June 22nd, 2013
It was a bad week for new releases. Granted, one of them earned top spot and there were three in the top five of the DVD sales chart, but it was a matter of terrible competition. Cloud Atlas led the way with 195,000 units / $2.92 million on DVD and 141,000 units / $3.30 million on Blu-ray. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 42%, which is better than most films. However, at this point having a good Blu-ray share is way too little, far too late. The film cost over $100 million to make, and total sales of 336,000 units / $5.04 million on DVD and 214,000 units / $5.12 million after three weeks of release is not nearly enough.
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May 13th, 2013
There are not a lot of new releases on the home market this week, and there are very few that are prime releases. The best-selling release is Dexter: Season Seven on Blu-ray, which is worth picking up, but the lack of extras prevents it from being the Pick of the Week. For that I'm going with a lesser known title, The Unbelievable Truth, which is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray this week.
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May 12th, 2013
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out on 1974 and helped change the face of horror, if you pardon the pun. Fast forward nearly 40 years and the franchise is one of the longest running horror franchises of all time. However, the franchise has struggled to repeat its early success, either with critics or with moviegoers. Texas Chainsaw 3D is the second attempt to reboot the franchise in the past decade. Can they succeed where the previous sequels / remakes failed? Or is it time to retire Leatherface for good?
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January 14th, 2013
Oscar nominations didn't produce a big box office bounce over the weekend, but Zero Dark Thirty still managed an easy win, despite missing my admittedly high expectations. The only film in the top five to be a pleasant surprise was A Haunted House, although "pleasant" is not a word most critics were using to describe it. The box office pulled in $141 million overall, which was 4.7% lower than last weekend. More importantly though, it was 6.3% higher than the same weekend last year, which means if A Haunted House bombed like I thought it would, 2013 would have lost in the year-over-year comparison. Fortunately, we had a second win in as many weeks and 2013 is off to an early 22% lead, at $441 million to $362 million.
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January 9th, 2013
The winners of our Nothing But the Truth contest were determined and they are...
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January 7th, 2013
There was a pleasant surprise during the first weekend of 2013, as Texas Chainsaw 3D opened in first place with more than $20 million. Django Unchained also beat that milestone. The overall box office still fell from last weekend, down 18% to $147 million, but this is to be expected for a post-holiday weekend. It was 5.9% higher than the same weekend last year and 2013 is off to an early lead over 2012 at $253 million to $191 million. Hopefully I don't have to tell you it is way too early to pay serious attention to those numbers, but it is better to win early than fall behind.
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January 4th, 2013
Its the first weekend of 2013 and there is one new wide release and a previous limited release expanding semi-wide. Will either film compete for top spot? Not likely. There are some recent examples of horror films opening well in January, so Texas Chainsaw 3D could be a surprise hit, but there's also a chance it won't reach the top 5. Meanwhile, Promised Land is a message movie, but one that has limited appeal beyond those that agree with the message. This means The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will remain on top of the box office chart. If it does so, it will mean in the past nine weeks, only three films have earned first place over the weekend. 2012 got off to a strong start and last year the box office was led by The Devil Inside, which made $33.73 million. I don't think any film will make $20 million over the weekend this year, so 2013 could start off on a losing note.
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January 1st, 2013
December ended on a positive note with 2012 topping 2011 with a week to spare. Hopefully this will translate into strong box office numbers going forward. There are several January releases that actually look very interesting, but you always have to ask, if the films are as good as they look, why are they opening in January? The biggest hit on this list will likely not be a January release, but a limited release from December that is expanding wide in January. Zero Dark Thirty opened in limited release the Wednesday before Christmas and right away it got off to an incredible start. If it can turn some of its Awards Season nominations into wins, which seems very likely at this point, it should be the biggest hit of January. If it can earn some major Oscars, then it might crack $100 million. Unfortunately, no other film on this release list is likely to come close to the $100 million mark. Last January was unseasonably strong with three films opening with $20 million or more and four films finishing with $50 million or more. It is possible that none of the new releases will reach those relatively weak standards.
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December 28th, 2012
There's only one wide release next weekend, Texas Chainsaw 3D, which makes it the only choice for 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 Texas Chainsaw 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 House of Lies: Season One on DVD.
Meanwhile, 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 Californication: Season Five on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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