February 17th, 2009
This felt like a slow week to me, but looking at the list there were 15 spotlight reviews, which is a huge amount for one week. There are a large number of DVDs worth checking out, but looking at the top of the list, I think Christopher Titus - Love is Evol is the best DVD coming out this week, and the winner of the DVD Pick of the Week. As has happened pretty much every week this year, there are so many DVDs on this week's list that is had to be split into two. The second part can be found here.
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February 3rd, 2009
New releases were all over the top 30 this week, including Max Payne, which took first place with 543,000 units sold for the week and $12.92 million in sales.
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February 3rd, 2009
New releases were just as spread out on the rental chart as they were on the sales chart, including taking the top two spots with Max Payne generating about 25% more revenue than Saw V.
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January 20th, 2009
A terrible week for first run releases. There are five such releases on this week's list, but they has a combined haul of around $130 million, and nearly $100 million of that came from two films. With no big releases, we had to look other places for the DVD Pick of the Week. Repo! The Genetic Opera on Blu-ray is a clear contender for that title, but its lack of mass appeal is troublesome. This American Life - Season Two is a safer pick, but it is a Borders Exclusive release. Regardless of these issues, both releases are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week. Despite the weakness at the top, there are still more than enough total releases to cause this column to stretch into two parts. The second part can be found here.
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October 26th, 2008
Vicky Cristina Barcelona remained in sixth place internationally with $6.66 million on 1136 screens in 11 markets for a total of $22.85 million after a month of release. This includes France, where the film remained in first place with $3.15 million on 443 screens for the week and $7.68 million after two. Meanwhile, it opened in Italy with $2.16 million on 378 screens, which was enough for second place in that market.
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September 30th, 2008
It was a relatively predictable weekend at the box office with four of the top five films matching expectations, more or less. There was only one film on Thursday's column that beat expectations by a serious degree, and it was matched by another film that missed expectations by nearly the same margin. Overall the box office just climbed above nine digits, hitting $101 million over the weekend. This was 14% more than last weekend and 11% more than the same weekend last year. 2008 is still behind 2007, but by less than 1% at $7.11 billion to $7.15 billion.
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September 25th, 2008
There are seven films opening in more than 250 theaters this weekend, but this is clearly a case of quantity over quality. Only two are opening in more than 2,000 and none of the seven are earning overall positive reviews. (Most of these films don't have a real shot at a top five placing, so we will deal with many of them in our round-up of limited releases.) There's no real question on which film will top the charts this week, as Eagle Eye is practically a lock for that position. But there are questions about whether it can top last year's winner, or whether 2008 can play catch up over last year.
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September 24th, 2008
The winners of our Back to School Reward contest were determined and they are...
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September 23rd, 2008
It was not a good weekend at the box office with just one of the four new releases beating expectations, and even then it was by just a rounding error. Overall box office receipts were $88 million over the weekend, which was down 13% from last week. More importantly, it was down 9% from the same weekend last year, which was not expected. Year-to-date, 2008 is still behind 2007, but at a margin of just $6.98 billion to $7.04 billion, and a strong fall and holiday box office would be enough to catch up.
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September 21st, 2008
The Fall Season is very much in full swing now.
Three of the four new releases opened with less than $10 million, and total ticket sales look headed for less than $100 million.
The one bright spot was Lakeview Terrace, which opened with a decent $15.6 million, according to Sony's Sunday estimate.
Burn After Reading fell 40% in its second week to finish in second place with $11.3 million.
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September 21st, 2008
After the Oscars are handed out, the opening of The Duchess this weekend might be seen as the unofficial opening of Awards Season. However, regardless of how many awards the movie wins, its Official Site was able to take home the Weekly Website Awards, and I'm sure that will make someone very proud. That is if anyone involved in the movie ever hears about the award.
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September 18th, 2008
Another week, another four wide releases... well, three and a half, as one of them is opening in fewer than 2,000 theaters, which is normally the level I consider truly wide versus semi-wide. It is unlikely that this week's crop of new releases will be as strong as last week's, and while the top of the chart won't live up to the level earned by last year's victor, Resident Evil: Extinction, the overall box office should still show some growth.
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September 12th, 2008
It has been a couple of weeks since school started, and as a reward the first kids film of the season, Igor, opens next weekend and is our target film in this week's competition. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office of Igor.
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 the Igor Novelization, Baby Beethoven on DVD, and a Prize Pack from The Women (Soundtrack, Cosmetic Bag, etc.) which opens tonight.
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 the Igor Novelization, as well as Baby Mozart on DVD, and Fist of Legend on DVD.
Finally, one additional entrant will be chosen at random to win the Igor Novelization, as well as Unstable Fable - Tortoise vs. Hare 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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September 1st, 2008
A pretty bland month with no wide release that look likely to surprise, either becoming a potential $100 million hit, or bombing so bad that they fail even to reach $10 million. The latter is a lot more likely, however, with a number of films that have serious obstacles to overcome, and it is very unlikely all of them will avoid bombing. On the other end of the scale, there are no films that have a legitimate shot at $100 million, while The top film of the month could make less than $70 million.
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August 28th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for City of Ember, Flash of Genius, Toy Story 3, and more!
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August 16th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for Chilled in Miami, Dorian Gray, Surfer Dude, and more!
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May 18th, 2008
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Igor, Soul Men, Hotel for Dogs and more!
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February 3rd, 2008
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Igor, Up, Planet 51 and more!
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February 11th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Indiana Jones 4, The Mummy 3, Hellboy 2 and more.
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