April 7th, 2010
There were eight new releases to reach the top 30 on this week's sales chart, including two that were able to chart despite not coming out until Sunday. This includes The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which sold 3.16 million units in just two days, generating $74.41 million in the process.
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March 16th, 2010
Not a big week in terms of total releases, but there are plenty of top-notch choices from every category. The best wide release on this week's list is The Princess and the Frog, which is a contender for Pick of the Week. It's not the only contender for that title. In fact, there are contenders in nearly every category, including limited releases (Bandslam on DVD), Foreign Language films (Broken Embraces on Blu-ray), TV on DVD (Breaking Bad: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray), and even Canadian (High Life on DVD). While all are worthy of adding to your DVD / Blu-ray collection, I'm going with The Princess and the Frog on Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack as the Pick of the Week.
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February 28th, 2010
Shutter Island started its international run with a sixth place finish this past weekend, earning $9.28 million on 1229 screens in 9 markets. The film opened in first place in Spain with $3.25 million on 406 screens. It had to settle for second place in Australia, in a virtual tie with Valentine's Day at $2.50 million on 250 screens. It's way too early to tell where the film will end up, but matching its domestic run internationally is a solid goal.
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February 14th, 2010
For the first time during its international run, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel missed the top five and placed sixth with $7.10 million on 3,699 screens in 42 markets for a total of $200.87 million internationally and $413.03 million worldwide.
With no major market openings left, the film will likely fall further down the chart over the coming weeks, but it has already made a huge profit, so Fox will be more than happy.
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February 8th, 2010
Oceans opened in its native France and that helped it climb into sixth place with $9.52 million on 888 screens in 4 markets for a total of $16.98 million. It earned third place in its native market with $5.39 million on 542 screens while it was down just 7% during its sophomore stint in Japan with $3.48 million on 303 screens over the weekend for a total of $10.81 million after two.
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January 31st, 2010
It's Complicated saw its weekend haul climb 16%, but it still fell out of the top five.
It added $10.37 million over the weekend on 2,665 screens in 32 markets for a total of $50.92 million after a month of release.
The film opened in third place in Germany with $2.40 million on 552 screens over the weekend and $2.74 million in total.
Meanwhile in the U.K. it added $1.84 million on 431 screens over the weekend for a total of $8.72 million after three weeks of release.
With debuts in Japan, South Korea, and Italy still ahead of it, it could reach $100 million internationally to go with its $100 million domestic total.
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January 24th, 2010
Up in the Air started its international run in sixth place with $5.83 million on 936 screens in 9 markets. This includes a fifth place debut in the U.K. where it earned $2.13 million on 325 screens while it also managed fifth in Australia with $1.61 million on just 173 screens. While it is hard for films to open in limited release domestically and expand wide, it is usually a lot harder for these films to thrive internationally. After all, many international markets are simply too small to have a thriving limited release marketplace. It will be interesting to see if this film will be able to take its performance during Awards Season and turn it into a successful international run despite this.
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January 13th, 2010
Titanic... You're next. Avatar saw its weekend box office climb by 10% to $150.99 million on 15,301 screens in 93 markets for a total of $915.05 million internationally and $1.35 billion worldwide. This is now the second highest grossing film of all time, and at this rate Titanic's seemingly insurmountable record is very much within reach.
In fact, Avatar is now the biggest ever release in Russia with $76.17 million, including $11.14 million on 927 screens this past weekend and it has broken all-time records in other smaller markets and is coming close in a number of major markets.
Additionally, the film had the biggest opening in China, where it debuted with $41.4 million on 2,474 screens.
That would be a pretty good opening domestically, so to see it in an international market is enormous.
I'll be very, very interested to see if this is a aberration, or this is a sign that China is becoming the biggest international market.
Other markets of note include France, where it has crossed the $100 million mark, the first international market where it reached that milestone.
This won't be the last market where the film reaches $100 million, while by this time next week it will have reached $1 billion internationally and $1.5 billion worldwide.
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January 10th, 2010
Black Lightning opened in sixth place internationally with $8.42 million on 798 screens in 5 markets.
Those markets include Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The latest from Timur Bekmambetov debuted in second place in his native Russia behind Avatar with an estimated $8 million on 700 screens.
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December 28th, 2009
The final weekend of 2009 turned into a record-breaker with two massive new releases and a holdover that still managed to come out on top.
Overall the box office pulled in an estimated $278 million over the weekend, which crushed the previous record for the biggest weekend by all movies combined.
Additionally, this was 39% higher than the same weekend last year and pushed 2009's running tally to $10.38 billion.
This is 9.2% higher than last year's pace and more than 7% more than the previous record, and there is another week left to go.
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December 22nd, 2009
It was a fantastic weekend at the box office as the top film topped expectations and broke records, admittedly by narrow margins, but records nonetheless.
Overall the box office pulled in $138 million, which was 42% higher than last weekend and an outstanding 56% higher than the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2009 has earned $9.96 billion, extending its record and moving closer to the $10 billion milestone.
This time last year the cumulative box office was $9.15 billion, meaning 2009 has an 8.8% lead.
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December 17th, 2009
There are two wide releases this weekend, but mostly everyone is just talking about Avatar, its box office potential, and its obvious comparisons to Titanic.
It should have no trouble beating the combined $43 million made by all three wide releases this weekend last year, and will almost certainly make more during its opening weekend than the $53 million that Titanic made during its opening week.
And that's the low end of expectations.
On the high end, it has a number of records in its sights.
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December 1st, 2009
November turned out to be a good month with more films meeting or exceeding expectations that missing.
We also saw records broken as 2009 marches closer to the all-time record, and the possibility of becoming the first year to hit $10 billion in total ticket sales growing.
It won't need that much to get there, and even if just one or two of the predicted $100 million hits this month get to that milestone, we will still finish the year by breaking records.
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