April 25th, 2012
This literally could turn out to be the worst week of the year on the Blu-ray sales chart. The best-selling new release was The Darkest Hour, which only managed 158,000 units / $3.17 million. The only good news is the film's opening week Blu-ray share, which was an impressive 54%.
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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 10th, 2012
It is a really slow week on the home market. The biggest theatrical release coming out is The Iron Lady. The film did extremely well for a limited release, but that's not saying a whole lot. The only other wide release is The Darkest Hour, but that film bombed quite badly, so it likely won't have much of an impact on the home market. As for the best of the best, A Trip to the Moon Blu-ray is at the top of the list and is the Pick of the Week. There are a couple runner-ups, namely Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous on DVD and Into the Abyss on Blu-ray
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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 26th, 2011
A mess of Wednesday, Friday and Sunday openings makes for a somewhat confusing picture at the box office over Christmas weekend, but Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol came out the clear-cut winner according to studio estimates released on Sunday and Monday. Its weekend haul of approximately $29.5 million left it $9 million clear of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which is the only other movie that can claim to be really strong at the box office at this point in time.
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December 21st, 2011
This year Christmas is a mess, when it comes to the box office. There are six films opening or expanding wide spread over six days. This includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was bumped up at the last minute and opened on Tuesday. At the other end of the time frame, War Horse and The Darkest Hour don't open till Sunday. The number of films virtually guarantees at least two will struggle at the box office, but hopefully by spreading out the releases, moviegoers will be able to spread their daily movie contact among the new releases. That is if people will bother going to the movies. The longer the slump continues, the more likely it is due to a systemic issue. When people stop going to the movies, they don't see as many trailers and posters for upcoming releases and they are less excited about upcoming releases and, therefore, they are less likely to see movies in the future. It's a vicious cycle. Last year wasn't a great weekend at the box office, because Christmas Eve, which is a dead zone at the box office, landed on a Friday. This year it lands on a Saturday, so it could be even worse.
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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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