December 22nd, 2022
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As the Christmas holiday approaches, there are plenty of options for movie-goers as three new high-profile films arrive to the big screen this week. After accruing over $134 million in its opening weekend in North America, Avatar: the Way of Water currently enjoys a six-day domestic total of $183 million, with $426 million from overseas markets, for global earnings so far of $609 million. The film retains its opening-weekend count of 4,202 theaters, once again making it the widest release. While Way of Water should have no problem winning the weekend box office, a bevy of new releases look to provide an assortment of viewing opportunities for nearly every movie taste.
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December 1st, 2022
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After a slew of new wide releases made their way into movie theaters over the Thanksgiving Holiday, we see only one true new wide release coming to cinemas this week in the way of Christmas action-comedy, Violent Night. Joining Violent Night is a familiar face, as Top Gun: Maverick soars in for a two week theatrical engagement in 1,864 locations before making its streaming debut on Paramount+ starting December 22. Tom Cruise’s epic jet fighter sequel currently sits at number 5 on the all-time domestic box office chart with over $716 million in earnings. The widest release this week however belongs to last week’s newcomer, Strange World, keeping its opening count of 4,174 locations from its under-performing debut week.
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September 3rd, 2017
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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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May 16th, 2017
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It is another terrible week on the home market. There are three first-run releases coming out this week, which isn’t a bad number. However, all three earned terrible reviews and bombed in theaters, so you should avoid all of them. There’s not a lot of limited releases, classics, or TV on DVD releases to make up the gap, so for the second week in a row, we have a Video on Demand release topping the list of best new releases. This week it is Logan, which is one of the best wide releases of the year. I would wait for the Blu-ray, on the other hand.
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April 13th, 2014
The Nut Job opened earlier this year and was a surprise hit more than doubling its production budget domestically. It did so well that a sequel is already in the works. Is this a good movie? Is it merely good enough for a kids movie? Or did it thrive because there wasn't a lot of competition when it opened?
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February 28th, 2014
It is Oscar weekend, so it should come as no surprise there are not a lot of limited releases with the usual target audience. Art house aficionados will be paying more attention to the Awards than to new releases. Ernest & Celestine is the lone exception, which is the only Oscar-nominated film on this week's list and the best reviewed as well. Most of the rest of the movies are earning reviews that range from mixed to outright terrible. The Lunchbox could be the break-out hit of the weekend, if there is a break-out hit.
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January 1st, 2014
It's the first month of the new year, but the biggest hit might be a film released in December. Last month ended on a slow note with all five Christmas day releases failing to become hits, some more than others. (It's a little too soon to tell if The Wolf of Wall Street or The Secret Life of Walter Mitty will do well enough to break even any time soon, but neither is a serious hit.) There are still some December releases that will likely remain on the charts through the opening weekends of January, while there are some films that opened in limited release last month with a scheduled wide release this month. Of the purely January releases, I would guess Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will be the biggest hit. Even then, it won't live up to the previous films in the franchise, even if you don't take inflation into account. Most of the rest of the new releases will be happy if they can become midlevel hits. Last January was led by Mama, which earned more than $70 million. I think Shadow Recruit will top that figure at the box office, while there are a similar number of likely box office bombs opening this year as there were last year. 2014 could start out ahead of 2013's pace, but it likely won't be a huge difference either way.
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February 1st, 2013
For the most part, January was a really good month and 2013 got off to a really good start. I'm not so sure about February, on the other hand. There's only one film that has a statistically significant shot at $100 million, A Good Day to Die Hard, but I'm a little concerned that it won't live up to expectations. The franchise has been around a long time and it is possible that the target audience has either moved on or are too young to remember when these films were huge at the box office. The film I'm most looking forward to seeing is Warm Bodies, which is earning amazing early reviews (the keyword there is "early"), but it is too high-concept to be a major hit. Last February, there were a couple of films that topped $100 million, plus a few other midlevel hits. I would like to think that would also be the case this year, but I have to be more cautious than that. The evidence points to a weak month ahead, for the most part.
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