June 8th, 2016
The list of new home market releases isn't particularly long, but it includes Zootopia the best movie of the year, so it feels like an amazing week. It isn't the only contender for Pick of the Week this week, as Anomalisa, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Director's Cut, and others are also worth considering. The Martian: Extended Edition is also a must have, if you don't own it yet.
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March 22nd, 2016
Midnight Special had the best theater average for a film that opened in 2016 earning $190,000 in five theaters for an average of $38,002. The only other film in the $10,000 club was A Space Program with $10,247 in its lone theater.
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March 15th, 2016
There are several top-notch releases coming out this week, including a trio of Awards Season contenders: The Big Short, Brooklyn, and Carol. All three are Pick of the Week contenders. However, the winner of that title is Game of Thrones: Season Five on Blu-ray.
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February 28th, 2016
This is shaping up to be a triumphant weekend for 20th Century Fox. The studio will take three out of the top five spots at the box office this weekend, with Deadpool claiming a third straight win with $31.5 million, taking it to a huge (for the time of year) $285.6 million by close of business on Sunday. The studio’s Kung Fu Panda 3 will be down just 28% to $9 million in third place, for $128.5 million to date, and their new release Eddie the Eagle will land in fifth with a slightly disappointing, but not horrible, $6.3 million. Oh, and The Revenant is still in the top ten in its tenth weekend in release, and is the hot favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars this evening (more on that in a moment).
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Gods of Egypt had a horrible opening weekend…
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February 28th, 2016
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It’s Oscar day and, if all goes to plan, I will be live-blogging the ceremony tonight. Here is the list of nominees marked according to predictions from our readers, and my personal wishes. Nominees in Bold are the ones predicted to win by our readers (we’ll have a full rundown of the predictions at noon, after the contest ends). If I am predicting a different film, those are in Italics. Meanwhile, the nominees I want to win, but don’t think will win, are Underlined. There are a few categories where the film I really think deserves the award was not even nominated, plus a few I don’t have a real opinion on.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s not too late to enter our Oscar competition, and win all Best Picture nominees on Blu-ray or DVD.
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February 18th, 2016
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Feature-Length Animated Film. Inside Out has a better than 90% chance of winning. If it doesn't win, it would almost certainly be the biggest surprise of Oscar night.
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February 9th, 2016
No films earned more than $10,000 on the theater average chart. I Knew Her Well came the closest with $9,312 in its lone theater. Kung Fu Panda 3 landed in second place with just $5,328, which shows you how bad the weekend was.
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January 15th, 2016
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The Oscar nominations were announced at 5:30 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, this was a terrible year for snubs, especially when it comes to diversity of the nominees. The voters for the Oscars are 94% white and 77% male... but that's still more diverse than the list of nominees. The Revenant led the way with 12 nominations and it is expected to win a few of those, while it is a serious contender in most of the categories it was nominated in.
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January 13th, 2016
There were only three films in the $10,000 club this weekend and all of them were holdovers. Leading the way was Anomalisa with an average of $12,738 in 17 theaters. At this pace, the film will earn some measure of mainstream success. However, unless it wins an Oscar, it likely won't match its $8 million production budget in theaters. The Revenant slipped into second place with $11,801, while the overall number one film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was next with $10,245.
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January 10th, 2016
The Force Awakens will become the first movie to hit $800 million at the domestic box office today, according to Disney’s estimates released on Sunday. With a $41.6 million weekend, the film moves to $812 million in total domestically, becoming the second-highest-grossing Star Wars movie adjusted for inflation, ahead of The Empire Strikes Back’s inflation-adjusted $808 million. It should pass Avatar’s inflation-adjusted $826 million this week. Perhaps the biggest news of the weekend, however, comes from overseas.
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January 5th, 2016
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The Revenant remained on top of the theater average chart dipping just 6% to an average of $111,957 in four theaters. That's amazing and it bodes very well for its chances during its wide expansion this weekend. Furthermore, there are some major Awards Season events this week that could boost ticket sales even more. Anomalisa was well back in second place, but it still had an impressive opening with an average of $33,806 over the weekend and an average of $52,658 during its five-day opening. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was next with an average of $21,829. Chimes at Midnight earned $20,480 in one theater during its re-release, while Only Yesterday earned $14,970, also in one theater. The latter film is yet another success for GKIDS; this is the only studio that routinely has success with animated films in limited release. 45 Years remained in the $10,000 club with an average of $14,588 in six theaters. It doubled its theater count, but the average only fell 33% and that's a great sign for further expansion. Mr. Six is the fourth holdover in the $10,000 club earning an average of $10,406 in 28 theaters.
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January 3rd, 2016
This weekend sees the first signs of a slow-down at the box office for The Force Awakens, which will be down 41% from last weekend, according to Disney’s Sunday morning estimate. That’s the worst comparative performance in the top ten, and much weaker than Avatar’s 9% decline the same weekend in 2010. Such statistics are fairly academic when you already have $700 million in the bank domestically, though, and Star Wars’ momentum coming out of the holidays is such that it will register the biggest ever New Year’s weekend, and the biggest-ever 3rd weekend, overtaking Avatar’s $68.5 million. With $770.5 million overseas so far, its global total is now over $1.5 billion, putting it in the top six all time, and guaranteeing it will end in the top three, with only Titanic and Avatar left to shoot for.
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December 31st, 2015
There are two questions that are being asked about this weekend. Firstly, will Star Wars: The Force Awakens become the first film to earn $100 million three weekends in a row? Secondly, will The Hateful Eight live up to Django Unchained? I'm going to say no to both, but the former is much more likely than the latter. The rest of the top five should look the same as last time, with Daddy's Home being the best of the holdovers. The Force Awakens should earn more than the top five did last year, giving 2016 a fast start on the year-over-year comparison.
One last note, there are only two limited releases this week, including Anomalisa, which we previously talked about. The only other limited release is Devil and Angel, which has no reviews, so there's not much to talk about. Because of this, there will be no Limited Release Report this week.
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December 25th, 2015
While there are a massive number of wide releases / wide expansions this week, there are very few limited releases. Generally by this time of year, the competition from previously released Awards Season contenders is just too much. The only type of film that can truly thrive is one that has a lot of pre-release buzz. This year, this includes The Hateful Eight, which has the widest opening on this week's list and expands truly wide next week, as well as The Revenant, which expands wide early in January.
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December 10th, 2015
The Golden Globes nominations were announced this morning and we are already beginning to see a trend for this year's Awards Season. For the most part, the same films are coming up over and over again. Carol led the way with five awards, while there was a three-way tie for second place with The Big Short, The Revenant and Steve Jobs each picking up four.
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November 25th, 2015
Awards Season begins with the Independent Spirit Awards nominations. There were definitely some surprise nominees this year, but that also meant there were some unfortunate snubs as well. The overall leader was Carol, which just opened this past weekend. This is great timing and should help its box office numbers, as well as its chances throughout Awards Season. Its six nominations were one ahead of Beasts of No Nation and Spotlight. (One of Spotlight's was the Robert Altman Award, which has no nominations, just one winner.)
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