We had a great start to the year, sort of. Most films that opened / expanded wide in January are going to miss expectations; however, Bad Boys for Life and 1917 are so much stronger than anticipated that they alone will more than make up the difference. Looking forward, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is almost guaranteed to be the biggest hit of the month. There are two questions. Firstly, is it going to top Bad Boys for Life and become the biggest hit of the year so far? Secondly, is it going to be the only $100 million hit of month? Hopefully the answers to those questions are yes and no respectively, but no to both is would still be good news overall. Sonic the Hedgehog is looking better than before and frankly Paramount needs a hit after a very troubling 2019. Meanwhile, there are several midlevel hits that could help the overall box office. Last February was a mixed month with some hits, like How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, but some disappointing results as well, like from The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. I think it will be a close race in the year-over-year competition with 2020 winning some weeks and losing others.
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April is over and thank god for that. The Fate of the Furious is currently the only film that was better than a midlevel hit, while Going in Style might end up being the second-biggest release of the month. On the low end, there were seven films on last month’s list that didn’t even manage to open in truly wide release (2,000 or more theaters). Fortunately, May looks a lot brighter. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should dominate the chart and get the month off to a fast start. Furthermore, every week there’s at least one film with a reasonable chance of earning $100 million domestically. Additionally, last May wasn’t particularly strong, so that should help 2017 overall. Granted, Captain America: Civil War earned more than $400 million, so the month got off to a fast start, but films struggled the rest of the way. The second-biggest film was X-Men: Apocalypse at just $155 million, while only one other movie, The Angry Birds Movie, earned more than $100 million. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should at least be competitive with Captain America: Civil War, allowing 2017 to win thanks to its superior depth.
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The Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced last night and thus the 2016 Awards Season begins. There were a few surprises and some snubs to discuss, but for the most part, there’s not a lot nominations that broke the established narrative. It’s because there isn’t really an established narrative. This means films that earn nominations here have a much better chance of doing well going forward and Moonlight looks like it could rise up as a result.
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