September 30th, 2007
New releases were dominant on this week's rental chart with ten charting, including first place We Are... Marshall and its $4.59 million in rentals.
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September 23rd, 2007
There was only one new release to reach the top ten this week, but there were a couple of changes in the top five. However, not in first place as Blades of Glory earned the hat trick with $5.49 million for the week and $21.99 million after three.
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September 16th, 2007
With the fall TV schedule about to start, TV shows on DVD dominated both the new release list and the sales chart, including The Office - Season Three taking first place.
That release sold 410,000 units for $13.11 million in sales.
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September 16th, 2007
There wasn't a single new release in the top five this week leaving the rankings identical to last week. This meant Blades of Glory remained in first place with $7.03 million in rental for the week and $16.50 after two.
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September 4th, 2007
Oh boy. September is not the best month for first run releases, but it is the perfect time to release TV on DVD as the new season is just about to start. This month there are more than 50 such releases, and that's just counting full-season or full series sets. I hope you were saving up, cause wow, there's a lot to spend your hard-earned dollars on. This week, the best of the bunch include several TV on DVD releases, including The Office - Season Three, but it is Robot Chicken - Season Two - Uncensored that wins the coveted title of DVD Pick of the Week.
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May 21st, 2007
There was another massive opening over the weekend, something we'll have to get used to this summer, but not all reports are glowing.
The second $100 million opening of the month helped push the overall box office up, way up, to $182 million, which is 70% higher than last weekend.
However impressive these weekly fluctuations may seem, it is the year-to-year increase of 11% that is more important.
The other number of note is 15%, which is how much higher this summer is over the record-setting pace of 2004.
That summer not only gave us Shrek 2, but also Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Those three movies combined for more than $1 billion, a mark this summer's top three films should be able to top.
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May 20th, 2007
The competition is still being pushed down by Spider-Man 3 and although there were half a dozen new releases to chart this week, it was still impossible to fill out a top 30 chart with any real details. For instance, Next had no major openings and its best midlevel was a second place debut in Malaysia with $115,000 on 30 screens. However, it was still able to remain in sixth place with $2.45 million on 1347 screens in 19 markets while its running total has grown to $18.94 million.
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May 17th, 2007
So far May has been softer than expected. Sure, Spider-man 3 opened with a record breaking weekend, but since then it has started tracking below expectations. Meanwhile, every other film has missed their modest expectations, some by large margins. This weekend things should get back on track with one of the most anticipated films of the year debuting tomorrow, but even here there are some warning signs.
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May 14th, 2007
As expected, no new release came close to challenging Spider-man 3 for top spot.
In fact, the four newcomers were even weaker than expected.
However, while this led to a 44% drop-off from last weekend, the overall box office take of $106 million was still more than 6% higher than the same weekend last year and that's the more important figure.
Next weekend there should be a big bounce as Shrek the Third should earn significantly more than that all by itself.
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May 12th, 2007
Not the best week for sites as there was only one that had even a chance of winning, Surf's Up - Official Site. There were a couple others that showed potential, but they will need a little more work to win.
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May 10th, 2007
This is the only soft weekend in the month of May with new releases forced to fight for the scraps of last weekend's record breaker, which explains why we have four such films trying to split already weak box office prospects. However, none of these new releases has any real shot at unseating Spider-man 3, even though that film is expected to sink pretty far at the box office.
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May 7th, 2007
Normally when it comes to these box office prediction contests, we choose the movie based on which film has the best shot at coming out on top of the charts.
However, in this case that's Spider-Man 3 and no other film has a snowball's chance in Hades of winning the weekend, even if Spider-Man breaks the record for worst sophomore stint drop-off.
Instead, we are going with the widest of the modest group of limited releases, Georgie Rule.
Since none of the new releases seem likely to be box office hits, we're going with that theme and giving away some smaller films that came out during the past year, and that might have slipped under your radar.
To win, you must simply predict the opening weekend box office of Georgie Rule.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Twelve and Holding and The Gathering.
Meanwhile, the person who comes the closest to the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a copy of Unknown and Prey.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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May 1st, 2007
It's the first of May, which means it is the start of the summer blockbuster season.
This year, May is dominated by sequels, and not just sequels; there are three monster franchises releasing their third installments this month.
If these films were the only monster hits being released this month, I would assume that any of them would have little difficulty hitting $300 million; for that matter, all three would have a better than 50% shot at $400 million.
However, it seems highly unlikely to have three $400 million movies open in one month, especially given there's never been two $400 million movies to open in the same year.
But who knows, records have already fallen this year, so anything's possible.
On a side note, there is a real gap between the big three and the rest of the new releases.
There's a slim chance another sequel, 28 Weeks Later, could crack $100 million.
However, it looks like the any of the big three releases will earn twice as much as all of the other films on this list will earn combined.
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April 29th, 2007
It's a slow week in terms of the cream-of-the-crop sites. There are a few that look like they could be award-worthy once they have a few more updates, but for the most part this week we have a collection that is rather average. There was one stand-out site, Evan Almighty - Official Site, and it was the only choice for the Weekly Website Award.
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April 7th, 2007
It's the Saturday after Good Friday, which explains why this column was delayed one day. But while the Friday was good, this week's sites were mediocre, at least they were compared to high expectations. If this was January, it would be a great list. However, at this point of the year I'm expecting one potential summer blockbuster to have a major website launch each week, and that didn't happen this time. We still had an award-worthy effort with Grindhouse - Official Site.
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March 17th, 2007
We are starting to get some serious updates on the websites for the summer blockbusters, however, it will be a few more weeks before this list is dominated by such films. In the meantime, it is a website for a new release, Dead Silence - Official Site, that is the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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December 28th, 2006
Currently I am taking a vacation and because of that the release dates update will be irregular at best. Things should be back to normal (weekly updates on Sunday) starting Sunday January 21. If I have some time, like today on a rainy day in Singapore, I will try to make updates.
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