January 3rd, 2012
The first Tuesday of the year is not a great time of year for new releases on the home market. It's an even worse time of year for critics, especially this year. With Christmas Day landing on the Sunday, many studios took the entire week off, so there are plenty of screeners that still haven't made it my way. (There is some good news here, as I was able to get caught up on all of the screeners that had previously arrived late.) A couple of these potential late arrivals are contenders for Pick of the Week, like Justified: Season Two - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray and Mildred Pierce - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack. They also have competition from Contagion - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray, but in the end I gave that honor to The Guard - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray.
More...
January 3rd, 2012
Proof was based on an award-winning play, it was adapted for the screen by the original author, it was directed by an Oscar nominated director, and stars two Oscar winning actors, plus another Oscar nominated actor and another Golden Globe nominated actress. It was clearly Oscar bait, but it failed to live up to those expectations. But now we get a chance to look at the film without the context of Awards Season. Does this help the film? Or is it still disappointing?
More...
February 25th, 2006
Saw II dominated the home market easily winning the race for the top of the rental charts while topping the sales charts as well. Rental wise the film brought in $9.96 million in combined rentals, which was $4 million above its nearest competitor.
More...
February 13th, 2006
It's Valentine's Day tomorrow so you might expect a lot of
Romantic Comedies to be released, but that's not the case. In fact, there's not a whole lot of anything being released tomorrow. There's nothing that really jumps out as a must have, and nothing that's up to the level of DVD Pick of the Week. The best of the rest is the visually stunning
MirrorMask -
Buy from Amazon while
Zathura -
Buy from Amazon also earns an honorable mention.
More...
December 13th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today as Golden Globe nominations were announced. With seven nods, it led all films, which is an important Oscar indicator.
More...
December 4th, 2005
Here's this week's round-up of international box office numbers.
In Her Shoes fell out of the top five this week with $3.95 million on 2,050 screens in 23 markets for a $30.60 million international box office.
The film held up amazingly well in Spain, dropping just 8% to $810,000 on 290 screens, but it wasn't as fortunate in France where it lost more than half its opening, earning $400,000 on 293 screens, falling out of the top ten in the process.
It suffered a similar fate during its third weekend in the U.K. where it was down 55% to $736,000 on 268 screens, but the film already has $7.06 million there, which is better than its domestic run if you take into account the relative sizes of the two markets.
More...
November 27th, 2005
The Legend of Zorro fell from second to sixth this week and because of that its quest from $100 million internationally took a serious hit. Over the weekend the film pulled in $4.20 million on 4062 screens in 62 markets for a running tally of $80.73 million. In France the film fell 57% to $1.01 million over the weekend and $14.80 million during its four-week run while it had a similar drop-off in Spain where it was down 56% to $475,000 over the weekend and $9.10 million in total. The box office was less kind in Russia, (down 68% to $136,000); Germany, (down 70% to $232,000) and the U.K., (down 83% to $120,000).
More...
November 20th, 2005
The Corpse Bride missed the top five by the narrowest of narrow margins losing out to
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit $5.50 million to $5.45 million. The film earned its $5.45 million on 2586 screens in 28 markets pushing its total to $53.4 million total at the international box office. In South Korea the film fell 43% to $753,000 on 114 screens, which is better than average for the market. And the film is also doing well in Italy adding $764,000 on 268 screens to its $2.67 million running tally there, $700,000 in France for a $8 million box office, and $462,000 in Japan for a $7.0 million box office.
More...
October 18th, 2005
There were four films in the $10,000 club this weekend, but not one of them was a new release.
Leading the way for the second weekend in a row was Good Luck and Good Luck, with an average of $18,305, despite seeing its theatre count climb from 11 to 68.
Second place went to Capote, which is holding on really well, with just over $360,000 in 30 theatres for an average of $12,129.
The Squid and the Whale just finished ahead of Little Manhattan, $10,368 to $10,355.
More...
October 11th, 2005
Despite playing in nearly three times as many theatres as its nearest competitor, Good Luck and Good Luck was still able to top the Per Theatre Charts with an incredible $420,000 in just 11 theatres for an average of $38,313.
In second place was The Squid and the Whale with $125,000 on 4 screens for an average of $30,927 over three days and $155,000 over 5.
The first of two holdovers, Capote, finished third with an average of $16,489 in 24 theatres, while the last film in the $10,000 club was Little Manhattan, which dropped less than 16% to $15,354.
More...
October 4th, 2005
The Truman Capote BioPic took top spot on the per theatre charts this weekend with $325,000 in 12 theatres for an average of $27,071. The only other film to reach $10,000 this weekend was Little Manhattan, which earned an average of $18,199 in its two theatres.
More...
September 27th, 2005
As expected, A History of Violence led the per theatre charts this weekend with an average of $36,857 in 14 theatres.
Even if the film wasn't going to expand its theatre count, it would still top David Cronenberg's previous film and depending on how well it holds onto its average as it expands, it could become one of his biggest commercial successes.
The only other member of the $10,000 club was Oliver Twist, which earned $68,447 in just 5 theatres for an average of $13,689, which is a little below what I was expecting.
More...
September 20th, 2005
It's safe to say that Award Season is unofficially underway, as there were four films in the $10,000 club with another just behind.
Leading the way was the prestige opening of The Corpse Bride, which pulled in almost $400,000 in just 5 theatres for an average of $77,016.
Next up was the Oscar hopeful Proof, which made close to $200,000 in 8 theatres for a $24,230 per theatre average.
And lastly we have two films with nearly identical per theatre averages, Separate Lies and Everything is Illuminated with averages of $11,171 and $11,134 respectively.
More...
September 16th, 2005
It's the best time of the year for quality limited releases as studios try and release films they hope will be contenders for the various award shows coming up. That doesn't mean all of this week's films are high quality, just that there are more high quality films than are usual released in one week.
More...
September 15th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Cry Wolf -
Official Site.
More...
September 8th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Tideland -
Official Site.
More...
September 1st, 2005
September is the prime dumping ground for movie studios, where the films that just didn't work get ditched to die an undignified death. So why are there no less than five movies opening wide that look like they should be reasonably good? Either the studios are trying to counteract the poor reputation September has, or I have really bad taste in movies.
This month is very difficult to predict for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fluidity of the release schedule with several films on the bubble for wide releases.
In fact, there are almost as many films that may or may not open wide in September than there are films with a solid release schedule.
Predicting what a film will earn without knowing if it will open wide is tricky because you have to figure out how much it would earn if it opens wide, how much it will earn if it goes the limited route, and what are the odds it will open wide versus a limited release.
This resulting weighted average is lower than a similar prediction for a movie that is known to be opening wide, which makes the month look even worse that it otherwise would.
More...
