October 2nd, 2012
The winners of our In the Loop contest were determined and they are...
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September 21st, 2012
The final weekend of September features three wide releases: Hotel Transylvania, Looper, and Won't Back Down. When it comes to the target film, I think we can dismiss Won't Back Down, as it is opening in the fewest theaters and has the least amount of buzz. Hotel Transylvania is opening in the most theaters, but early reviews are only mixed and the buzz isn't much louder than Frankenweenie, despite opening a week earlier. Looper is earning near perfect reviews so far and it has a lot of buzz, but it has a lot of internet buzz, which often fails to translate into ticket sales. I really, really, really want Looper to be a hit, but I'm afraid that is clouding my judgment. Even so, I think it will be the number one film next Friday and will just have enough to stay ahead of Hotel Transylvania. As such, I'm making it the target film in this week's box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Looper.
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 Glee: Season Three on Blu-ray.
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 In Time on Blu-ray. (It's the closest thing I had to a Time Travel film I had in the prize pool.)
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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February 14th, 2012
New releases dominated the Blu-ray sales chart with as many as four in the top five. (Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a bit of an odd case, but more on that in a second.) Drive led the way with 420,000 units / $8.39 million giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 57%. This is a great opening compared to the film's theatrical run.
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February 14th, 2012
While there were a lot of new releases on this week's DVD sales chart, it was clearly a case of quantity over quality as even the best selling release was merely mediocre. Treasure Buddies was top dog with sales of 381,000 units / $6.47 million during its opening week. This is roughly in line with the previous installment, but below average for the franchise.
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January 31st, 2012
It's kind of an unusual week on the home market with five first run releases coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. However, all five films missed expectations in one degree or another. Some were outright bombs by anyone's definition, while others were expected to struggle to find a large audience, just not by as much as they did. That is not to say they were all bad movies. In fact one of them, Drive, has done quite well during Awards Season and the Blu-ray Combo Pack is a contender for Pick of the Week. Its main competition is To Kill A Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition, which is also coming out on a Blu-ray Combo Pack. It's a coin toss, but I'm going with the latter over the former.
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January 31st, 2012
In Time is a movie that can be seen as a box office bomb when you look at the film's domestic numbers, as it only made $37 million on a $35 million budget. If you take into account the film's Prints and Advertising budget, plus the exhibitioners' share, the film lost quite a bit of money domestically. On the other hand, it made more than $100 million internationally, which is more than enough to pay for its production budget, and to put a serious dent of its global P and A budget. Is there some reason it didn't work here while it worked internationally? And should domestic audiences give it another chance?
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December 7th, 2011
For the third weekend in a row, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 earned top spot on the international chart, this time with $40.2 million on 9,000 screens in 73 markets. It now has totals of $341 million internationally and $588 million worldwide. Its biggest opening of the weekend came from South Korea, where it made $3.22 million on 706 screens for a total opening of $5.12 million. Its biggest running tally comes from the U.K. where it has made $42.76 million, including $2.61 million on 523 screens this past weekend.
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November 9th, 2011
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn remained on top of the international chart during its second weekend of release, while it crossed the $100 million milestone over the weekend. It expanded into more than two dozen new markets, but most were of the smaller variety. Overall, it made $38.98 million on 7,103 screens in 45 markets, for a total of $123.55 million so far. Russia was the only real exception, where it opened in second place with $4.81 million on 788 screens. It plummeted 74% in France, but still added $6.99 million on 850 screens for a two-week total of $33.44 million. On the other hand, it remained in first place in Spain with $5.19 million on 819 screens over the weekend, for a total of $16.62 million after two. At this point, $200 million internationally is a given, which is likely close to the film's total budget. If it can close close to that figure here, it will break even before the lucrative home market.
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November 7th, 2011
November began like most of 2011 has gone, on a losing note. We are running out of time to turn things around and this weekend it wasn't even close. Neither Tower Heist nor A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas put up much of a fight at the box office and, if it weren't for Puss in Boots's incredible hold, the numbers would have been nothing short of tragic. Granted, the box office rose by 9% from last weekend to $114 million, but that was 24% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2011 is behind 2010 by 4% at $8.66 billion to $9.02 billion and, at this point, I'd settle for that situation not getting any worse from now till the New Year.
