May 1st, 2017
April is over and thank god for that. The Fate of the Furious is currently the only film that was better than a midlevel hit, while Going in Style might end up being the second-biggest release of the month. On the low end, there were seven films on last month’s list that didn’t even manage to open in truly wide release (2,000 or more theaters). Fortunately, May looks a lot brighter. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should dominate the chart and get the month off to a fast start. Furthermore, every week there’s at least one film with a reasonable chance of earning $100 million domestically. Additionally, last May wasn’t particularly strong, so that should help 2017 overall. Granted, Captain America: Civil War earned more than $400 million, so the month got off to a fast start, but films struggled the rest of the way. The second-biggest film was X-Men: Apocalypse at just $155 million, while only one other movie, The Angry Birds Movie, earned more than $100 million. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should at least be competitive with Captain America: Civil War, allowing 2017 to win thanks to its superior depth.
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June 19th, 2015
While there are a huge number of limited releases on this week's chart, almost none of them have a real shot at mainstream success. There are two films that at least have a legitimate chance at expanding significantly: Infinitely Polar Bear and The Overnight. There are also a number of documentaries and foreign-language films that could do well in limited release, but they won't expand enough to earn significant amounts.
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May 1st, 2015
April is over and there was good news and bad news. Good news: Furious 7 crushed the competition, and broke records along the way. Bad news: Furious 7 crushed the competition and no other April release will earn as much in total as Furious 7 earned during its opening day. Fortunately, Furious 7 was so strong that it carried April of 2015 to a draw when compared to April of 2014. May has a lot of similarities to April. The Avengers: Age of Ultron is expected to break records during its opening weekend and even the low end has it earning more than $1 billion worldwide. Unfortunately, no other film is going to come close to that figure. There are five other films with a potential to reach $100 million at the box office. The keyword there is "potential". There's a chance less than half of those five films will get to that milestone. And like last April, last May had much better depth with five films that reached $100 million, including four that surpassed $200 million. Age of Ultron will earn more than the combined totals of Maleficent, last month's winner, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which placed second for the month. I am a little concerned about the lack of depth this month and this could cause May to lose in the month-over-month comparison in the end.
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September 14th, 2013
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a low-budget comedy show that started in 2005 and has since become quite a hit on the FX and now the FXX cable channels. It is very rare for a show to last eight seasons, it is even rarer for a show to still be entertaining after eight years. Will fans still enjoy the show? Or is it beginning to become tired?
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August 1st, 2013
July was hit and miss at the box office, mostly miss. In fact, only two films really topped expectations, Despicable Me 2 and The Conjuring. That said, 2013 has nearly closed the gap with 2012 and it won't take much to pull ahead. Looking forward to August, we find that it is a very busy month with 16 or so films opening wide over five weeks. Of course, the closer you get to September, the more likely these films will struggle to find an audience, and more often than not, there are simply too many films opening wide to suspect they will all find an audience. On the high end, 2 Guns could be the biggest hit of the month with just over $100 million. The Smurfs 2 and Elysium could pull in $100 million. All three of those films are opening in the first two weeks of the month. After that, most of the new releases will be lucky if they reach $50 million during their theatrical runs. By comparison, last August was not as busy with 14 wide releases. Of those, only one film, The Bourne Legacy, topped $100 million, although a couple came reasonably close. Hopefully we will have more $100 million hits this time around and 2013 will be able to complete the comeback.
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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 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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