March 21st, 2012
As it was on the DVD sales chart, there was a battle for first place on the Blu-ray sales chart between two new releases. Immortals beat Game of Thrones: Season Two in terms of units, 927,000 units to 680,000 units. However, Game comes out ahead in terms of revenue at $29.89 million to $21.31 million. As far as the two releases opening week Blu-ray share, Immortals managed 59% while Game earned 57%. Both of those results are fantastic.
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March 21st, 2012
New releases dominated the DVD sales chart with two DVDs having a legitimate claim to the top spot. Immortals sold the most units 649,000 units, while its revenue was the second best for the week at $11.12 million.
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March 6th, 2012
The number of big releases coming out this week can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The biggest theatrical release of the week is Immortals, but its reviews were weak enough that I think it might struggle on the home market in comparison. There are also a few catalog titles coming out on Blu-ray that are note-worthy, like To Catch a Thief. However, by far the biggest release, and the best, is Game of Thrones: Season One on DVD or Blu-ray, the latter of which is the Pick of the Week with To Catch a Thief not too far behind.
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November 21st, 2011
Normally the breaking of the dawn is a sign of hope, and normally a film opening with close to $140 million is a reason to celebrate. However, despite the success of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, there are some troubling signs ahead. If we can focus on the positive for a bit, the film did help the overall box office rocket up 63% from last weekend to $222 million, which was 14% higher than the same weekend last year. That's not enough to suggest 2011 will catch up to 2010 by the end of the year. We are still 3.5% behind last year's pace at $9.09 billion to $9.42 billion and we are rapidly running out of time. Plus there are worse signs ahead.
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November 17th, 2011
2011 got some much needed good news last weekend, as the overall box office topped expectations and we saw year-over-year growth. The industry sure hopes we can continue that winning trend this week. There are some reasons to be optimistic, even though this weekend last year saw the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, which made just over $125 million during its opening weekend. Most analysts think The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 will top that figure with relative ease. Additionally, Happy Feet 2 looks like it will be a very solid counter-programming release and, on the high end, the top two films could make more this weekend than the entire box office made last year. It's probably too late for 2011 to catch up with 2010, but every victory is still worth celebrating.
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November 16th, 2011
The winners of our Fetch a Pair of Prizes contest were determined and they are...
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November 14th, 2011
We finally had some good news, as there was a surprise hit at the box office. Immortals opened with substantially more than expected, while the rest of the top five at least came within $500,000 of weekend predictions. This led to an increase from last weekend of 20% to $136 million, while compared to last year, the box office was 12% higher. There is still some bad news. For instance, 2011 is still behind 2010's pace by about 4% at $8.83 billion to $9.19 billion. Also, in order to catch up, we need to maintain year-over-year gains that are about twice as high as they were this weekend. I don't see that happening.
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November 13th, 2011
Relativity will enjoy a relatively comfortable win at the box office this weekend, based on Sunday estimates. 3D fantasy action movie Immortals is set to earn about $32 million, according to their Sunday estimate, and will comfortably beat fellow-opener Jack and Jill. The Adam Sandler comedy is projected to earn $26 million, which makes it essentially tied with Puss in Boots. The animated adventure will be down just 22% this weekend and has passed $100 million at the box office in its third weekend.
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November 10th, 2011
2011 continues to stumble to the finish line and I'm starting to get more than a little depressed at the overall box office numbers. This week we have three wide releases, if you stretch the definition of wide a little bit, as J. Edgar will open in less than 2,000 theaters. On the other hand, both Jack and Jill and Immortals are opening in 3,000 theaters and both have a shot at first place. However, Puss in Boots has an even better shot at holding onto first place for the third weekend in a row. While this is good news for Puss in Boots, it's bad news for the box office as a whole. It will likely earn substantially less than last year's number one film, Megamind. The combined openings of the three wide releases coming out this week will likely be larger than three wide releases from last year. If there's a pleasant surprise or two, 2011 will be able to earn the win. At least there's little chance we will see the kind of year-over-year declines we saw the last two weeks.
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November 4th, 2011
While both Jack and Jill and The Immortals appear to be opening in saturation level theater counts next week, the former should have little trouble holding off the latter at the box office and we're going with Jack and Jill as the 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 Jack and Jill.
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 Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe on Blu-ray.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a copy of Cedar Rapids on Blu-ray.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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November 1st, 2011
October was a bit of a write-off. After the last weekend of September, the 2011 box office was about $280 million behind 2010's pace, but after the final weekend in October, that gap increased to $340 million. November will obviously bring in more box office dollars than October did. After all, it has one of the most important long holiday weekends of the year, Thanksgiving. However, the important question is not, "Can this November top last month?" It's, "Can this November top last year?" The biggest hit of last November was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, which earned just shy of $300 million. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 should match that figure. Tangled reached $200 million and maybe Happy Feet 2 will match that figure, but that's far less certain. There's a chance The Muppets will match Megamind while Tower Heist should top Due Date. If Jack and Jill and / or Hugo can become surprise $100 million hits and one of the limited releases can become a monster hit, like The King's Speech was able to, then suddenly the box office looks whole lot rosier going into the final month of the year. It's possible, but it's kind of like getting a backdoor full house in Texas Hold'em to beat a straight. I wouldn't bet on it. On the other hand, there doesn't appear to be many Skyline, The Next Three Days or Faster films that bombed at the box office. So while we might not be as strong at the top, there is better depth this year and hopefully that will be enough.
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