May 8th, 2012
Contraband benefited from a really weak slate of new releases and this helped it earn first place on the DVD sales chart. During its first week of release, it sold 470,000 units and generated $7.52 million, which is good given its box office numbers.
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May 2nd, 2012
There were not a lot of new releases to reach the top 30 on the DVD sales chart this week and only one of them reached the top five. We did have a new number one film, as Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol easily topped the chart with 661,000 units / $10.24 million. This is a disappointing start for a film that made $200 million in theaters. Fortunately, it did better on Blu-ray.
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April 25th, 2012
It was a bad week for DVD, which is common at this time of year. The Iron Lady was the best of the new releases, but it only managed second place. War Horse climbed into top spot with 244,000 units / $4.67 million over the week for totals of 830,000 units / $14.62 million after two.
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April 18th, 2012
This is becoming a pattern on the Blu-ray sales chart. Just like it has been for the past few weeks, new releases were soft. Granted, War Horse did top the Blu-ray sales chart, but with just 314,000 units / $7.84 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 36%, which is about average for the format.
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April 18th, 2012
There were not a lot of new releases to reach the top 30 on this week's DVD Sales Chart, but at least there was some action on top. Hop overtook Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked for first place with 729,000 units / $10.52 million for the week and 2.04 million units / $33.51 million after three. It is now just the third DVD of 2012 to sell 2 million units.
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April 10th, 2012
There were not many new releases on the Blu-ray sales chart and many of the top selling DVDs were family films, which tend to struggle on high definition. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked did grab first place, but with just 270,000 units / $6.29 million. Its opening week Blu-ray Share was just 23%, which is weak for the format as a whole and only average for the genre.
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April 10th, 2012
Family films led the way on the DVD Sales Chart this week taking the top three spots. This included one and a half new releases. The best selling DVD was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, which sold 893,000 units / $15.56 million during its first full week of release. This is well below the opening week numbers of its predecessors, but the franchise collapsed at the box office, so this result is not surprising.
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March 26th, 2012
It's not a particularly strong week when it comes to the home market. The biggest box office hit coming out this week is Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, but that film missed expectations at the box office and was savaged by critics. It should be the best selling DVD and Blu-ray of the week, but that's because it is a slow week overall. As for the best of the best, Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXIII is my choice for Pick of the Week. Others might go with South Park: Season 15 instead, while A Dangerous Method would also be the top choice of many. By a strange coincidence, I'm waiting for the screeners for all four of these films.
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January 25th, 2012
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was again the top film on the international box office, even though it fell significantly from last week. It generated an additional $18.3 million on 7,505 screens in 57 markets for totals of $261.3 million internationally and $439.6 million worldwide. Getting to $400 million worldwide is more than enough to show a profit, unless it cost a ridiculous amount for global prints and advertising. There were no major new markets to report on last weekend, but it did add $2.38 million on 422 screens over the weekend in Brazil, giving the film a total of $8.08 million after two. Up next is France this weekend, while it opens in Japan in March. $300 million internationally is pretty much a given, unless it bombs in those two markets, while if it does well, it could reach $500 million worldwide.
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January 18th, 2012
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows remained on top of the international chart with $27.4 million in 57 markets for totals of $222.0 million internationally and $392.2 million worldwide. The film's only major market opening came in Brazil where it topped the chart with $3.37 million on 446 screens. With openings in France and Japan still ahead, Game of Shadows should top $300 million internationally, while it has a shot at $500 million worldwide.
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January 11th, 2012
It's clear that Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows won't surpass its predecessor domestically, while it will be difficult to avoid that fate internationally. That said, it did climb into first place on the international chart with $44.9 million in 51 markets over the weekend for a total of $180.6 million after four weeks of release, while its worldwide total reached $337.6 million. It debuted in first place in a couple major markets this past weekend. In Australia it earned $6.65 million on 386 screens, while in Spain it managed $4.67 million on 459. Even if it had no major markets left to open in, it still would get to $250 million internationally. With debuts in Brazil, France, and Japan ahead, it could reach north of $300 million.
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January 10th, 2012
Wow. That was a shock. The first weekend of 2012 was amazingly strong. Not only did the only new wide release start off much, much stronger than expected, but almost all of the holdovers also held on better than expected. Maybe a lot of people made New Year's resolutions to watch more movies. Compared to last week, the box office was down just shy of 10% to $139 million; however, it was a post-holiday weekend, so this dip was to be expected. In fact, it was rather shallow. Compared to last year, the overall box office was up 25%, which is fantastic. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come.
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January 5th, 2012
After the depressing box office results of 2011 (to be fair, the box office did reach $10 billion for the third time in a row, which is no small amount of money, but week after week we saw year-over-year declines) the industry is pretty desperate to turn things around and we do have some reasons to be hopeful this weekend, mainly because the comparable weekend last year was so bad. Most analysts think The Devil Inside will top last year's lone wide release, Season of the Witch, so if the holdovers can do their part, maybe we can start the year with a win. Then again, I've been hopeful before the weekend many, many times recently, only to be crushed when the box office numbers come in.
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January 5th, 2012
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol remained in first place on the international chart with $45.86 million on 7,342 screens in 50 markets for a total of $227.01 million internationally and $359.42 million worldwide. This includes a first place, $12.77 million opening on 509 screens in the U.K. It had to settle for second place in Mexico with $1.32 million on 1,065 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $6.64 million and in Brazil with $1.04 million on 501 screens over the weekend and a total opening of $6.02 million. The film has almost caught up with Mission: Impossible: III and is closing in on the average for the franchise.
