September 21st, 2016
No films made it into the $10,000 club this past weekend, but 3 Weeks in Yerevan came really close with an average of $9,748 in three theaters. Another film, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, did well with an average of $7,322 in 85 theaters. Sort of. In addition to playing in 85 theaters, there were another 80 theaters that had one-time showings over the weekend, which is why its total haul for the weekend is $771,153. I really hope having a mixed of regular showings and one-time screenings doesn’t catch on, because it makes our job of tracking box office numbers more confusing.
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September 20th, 2016
It is not a great week on the home market, as the biggest release is Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary. I’m still waiting for the screener, but I fear there will be less extras this time around. Modern Family: Season Seven was also a contender for Pick of the Week, but the light extras prevents it from earning that title. That leaves Labyrinth: 30th Anniversary Edition as the best of the week.
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September 6th, 2016
It is a big week with a ton of home market releases, including several that were contenders for Pick of the Week. There were two limited releases in that group, Love and Friendship and Tale of Tales. Love and Friendship got better reviews, but Tale of Tales’ Blu-ray is more interesting in my mind. Star Trek 50th Anniversary TV and Movie Collection is a great Blu-ray box set and would make an amazing gift. As for the Pick of the Week, that was an easy choice: The Iron Giant: Signature Edition on Blu-ray. Although if you are a hardcore fan, then the Ultimate Collector’s Edition might be worth the $75.
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July 6th, 2016
The Fourth of July weekend went very well as two of the three new releases beat expectations. However, none of them were able to top Finding Dory, which earned its third win in a row. The Legend of Tarzan was very close in second place, which surprised a lot of analysts, but there might be a logical reason for its success. The Purge: Election Year more than tripled its production budget during its opening three-day weekend, so there’s no chance the studio isn’t giddy over that. The only real disappointment was The BFG, which got lost in the crowd. The overall box office was up from last week, which is a pleasant surprise. Granted, it grew by just under 1.0% to $192 million over the three-day weekend. More importantly, it was 41% higher than the same three-day weekend last year. Add in Monday, and the year-to-date lead rose to $120 million or 2.2% at $5.71 billion to $5.58 billion.
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June 28th, 2016
As predicted, Finding Dory repeated as the box office champion and came very close to matching our prediction with $72.96 million over the weekend. This is well above Independence Day: Resurgence's opening of $41.04 million. The Shallows was great as a low-budget horror film. The other two films... let's not talk about them. Overall, the box office fell 19% from last weekend to $188 million; however, this is to be expected, given how big Finding Dory opened. The weekend box office was even better than the same weekend last year, albeit by only 2.3%, which is not enough to keep up with inflation. Likewise, the year-over-year comparison is not great either. 2016 still leads 2015, but only by $5.38 billion to $5.31 billion, which is a lead of just 1.2%. Hopefully this weekend's win is a sign of things turning around, but I'm not so sure of that.
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June 26th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is getting crushed at the box office this weekend, thanks in part to a strong second weekend for Finding Dory, but mostly because it failed where the original succeeded. Back in 1996, Independence Day pretty much invented the event movie, as it became the film everyone wanted to watch over the July 4 holiday weekend. Its $50.2 million 3-day weekend fell fractionally short of the then-record $52.8 million earned by Batman Forever over its opening weekend in June, 1995, but the $96.1 million it earned over its first five days was unprecedented. Resurgence had a storied past to live up to, and is falling well short.
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June 25th, 2016
Finding Dory held on to first place on Friday and that’s not good news, at least not for the box office as a whole. The film pulled in $23.21 million last night, which puts it on track to earn approximately $76 million. We predicted $74 million, so I’m calling this a victory. This will give the film close to $290 million after just ten days of release and puts it on pace to reach $300 million late Monday / early Tuesday. It will obviously hit $400 million at this pace, and it could become the first film of 2016 and the first animated film of all time to reach the $500 million milestone. That’s not a sure thing, but I think it’s at least 50/50 at this point.
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June 24th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence started its box office run with $4 million during Thursday previews. That's not good. That's twice as much as the $2 million Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows earned a few weeks ago, but half as much as the $8.2 million X-Men: Apocalypse earned the week before that. It is identical to Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which opened last summer. If you compare its opening to all three films, taking into account Out of the Shadows' younger target audience and Apocalypse's Fanboy nature, then Resurgence will likely opened with between $50 million and $60 million. Hopefully it is performing better internationally.
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June 23rd, 2016
This is the last weekend in June and there are three wide releases hoping to challenge Finding Dory for top spot. I don’t think any of them will come close. Independence Day: Resurgence is the only new release with a shot at first place and it should come out on top on Friday. It better win on Friday, or the month will end on a soft note. The Shallows and Free State of Jones will be fighting for fourth place. The Shallows cost less than $20 million, so a fourth place finish wouldn’t be a bad start. On the other hand, Free State of Jones cost $65 million to make, so a fourth place finish would be a disaster. Also opening this week is The Neon Demon. It isn’t opening wide, but it is opening wide enough to compete for a slot in the top ten. This weekend last year, there were two wide releases that earned less than $50 million combined. On the other hand, the top two films, Jurassic World and Inside Out both earned more than $50 million. Can the top four this year out-earn the top four last year? I think they can. We might get an actual win in the year-over-year comparison.
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June 17th, 2016
Next weekend is the last weekend in June and unfortunately for the two wide releases coming out, the buzz for these films hasn't really grown. Independence Day: Resurgence is going to be the number one new release, although it likely won't earn first place. Free State of Jones could become STX Entertainment's biggest hit, but that's not saying much. Independence Day: Resurgence could earn more during its opening weekend than Free State of Jones earns during its box office run. As such, Independence Day: Resurgence is the only real choice for 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 Independence Day: Resurgence.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a Frankenprize of previously reviews DVD and / or Blu-rays. I grabbed a few more boxes from storage, so we can do winner's choice again. The choices are, two movies, one TV on DVD release, three single-disc kids DVDs, or two items from the mystery box. Items from the mystery box are first come, first served, as I'm nearly out of them.
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 Frankenprize, as described above.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win the final Frankenprize.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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