December 17th, 2007
Only five new releases landed on the sales chart this week, but that included the top two sellers.
Leading the way was Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End with a year's best weekly sales of 7.35 million units and total revenue of $145.06 million, which crushes The Transformers' opening week by nearly 2 million units.
In fact, after just one week, At World's End is in fourth place for the whole year.
At this pace, it could be the biggest seller of the year by next week.
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December 17th, 2007
Like it was on the sales chart, new releases took the top two spots on the DVD rental chart.
However, they finished in the opposite order as Superbad beat out Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End $13.97 million to $9.54 million.
Superbad's performance here compared to its performance on the sales chart may be explained either as a clear case of Try-Before-You-Buy, or it may be a lot of people interested in seeing it are expecting to get it for Christmas.
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December 9th, 2007
Bee Movie returned to the charts in sixth place with $6.71 million on 1288 screens in 11 markets for an early international total of $19.43 million after a month of release. This includes a pair of first place debuts in Spain and Mexico. In the former it earned $2.81 million on 421 screens while in the latter is earned $2.60 million on 389 screens. While Spain is the larger marker, I thought the family friendly nature of Mexico would give it the edge. Even so, there are great openings for the film.
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December 4th, 2007
This week was not as busy as I was expecting. Perhaps the thought of going against Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End 2-Disc Collector's Edition or on Blu-Ray was enough to scare away the competition.
However, while that is a formidable release, it is not this week's DVD Pick of the Week.
For that, we have Superbad - Unrated 2-Disc Edition or Unrated Blu-Ray Edition.
If you have a Blu-Ray player, that edition is worth the extra money, but it is not the kind of release worth upgrading for.
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October 21st, 2007
Bhool Bhulaiyaa became the latest in a long line of Indian films to strike it rich on the international box office as it scored sixth place with $4.59 million on 756 screens in 17 markets. The supernatural comedy even scored a top ten finish in Britain with $600,000 on 45 screens topping a few major Hollywood releases that week.
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October 14th, 2007
The Heartbreak Kid missed the top five by less than $20,000 over the weekend earning $5.74 million on 819 screens in 4 markets during its opening weekend on the international charts. This includes openings in to major markets including the U.K. where it opened in first place with $2.52 million on 409 screens, but this was still a disappointing debut, much like it was domestically. Conversely, the film opened in second place in Russia with $2.31 million on 360 screens, but this is a much better performance compared to the overall box office size of the marketplace.
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September 4th, 2007
The summer ended on a strong note, including a record-breaking opening by Halloween. Overall the box office earning $118 million over the 3-day weekend, which was up 8% from last weekend and 16% from the same weekend last year. Over 4 days, the box office total was $149 million, up 15% from last year. With records broken for total box office, number of $300 million movies, number of $200 million movies, and more, this is a summer most movie executives will deeply miss.
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August 27th, 2007
Holdovers went one-two-three on the box office chart this week, which is not a completely uncommon event.
However, with six wide or wide-ish releases, you would think at least one could finish in the top three.
The collapse of the new releases helped keep the overall box office down to $108 million, which was 17% lower than last weekend.
However, that is still 4% higher than the same weekend last year and keeps summer 2007 on a record-setting pace.
In fact, it has hit $4 billion for the first time ever, so there's plenty of reasons to celebrate.
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August 26th, 2007
Three holdovers took the top three spots on the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
Top of the pack was Superbad, which dropped a very respectable 45% in its second weekend in release, to earn approximately $18 million.
Second was The Bourne Ultimatum, which fell only 38% in its fourth weekend to earn $12.4 million.
That was a rounding error ahead of Rush Hour 3, which took an estimated $12.25 million.
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August 25th, 2007
After a few busy weeks in a row, there was a total collapse in the number of sites on this week's list. Not only are there only a couple dozen sites this week, nearly half of them are films that are coming out this week and most of those had no updates to report. This leaves us with no sites that are award-worthy, and precious few that have to potential to make it there in the coming weeks.
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August 24th, 2007
As the summer ends, there is a rush to dump failed projects on the market.
This weekend there are five films opening up in various degrees of wide release from a few hundred to a couple of thousand.
However, while there's a lot of competition, Superbad has the inside track to repeat on top.
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August 1st, 2007
August marks the unofficial end of the lucrative summer box office season. The only question is when will it end. Studios usually hope for two summer-like weekends, and sometimes they can squeeze in three.
Other times they can only get one, or none.
Sadly, this year the August offerings are not particularly strong with only two that have a real shot at $100 million or more, and three or four others that should earn good reviews (and one of those has since been pulled from the schedule).
Most of the rest are films that probably seemed like a good idea at the time but didn't work out and those that were a mistake from day one.
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July 21st, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Big Stan, Valkyrie, Monsters vs. Aliens and more.
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April 1st, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for The Nanny Diaries, Sweeney Todd, The Happening and more.
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March 17th, 2007
We are starting to get some serious updates on the websites for the summer blockbusters, however, it will be a few more weeks before this list is dominated by such films. In the meantime, it is a website for a new release, Dead Silence - Official Site, that is the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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February 17th, 2007
While the big summer blockbusters are sill M.I.A., there are plenty of other films to pick up the slack. This includes this week's winner,
Bridge to Terabithia -
Official Site.
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January 13th, 2007
A slow week, but that's not surprising. The movie industry is seasonal with peaks and valleys throughout the year. With movie websites, there tends to be the same peaks and valleys, just a few months earlier. (The same is true for DVDs, just a few months later.) While there are a few sites on this week's list that show promise, there are none that are really award-worthy.
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December 10th, 2006
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Virgin Territory, Pan's Labyrinth and more.
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November 19th, 2006
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Charlotte's Web, Speed Racer, The Dark Knight and more.
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