December 15th, 2011
The SAG nominations were handed out this week, and while The Help led the way with four nods, it wasn't the only film that earned multiple nominations.
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July 7th, 2011
The Adjustment Bureau led the way on this week's Blu-ray sales chart, but with just a fraction of last week's winning total. It sold 122,000 units and generated $2.87 million in consumer spending, which is very low for the number one film. However, its Blu-ray ratio was 35%, which is good for this type of film. (At its heart it is a romance, with a slice of science fiction thrown in.)
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July 6th, 2011
Several new DVD releases charted this week, and new releases even earned the top three spots on the chart. However, sales were very weak and they only placed that well due to the lack of substantial competition. The number one film on this week's DVD sales chart was Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Rodick Rules with just 255,000 units sold and $5.01 million in opening week consumer spending at retail. To put this into perspective, that's on par with the original film's second week on the home market.
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June 21st, 2011
It's another busy week for DVD / Blu-ray with four first-run releases coming out this week. Five if you include Cedar Rapids, which was had surprisingly brisk ticket sales in limited release. Cedar Rapids is also the only one of the big releases that I would consider for Pick of the Week honors. Despite the number of wide releases on this week's list, I'm going with an unorthodox choice for Pick of the Week, "Weird Al" Yankovic - Alpocalypse, but Louie: Season One on Blu-ray earns an honorable mention.
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March 14th, 2011
While Battle: Los Angeles easily won the race at the box office this weekend, that was practically the only bit of good news, as it was the only film in the top five to top expectations. Overall the box office pulled in $129 million, which was 3% lower than last weekend and 12% lower than the same weekend last year. On the other hand, this is actually better than average for the year so far. Year-to-date, 2011 is just over 20% behind last year's pace at $1.85 billion to $2.33 billion.
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March 13th, 2011
Battle: Los Angeles posted an estimated opening of $36 million to win the weekend, and give the market another boost after Rango's solid debut last week.
With Rango itself dropping only 40% to a shade over $23 million the total weekend box office should be about 12% below last year, which is actually an improvement over recent weeks, although it continues a months-long slump.
And the weekend brought some very bad news for Disney, whose Mars Needs Moms had a catastrophic $6.8 million opening weekend, on a budget reported at $150 million.
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March 10th, 2011
Three films open at saturation level theater counts this weekend, and last weekend's number one film is still playing in over 3,000 theaters, so we could have a lot of depth in terms of box office strength. This time last year we had four wide releases, none of which were major hits. On the other hand, there was also Alice in Wonderland, which made more than $60 million during its sophomore stint alone. There's no film opening this weekend that can match that figure. In fact, all three films combined might not match that figure and 2011 will again lose ground against 2010.
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March 10th, 2011
This week is was Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Wednesday, and now it's the beginning of Lent. Because of this, a lot of international numbers were not as timely as I would like. And we are still stuck with a lot of studio estimates. Leading the way was The King's Speech with $18.9 million over the weekend for a total of $183.5 million internationally and just over $300 million worldwide. It grew by 31% in Japan to $1.61 million on 124 screens over the weekend for a total of $5.32 million after two. Meanwhile it was down just 11% in the U.K. to $1.76 million on 470 screens over the weekend for a total of $68.45 million after two months of release.
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March 7th, 2011
There's very little good news at the box office this weekend, but we will start with some happy thoughts. Rango had the best opening weekend of the year, which helped the box office climb 23% from last weekend to $134 million. On the other hand, this time last year Alice in Wonderland opened with $116 million by itself, which means 2011 lost the year-over-year comparison by 32%. Year-to-date, 2011 now has $1.69 billion compared to last year's pace of $2.13 billion and it's not like it's going to get better over the coming weeks.
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March 3rd, 2011
So far 2011 has been a bit of a bust with only one weekend winning the year-over-year comparison and not a single film opening with more that $40 million. Hopefully one of those records will change this weekend, as Rango looks to become the biggest hit of the year so far. Unfortunately, this time last year saw the release of Alice in Wonderland, the biggest March opening of all time. I can't imagine a scenario where 2011 doesn't lose even more ground on 2010.
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March 1st, 2011
This is going to suck. February wasn't exactly a banner month at the box office and 2011 is already roughly $400 million behind 2010's pace. To make matters worse, last March broke records starting with the release of Alice in Wonderland. There is no movie coming out this month that will come close to Alice in Wonderland's performance; in fact, the number one film this March will likely not do as well as the second best film from last March. The best case scenario has the month producing three $100 million movies, plus a number of midlevel hits, while still failing to match last year's pace by about $100 million. The worst case scenario has two of the three potential $100 million hits missing that mark, plus the midlevel hits also struggling. In that case, we could end March about $300 million further behind 2010's pace. (Hopefully things will start to turn around in April.)
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