February 26th, 2012
While the Independent Spirit Award unofficially kick off Awards Season with their nominations, they are one of the last to hand out their actual awards, which they did on Saturday. As it has most of the time, The Artist led the way by earning four wins out of the five categories it was nominated it. So which one did it lose? And what were the other winners?
More...
February 8th, 2012
There was no competition on the Blu-ray sales chart, as Real Steel topped all new releases and holdovers by a healthy margin. It sold 799,000 units and generated $22.36 million in sales giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 54%. Hopefully we will see a lot more films crack 50% as the winter blockbusters start to come out.
More...
February 8th, 2012
This was not a deep week for new releases, as only two of them cracked the top 30. (One major new release was only released as a Blu-ray / DVD combo pack, so we will get to those numbers shortly.) We did have a new number one on the DVD sales chart, as Real Steel sold 691,000 units and generated $12.03 million in revenue. This is not a great start, but it performed better on Blu-ray.
More...
January 24th, 2012
Yesterday was one of the biggest days during Awards Season as The Oscar nominations were announced in the morning. It was a two horse race for top spot as far as the big winners are concerned. Hugo earned the most nominations with eleven, while The Artist was right behind with ten. However, one could argue The Artist is the bigger winner, as more of its nominations were in the more prestigious categories.
More...
January 24th, 2012
There are three first run releases of note this week, including an Awards Season player, 50/50; the latest installment in a perennial horror franchise, Paranormal Activity 3; and big budget family film, Real Steel. Of those three, 50/50 is the best and a contender for Pick of the Week. Other contenders include Godzilla: The Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and Wings on Blu-ray. However, I'm going with a late arrival: Moneyball on Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack.
More...
January 21st, 2012
Moneyball opened in September, which is a terrible time of year to release a film, no matter what the studio is hoping for. It's the beginning of the school year, so the box office numbers will be weak, plus it is far too early for Awards Season. At least that's the case most years. Most September releases are terrible and usually more wide releases debuting during the month will have Tomatometer Scores that are below 20% positive than have overall positive scores. Strangely, this year there were four September releases that have gone on to earn nominations from at least one major awards committee. Moneyball has been leading that group (Warrior, Drive, and 50/50 are the other three) but will I add my voice to the choir singing the film's praise? Or will I be part of the minority of critics that were not drawn into the story?
More...
January 5th, 2012
The latest round of major nominations were released today with the WGA nominations. Like much of the rest of the previous announcements, the only surprise was the lack of surprises. Four of the five Original Screenplays earned other nominations in that category or other guild nominations. That number rises to five out of five for Adapted Screenplays. There's little doubt about what films are Oscar contenders at this point. The Documentary films category is a little more contentious, but it usually is.
More...
December 16th, 2011
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations and the Awards Season picture started to look a whole lot clearer. The Artist led the way with six nominations, while The Descendents and The Help were right behind with five apiece.
More...
November 30th, 2011
As it does every year, Independent Spirit Award nominations kick off the unofficial start of Awards Season. This year there were two films that topped the list of nominations: The Artist and Take Shelter. Both of those films earned five nominations, but they weren't the only films to be singled out.
More...
October 16th, 2011
A decent opening for the Footloose remake wasn't quite enough to take top spot at the box office this weekend thanks to a good second weekend for Real Steel. The inspirational robot boxing movie dropped 40% from its debut to $16.3 million, which will most likely be enough to keep Footloose in second place. It is projected to make $16.1 million this weekend. Well behind them is The Thing, which is expected to make just $8.7 million. Thanks to the general weakness of the market, that's going to be enough for third, but it's not going to make much of a dent in the marketing costs for the movie, let alone its production costs.
More...
October 10th, 2011
October started out with mixed results and it seems for every bit of good news there was equal and opposite bad news. Real Steel topped expectations, but Ides of March did not. The overall box office slipped by 4% from last weekend to $95 million, but it was higher than the same weekend last year. Growth was under 2%, meaning ticket sales were weaker. Year-to-date, 2011 is still behind 2010, but the gap was narrowed to 3% at $8.11 billion to $8.39 billion. There's still a chance we can catch up, but we are running out of time and can't afford any missteps.
More...
October 3rd, 2011
It was a good news / bad news weekend and the box office. First the bad news. Only one of the four new wide releases made any real impact and this led to a 16% drop-off from last weekend to just $99 million. The good news is that's still 4% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2011 is still behind 2010 by 3% at $7.99 billion to $8.27 billion, but at least there's a little hope left that we can turn things around, if October beats expectations.
More...
October 2nd, 2011
The industry's slow period in September and October is traditionally a dumping ground for films that the studios would rather forget, but it also presents an opportunity for movies that would otherwise be swamped by the competition at busier times of year. This weekend provides a perfect example of this phenomenon, with two pictures aimed at church-going families coming out the big winners. Dolphin Tale dropped just 25% in its second weekend to jump from third to first on the chart, overtaking Moneyball, which had a good second weekend (down 35% to $12.5 million) and The Lion King, which ran out of steam a bit, but still crossed $400 million at the box office. But the bigger surprise was the $8.8 million opening for Courageous from what must have been 1,161 carefully-chosen theaters. Its $7,580 per theater average comfortably tops the list among wide releases.
More...
September 29th, 2011
It's another busy week with three wide releases, plus another opening in just over 1,000 theaters, which is barely semi-wide. The widest release is What's Your Number?, but romantic comedies rarely have breakout success. The best-reviewed is 50/50, but its subject matter might make it hard to sell to audiences. Meanwhile, Dream House had an effective trailer, but there are still no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Courageous should grab a spot in the top ten, but it is not a sure bet. Unfortunately for the year-on-year comparison, none of the new releases look as strong as The Social Network, which opened this weekend last year. In fact, there's a slim chance all four of this year's wide release combined won't match The Social Network's $22.45 million. On the other hand, three of the four could crack $10 million, plus there are three holdovers that could do the same. Depth could be the key to victory in the year-over-year comparison.
More...
September 1st, 2011
After a strong start, August ended on a really low note, and that's bad news for September, as it means the positive momentum we had is gone. Looking at the upcoming month, there are 18 films opening wide over five weekends (including one re-release) but only four or five of them have a real shot at being midlevel hits, and it is unlikely that all of them will get there. Worse still, there are no films opening this month that look like they will match The Town, which made more than $90 million last September. In fact, the selection of releases is so weak that the film I'm most looking forward to is a limited release that has already come out on Video on Demand, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. (It has seventeen reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and still not a negative one among them.)
More...
