales chart. The holdover sold more units at 550,000 units to 503,000 units, but the newcomer led the way in revenue at $11.49 million to $9.89 million. That represented an opening week Blu-ray ratio of 55%, which should make the studio happy. Also of note this week, the final Harry Potter release became the best selling Blu-ray of the year with 3.95 million units sold and $86.16 million in total revenue so far.
More...
December 6th, 2011
Cars 2 returned to top spot on the DVD Sales Chart this week thanks in part to Black Friday sales. Over the week it sold 1.06 million units, lifting its totals to 3.86 million units / $61.14 million putting into fourth place for 2011.
More...
November 22nd, 2011
It's kind of a slow week on the home market in two ways. Firstly, the only major release of the week is Super 8. Secondly, half the releases I was supposed to review are running late. Fortunately, Super 8 is a top notch film and the Blu-ray Combo Pack is this week's Pick of the Week.
More...
August 29th, 2011
Hurricane Irene battered the east coast, which may have had a bigger impact at the box office than some were expecting, but at least it wasn't worst case scenario levels. The overall box office plummeted 25% to just $93 million. That wasn't the worst weekend of the year, but it came uncomfortably close. Compared to last year, the box office was down down 19%, meaning the year-to-date decline worsened. With 2011 down by 4.3% at $7.28 billion to $7.60 billion, the year is running out of time to make up the difference. If we go into the holiday season down by $320 million, it might be impossible to make up the ground, no matter how strong the Christmas releases are.
More...
August 25th, 2011
The winners of our Clash of the Non-Titans contest were determined and they are...
More...
August 24th, 2011
The Smurfs remained in first place with $35.18 million on 10,737 screens in 47 markets for a total of $211.52 million internationally and $329.07 million worldwide. The film had no major market openings this past weekend, but did add $3.95 million on 504 screens during its third weekend in Brazil and it now has $21.91 million in that market. That's like earning more than $200 million domestically. With openings in Italy, Japan, and Australia still ahead, the film should have no trouble getting to $400 million worldwide, which means it is on pace to earn a profit before the home market.
More...
August 22nd, 2011
Yuck. That's really all that needs to be said about the weekend box office. Outside of The Help, there are practically no positive stories to report. All four wide releases that opened this week missed expectations, some by significant margins, which led to a 20% collapse from last weekend. There was also a decline from last year, albeit by just 3%, which is actually an improvement on 2011's average. Year-to-date, 2011 is behind 2010 by just over 4% at $7.13 billion to $7.43 billion. There's little hope things will turn around next weekend.
More...
August 21st, 2011
Four weak debut weekends has gifted The Help a win at the box office as the historical drama posted an impressive 21% decline from last weekend to earn an estimated $20.479 million. The decline in percentage terms was helped by the fact that the film opened on a Wednesday, but it's still an impressive performance. Rise of the Apes help on to second place with $16.3 million in its third weekend, which is perhaps an even better indication of the level of disinterest in the new releases.
More...
August 19th, 2011
Four wide releases open this week, or three wide and one semi-wide, depending on how you define those terms. However, none of them look to be legitimate threats for top spot, as most analysts are predicting The Help will win the weekend. Rise of the Planet of the Apes has a pretty good shot at second place, so we could have the new releases battling for third place. That's kind of sad, but not without precedent. This time last year five films opened wide or semi-wide, but not a single one of them reached the teens at the box office. (Vampires Suck led the way with $12.20 million.) So there's a good chance that 2011 will come out ahead in the year-over-year comparison despite the rather weak selection of new releases.
More...
August 12th, 2011
I think it safe to say summer is over, as next week's batch of releases will all struggle just to be midlevel hits. Which one has the best shot at top spot? Not One Day, which is not opening truly wide. Other than that, it's is a coin toss. I'm going with... tails, Conan the Barbarian 3D as this week's target film. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Conan the Barbarian in 3D.
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 Clash on DVD.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of Clash on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
More...
August 1st, 2011
It's that time of year again, the time where we try to guess when Summer ends. According to the real world, Summer ends on the 22nd of September, but in the movie business, summer ends suddenly one weekend in August, and it's never really predictable which weekend that will be. There is some reason to be optimistic, as July ended on a relatively strong note. Both films that were predicted to be monster hits, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, were monster hits. And for every potential $100 million hit that missed expectations, there was another film that topped them. If this momentum can carry forward, then perhaps summer can be extended for for one or two more weeks. August of 2010 was a good end to the Summer with two $100 million movies and a few mid-level hits. I'm not sure if 2011 will be able to replicate that performance, but Summer could end on a high note.
More...