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January 3rd, 2012
2011 ends and 2012 begins, but the new beginnings didn't change. The overall box office rose to $155 million over the weekend, $200 million if you include Monday. This is higher than last weekend, but since Christmas landed on the weekend, this was to be expected. It is troubling that for the three-day portion of the weekend, the box office was 3% lower than last year, which is weaker than expected. 2011 ended with $10.22 billion, which was 3% lower than 2010. Attendance was down 4%, meaning the year had the lowest tickets sales since 1995. We can only hope the next 52 weeks are better than the last 52 weeks were.
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December 29th, 2011
The New Year's Eve weekend is one of the most prosperous at the box office, but it also usually has no wide releases. This is the case this year, for the most part. War Horse and The Darkest Hour will have their first full weekends at the box office, but that's as close as we have to a new release. This means it is unlikely there will be many major changes in the ranking of the top five films and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol has a clear shot at first place. Also, because Christmas Eve fell on Saturday, we should see strong growth across the board. Anything less than double-digit growth by any film will be considered a disappointment. This means we could actually end 2011 on a winning note compared to 2010. It wouldn't be enough to make a difference in the big picture, but a win is a win.
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December 27th, 2011
Due to the placement of Christmas Day, we are still dealing with mostly studio estimates for weekend numbers. However, while we wait for the final numbers, we can look at some of these early results and compare them to expectations and in some cases use them predict how these films will end their theatrical runs. (In some cases, there's not enough information to guess where it will go in the future.) As for the overall box office numbers, we don't know if the final tally will be higher or lower than last year, but I'm not optimistic.
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December 21st, 2011
New releases dominated the international chart starting with Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which debuted in first place with $69.49 million on 6,693 screens in 42 markets. It debuted in first place in Japan with $7.35 million on 636 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $9.32 million. It also placed first in neighboring South Korea with $7.18 million on 948 screens over the weekend and $8.67 million in total. Other first place openings included Australia with $4.23 million on 414 and Spain with $2.64 million on 528. It had to settle for second place in Russia, but still managed $6.08 million on 1099 screens and in France with $5.03 million on 616. The final major market release of the week was Germany, where it earned second place with $3.48 million on 577 screens over the weekend for a total of $4.00 million. The film has yet to open in Brazil, the U.K., Italy and Scandinavia, among other markets, and should finish in a similar range to the other films in the franchise.
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December 19th, 2011
Well, serves me right for being optimistic. The box office was again filled with disappointments and both wide releases missed expectations, which is bad. They missed expectations by a combined $30 million, which is a disaster. I was going to say, "At least it wasn't as bad as last week!", but that's damning it with faint praise. The overall box office did grow by 57% to $118 million; however, since last weekend was the worse weekend in a few years, this not a reason to celebrate. Compared to last year, the drop-off was 12%. With two weeks left in the year, 2011 is behind 2010's pace by 4% at $9.71 billion to $10.12 billion with no hope of catching up. At this point, the only thing to do is looking forward to 2012 and hope the slump we are in now doesn't extend past the new year.
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December 18th, 2011
While openings of about $40 million for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and $23.5 million for Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip Wrecked are good in comparison to recent openings, both films will fall well below the openings of their predecessors. 2009's Sherlock Holmes posted an opening of $62.3 million and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel posted $48.9 million. So the two movies combined are off almost $50 million from their openings two year ago at a time when the industry badly needs a shot in the arm.
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December 16th, 2011
The box office has given us disappointment after disappointment for a long time. It is getting to the point where no matter how strong a film looks on paper, I expect it to struggle at the box office. This week, we have three or four major releases, depending on how you define things. Both Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows are opening in roughly 3,700 theaters, while Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol is opening in 400 theaters and Young Adult is expanding into nearly 1,000 theaters. All four films should place within the top five. They should also do well when compared to last year's batch of new releases / expansions. The best new release from this week last year was Tron: Legacy, which made $44 million. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows should top that with ease, and the combined strength of the rest should help 2011 earn a solid win. Then again, I've said that before recently and ended up being disappointed the following Monday.
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December 1st, 2011
Well... game over. At the beginning of November, 2011's total box office was $340 million behind 2010's pace. We needed that gap to be closed significantly by the end of the month, but it actually grew wider. So now that there's virtually no chance that 2011 will avoid a year-over-year decline at the box office, not unless there's a surprise Avatar coming out this month. But is there at least some hope for the next four weeks? Last December six films reach $100 million, including one that opened in limited release and expanded wide, but none reached $200 million. This year, four are practically sure bets at $100 million, including one or two that could reach $200 million. Plus, there are four others that should make between $75 million and $100 million. I doubt all of them will reach the century mark, but if one did, it wouldn't be a shock. Then there's a couple of limited releases that should expand wide and, maybe, if one of them becomes the big play during Awards Season, it could reach $100 million as well. Even if every film beat expectations, 2011 won't come out ahead. But maybe if enough do, we can at least end the year on a high note. Unfortunately it has come down to that. Instead of talking about the box office record being broken, we are hoping 2011 doesn't end on yet another sour note.
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