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November 6th, 2011
After a disappointing opening weekend, Puss in Boots is on its way to posting a redeeming second weekend, according to Paramount's Sunday estimate. The Shrek spin-off is projected to $33.035 million, down just 3% from its opening. That is in part a reflection of better weather on the East Coast, which also helped returners such as In Time (down 36%), Footloose (down 17%) and Courageous (down 16%). But it also suggests a very healthy run is in prospect. Tales of the demise of DreamWorks Animation last week may have been premature.
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November 3rd, 2011
October ended on a winning note, but overall the month was terrible. Only two films released that month will get to $100 million, while there were five that were bombs. The industry is hoping things will turn around starting this weekend. That might be tricky, as the two new releases opening this weekend, Tower Heist and A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas are no where near as strong as last year's new releases. Tower Heist likely won't top Due Date, while Harold and Kumar won't open as strongly as For Colored Girls... did. And that's not even taking into account Megamind, which led the way. If 2011 is to catch up to 2010, it will need to average 20% growth year-over-year. However, it is far more likely we will see 20% drop-off this weekend.
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November 3rd, 2011
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn doesn't open here till a few days before Christmas, but it led the way on the international chart with an astonishing $56.56 million on 5,699 screens in 19 markets. Its biggest opening was in France, where it managed $26.97 million on 850 screens. That's like a $150 million opening here. It's a record for a non-sequel in that market. It wasn't as impressive in the U.K., but it did score $10.83 million on 512 screens, which is equivalent to a $50 million to $60 million opening here. These results will force me to re-evaluate its box office potential with an above $200 million run a lot more likely now. Granted, the source material is better known in Europe, plus it will have a lot more competition when it debuts here, but this is still a great sign going forward.
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October 31st, 2011
It was a rare winning weekend at the box office, although it came too late to salvage the month, which was a bloody affair and 2011 fell tens of millions of dollars further behind last year's pace. The lone bright spot over the weekend was Puss in Boots, which easily led the way. However, even here there was darkness, as it failed to live up to the low end of expectations. The overall box office was a macabre $105 million, or 14% lower than last weekend. We did get a jolt with the box office creeping up 11% from last year. However, while double-digit growth would normally send chills up your spine, not having to deal with Halloween on the weekend itself explains much of that success. Year-to-date, 2011 remains lifeless down 4% from last year at $8.52 billion compared to $8.86 billion and unless some dark magic can revive the box office, and soon, we will have the second year in a row of year-over-year declines and 2011 could see the lowest ticket sales in about a decade and a half. That's truly scary.
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October 30th, 2011
Although it's perhaps an exaggeration to call it the start of the Holiday Season, Puss in Boots' debut this weekend was intended to give Dreamworks Animation a head start on what will be a very competitive season, and it looks as though it can be called a moderate success. The Shrek spin-off will earn an estimated $34 million this weekend, which should put it on track to earn comfortably over $100 million during its run in domestic theaters. While that's a very respectable performance for October, it pales in comparison to other films in the franchise. Even Shrek Forever After more than doubled that number, and the original Shrek posted over $42 million in 2001. So it's far from certain that this will be the start of a long-lived offshot for the franchise.
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October 27th, 2011
Puss in Boots was pushed up a week and will likely dominate the pre-Halloween weekend with last weekend's winner, Paranormal Activity 3, coming in a distant second. There are a couple of other new wide releases, In Time and The Rum Diary, but neither are generating a lot of buzz. There is some good news, as this weekend last year was a real disappointment and there's a chance both Puss in Boots and Paranormal Activity 3 will earn more than last year's number one film, Saw VII. Hopefully October can end on a high note, because it's been a bad month so far.
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October 1st, 2011
There is a little bit of good news going into October, as September did help close the year-to-date deficit, even if it was by a small amount. Unfortunately, we really needed a better result to be optimistic about our chances of closing that gap entirely by the end of the year. Even worse, this month represents the last chance 2011 has to catch up to 2010. I know there are two additional months left in the year, but October of 2010 was a soft month with four of the five weekends showing year-over-year declines. If October 2011 is even weaker, the odds of making up the $300 million deficit will be all but gone. It becomes even more troubling that there are no movies opening in October that are guaranteed to be monster hits. So, while October of 2010 was weak compared to October of 2009, it looks like it will be stronger than October of 2011. Hopefully I'm just being pessimistic. There are a couple films that have a shot at $100 million and I will be surprised if none of them at least come close to that milestone, but the slate of films is weaker than I would like.
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