August 3rd, 2011
Rango remained the best selling Blu-ray this week with 317,000 units / $6.34 million for the week and 670,000 units / $13.39 million after two.
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August 3rd, 2011
During its first full week on the home market, Rango led the weekly DVD sales chart, holding off a few new releases in the process (very few new releases).It sold an additional 621,000 units / $9.93 million during the week for totals of 1.18 million units / $20.43 million after two. That's very close to Gnomeo & Juliet's running tally, and that DVD was released two months ago.
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July 28th, 2011
Despite only going on sale on Friday, Rango led all new releases and took top spot on the Blu-ray sales chart. It wasn't even really close, as it sold 353,000 units and generated $7.05 million. Its opening week Blu-ray ratio of 37% is strong, especially for a kids movie.
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July 26th, 2011
Despite only coming out on Friday, Rango was the best new release and led the weekly DVD sales chart. From Friday through Sunday, the film sold 611,000 units while generating $9.77 million in sales.
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July 11th, 2011
After one of the worst weeks on the home market I've seen, there's an uptick of first run releases this week. This includes the first release of 2011 to reach $100 million at the box office, Rango. However, that film doesn't hit the home market till Friday, so this Tuesday is even weaker. There are a few other midlevel releases coming out this week to bolster the overall strength of the market, but while it is better than most third quarter offerings, I'm still itching for the fall to start. As for the best release of the week, Rango's Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack is the clear winner there and it is our Pick of the Week.
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July 10th, 2011
I had low expectations for The Lincoln Lawyer for a number of reasons. It's a legal thriller, which is a genre that has fallen out of fashion. Its star, Matthew McConaughey, has a track record that has been soft of late, especially with critics. However, it earned more than twice as much money at the box office than I was expecting, and was an equally surprising hit with critics as well. Does it deserve this critical success? Will it find an even larger audience on the home market?
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April 3rd, 2011
Universal have a shot at posting the biggest opening of 2011, thanks to a stronger than expected opening for Hop, which is currently estimated to open with $38.118 million. If that number holds up, it would just beat the $38.079 million opening enjoyed by Rango at the beginning of March. Encouraging as that performance is, it also highlights the overall weakness of the market in 2011, as four movies had opened over $40 million by this time last year, and Clash of the Titans debuted with $61 million the first weekend of April, making for another tough year-to-year comparison. The weekend as a whole will likely be down around 27% from last year, continuing the industry's losing streak into the second quarter.
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March 28th, 2011
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules opened on the high end of expectations while Sucker Punch opened on the low end of expectations, which meant there wasn't a really tight race for top spot at the box office this weekend. The overall box office was healthy with a total haul of $121 million, which was close to 6% higher than last weekend, but it was also close to 6% lower than the same weekend last year. On the one hand, this is arguably the best performance 2011 has had so far, as the only time we've won on the year-over-year comparison was when 2011 has a holiday that didn't line up with 2010. On the other hand, 2011 is still half a billion dollars behind 2010's pace at $2.18 billion to $2.69 billion.
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March 27th, 2011
The last weekend in March have brought us another pair of movies opening in the high teens to low twenties. This time around Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules was the low-twenties movie, picking up a very respectable $24.4 million on debut, which is a shade ahead of the $22 million earned by the first film in the franchise this time last year. Sucker Punch produced a slightly disappointing $19 million opening weekend, which is a drop in the bucket compared to its $75 million budget. It'll need good international numbers and a strong home market performance to recoup costs.
Overall box office will be down about 7% from last year, continuing 2011's losing streak, although that makes this one of the better weekends of the year so far.
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March 24th, 2011
Predicting the winner at the box office this weekend could be tough, as there appears to be no real consensus on which film has the advantage. This is mostly due to uncertainty with one of the films, with just as many analysts predicting Sucker Punch will win with ease as are predicting that film will really struggle. On the other hand, there is a pretty strong consensus with regards to the overall box office when compared to last year and there's almost no chance 2011 will keep pace with 2010. Worse case scenario has Sucker Punch and Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Rodick Rules combined opening with less than How to Train Your Dragon opened with. This means March will end on a low note, which has happened far too often this year.
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March 21st, 2011
It was another poor weekend at the box office and none of the new wide releases were blockbusters, but on the plus side, none were bombs either. The overall box office was down 11% from last weekend to $115 million, which was 9% lower than the same weekend last year. However, that was actually much better than 2011 has managed for most of the year. Year-to-date, 2011 is still off of 2010's pace by 20% at $2.52 billion to $2.02 billion and that likely won't change till Memorial day. Hopefully it won't be too late to turn things around by then.
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March 20th, 2011
The North American box office showed further glimmers of hope this weekend, with no less than five movies vying for top spot on the chart, and Limitless handily beating expectations to finish first. Its $19 million debut is the best so far for Relativity Media's fledgling distribution organization. Overall, however, box office will be down around 10% from last year, continuing a losing streak that will almost certainly extend to cover the entire first quarter.
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March 17th, 2011
Three wide releases come out this week, all of which have the potential to reach first place, and there's a slim chance they will finish one-two-three. On the other hand, there are also two holdovers that have a reasonable shot at first place as well, meaning the new releases could be fighting for scraps at the box office. Regardless, there's little hope that the total box office will match last year's pace, as Alice in Wonderland was still dominating the chart. Best case scenario, there's a close race for top spot with a couple of the new releases pulling in $30 million, or close to it. Worst case scenario has no new release earning half that. Unfortunately, the low end seems more likely.
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March 1st, 2011
This is going to suck. February wasn't exactly a banner month at the box office and 2011 is already roughly $400 million behind 2010's pace. To make matters worse, last March broke records starting with the release of Alice in Wonderland. There is no movie coming out this month that will come close to Alice in Wonderland's performance; in fact, the number one film this March will likely not do as well as the second best film from last March. The best case scenario has the month producing three $100 million movies, plus a number of midlevel hits, while still failing to match last year's pace by about $100 million. The worst case scenario has two of the three potential $100 million hits missing that mark, plus the midlevel hits also struggling. In that case, we could end March about $300 million further behind 2010's pace. (Hopefully things will start to turn around in April.)
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