July 20th, 2023
The long awaited release of Barbie and Oppenheimer is finally here. The pair, fondly referred to by the moniker, “Barbenheimer” is poised to headline one of the biggest movie-going weekends in a few years. As different as two films could possibly be, the duo will undoubtedly make their imprint on the Summer movie-going season. Barbie will start out in 4,243 theaters, while Oppenheimer will launch in 3,610 locations across North America. For one more week however, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One will remain the most widely available film, showing in 4,321 venues.
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July 6th, 2023
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will continue into into its sophomore frame with its opening count of 4,600 theaters, once again easily making it the widest release of the week. The latest installment of the beloved adventure franchise turned up $60.37 million in its opening weekend, and currently holds a six-day total of $89.4 million, while bumping the franchise’s worldwide box office to over $2.1 billion. This week it will try to fend off the arrival of two new wide releases, as well as a surprise hit that arrived on the Fourth of July.
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June 29th, 2023
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will launch this weekend in a massive 4,600 theaters, the widest opening since Jurassic World: Dominion, which debuted in 4,676 locations in June last year, Jones will also hit the record books as the sixth-widest opening of all time.
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September 3rd, 2017
The Mummy came out this summer and was supposed to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe franchise. In fact, Universal had announced about a dozen films in the franchise, at least one of which had a release date, but no star. Then the reviews started coming out. For a short time, The Mummy was the worst wide release of the summer. It bombed domestically and even though it did a lot better internationally, it still failed to pay for its nearly $200 million production budget. Was is unfairly attacked by critics? Or does Universal need to rethink their plans for a Dark Universe?
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January 5th, 2015
Something weird has happened. I have nothing to review. This is partially due to the holidays and I suspect next week will be busier. However, in the meantime I didn't want to have nothing to review this week, so I thought I would do a Weird Al Yankovic double-shot, as two of his films had new home market releases recently. The first of these is...
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December 16th, 2013
It's a busy week with eight or so first-run releases. (It depends on if you count the The Sound of Music Live! as a first-run release.) However, none of them were big hits at the box office. Some of them made enough money to break even sometime on the home market, others struggled more than that, but none were breakout hits. Some of these are still worth picking up. For others, there's a reason they struggled. There are also a few TV on DVD releases this week that are worth picking up, as well as a few limited releases that are strong. All in all, it's a good week on the home market with many DVD and Blu-rays that are worth picking up, some of which I'm looking forward to reviewing... when they show up. This time of year, getting screeners on time tends to be a little harder. I think Burn Notice: Season Seven is the top selection, but I'll have to wait for the screener to make sure. On a side note, next Tuesday is Christmas eve, so there won't be a DVD and Blu-ray Release report. There's only four films worth talking about anyway, so I'm including them on this list. Of next week's films, More Than Honey on DVD or Blu-ray is the Pick of Next Week.
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September 22nd, 2013
Top-grossing people in technical roles
Last week I unveiled our new People Records section and talked about some of top performers across different types of acting, from the blockbusting superstars to the unsung heroes, to the cameo kings and queens. We've added some more charts to the record section this week, this time covering technical roles, and once more there's a lot of data to be mined.
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July 3rd, 2013
The top five of the Blu-ray sales chart this week were nearly all new releases, including the first place Blu-ray, A Good Day Die Hard. This film sold 316,000 units and generated $5.86 million for an opening week Blu-ray share of 58%. That's an excellent Blu-ray share, but the film missed expectations pretty much everywhere else. Meanwhile, the Legacy Box Set placed eighth with 17,000 units / $667,000.
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March 30th, 2013
Willow came out 25 years ago. It was a fantasy epic that cost $50 million to make and was written by George Lucas, who was coming off of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It was directed by Ron Howard, who hadn't yet had any monster hits, but both Splash and Cocoon were very profitable and well received. This film had high expectations. It didn't live up to them. Its reviews were merely mixed and it came nowhere near becoming the $100 million hit like a lot of people thought it would. Now that 25 years have passed and the expectations are not there, does it work? Or would it have failed to find an audience even with lowered expectations?
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