November 10th, 2015
It was a busy week on the per theater chart with seven films in the $10,000 club. Spotlight led the way with an average of $59,002 in five theaters. This is the fourth best opening weekend average of 2015, just ahead of While We're Young and just behind Ex Machina. Brooklyn was next with an average of $37,456, also in five theaters. It opened on Wednesday, so its weekend average was a little lower than it otherwise would have been. The overall number one film, Spectre, was third with an average of $17,919. In Jackson Heights was on the opposite end of the scale playing in just one theater. It did well with an opening of $15,150. Trumbo was very close behind with an average of $14,835 in five theaters. Its reviews suggest it won't expand significantly, but this is a great start. The second wide release of the week was The Peanuts Movie, which opened with an average of $11,345. The final film in the $10,000 club was Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict, which earned an average of $11,129 in two theaters.
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October 26th, 2015
Most of the new releases were not expected to do well at the box office. ... Almost no one saw this coming. We had some near-record bombs this weekend and even the best of the new releases were terrible. This left The Martian in first place; in fact, the top three spots and four of the top five were held by holdovers. The best new release, The Last Witch Hunter, barely cracked the $10 million mark. The overall box office fell 14% from last weekend to $105 million. This was also 9.5% lower than the same weekend last year. Midweek numbers were better this year than last year, so the year-over-year actually improved and 2015 now has a 5.2% lead over 2014 at $8.60 billion to $8.18 billion.
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November 25th, 2013
It's a pretty soft week when it comes to new releases. This is not surprising, as it is also Thanksgiving long weekend starting on Wednesday. These releases are only going to be out one day before they are overshadowed by sales. Fortunately, there are a couple of releases that stand out. The biggest of these, and the best, is Breaking Bad: The Final Season. The DVD or the Blu-ray could be a contender for Pick of the Week even during the busiest week. However, I think that honor should go to the show's Blu-ray Megaset. It is expensive, but it is worth it. An honorable mention goes to Mystery Science Theater 3000: 25th Anniversary Edition.
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August 1st, 2013
July was hit and miss at the box office, mostly miss. In fact, only two films really topped expectations, Despicable Me 2 and The Conjuring. That said, 2013 has nearly closed the gap with 2012 and it won't take much to pull ahead. Looking forward to August, we find that it is a very busy month with 16 or so films opening wide over five weeks. Of course, the closer you get to September, the more likely these films will struggle to find an audience, and more often than not, there are simply too many films opening wide to suspect they will all find an audience. On the high end, 2 Guns could be the biggest hit of the month with just over $100 million. The Smurfs 2 and Elysium could pull in $100 million. All three of those films are opening in the first two weeks of the month. After that, most of the new releases will be lucky if they reach $50 million during their theatrical runs. By comparison, last August was not as busy with 14 wide releases. Of those, only one film, The Bourne Legacy, topped $100 million, although a couple came reasonably close. Hopefully we will have more $100 million hits this time around and 2013 will be able to complete the comeback.
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