March 24th, 2007
There was another new releases to top the rental charts this week as Casino Royale earned $9.20 million during its opening weekend on the home market. This is not particularly strong compared to the film's theatrical run, but it was more dominant on the sales chart.
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March 18th, 2007
There was quite an international flavor on the charts this past weekend with five local hits charting, and one more just missing that mark. The best of these was Lubov Morkov, which opened in sixth place with $5.38 million on 492 screens in 4 markets over the weekend and $6.28 million in total. Of this amount, $4.90 million on 427 screens was earned over the weekend in Russia while it managed $5.80 million including midweek numbers.
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March 17th, 2007
There was only three new releases to chart on the home market this week; however, they included the top rental this week, Borat. While it was absolutely no surprise that the film opened in first place, it was a bit of a surprise that it only managed $9.18 million while doing so.
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March 11th, 2007
Music and Lyrics remained in sixth place with $5.64 million on 1645 screens in 18 markets for a total of $32.01 million internationally. The film disappointed domestically, but it appears to be making up for that softness on the international scene. The film's best opening of the weekend came from South Korea where it placed second with $2.06 million on 144 screens while it also grabbed second place in Brazil with $490,000 on 140. Holdovers were led by the U.K. where the film earned $1.09 million on 364 screens during its fourth week of release for a total of $15.71 million in that market alone. That's close to a $100 million run here, taking into account the relative sizes of the two markets.
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March 5th, 2007
It's a good week for DVD releases, with several that are worth picking up.
On the other hand, while my personal shopping list contains quite a number of DVDs, there wasn't much competition for the DVD Pick of the Week.
A few came close, including Borat - Buy from Amazon and South Park - The Complete Ninth Season - Buy from Amazon, but the winner was Stargate Atlantis - The Complete Second Season - Buy from Amazon.
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January 23rd, 2007
The
Oscar nominations were handed out today and for the most part they've followed the script written by previous awards committees fairly closely.
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January 23rd, 2007
The
Golden Globes were handed out last week, but the real winners were rewarded this weekend as the Golden Globe Bounce was in full effect.
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January 16th, 2007
Only two films were repeat winners on tonights
Golden Globes,
Dreamgirls with three wins and
The Queen with two. There were a few surprises along the way and some troubling signs for Oscar hopefuls.
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January 12th, 2007
The
Writers Guild of America is the last of the guilds to hand out nominations, which they did so this week. And while there are 20 or so categories, only two of them are theatrical.
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January 7th, 2007
Since New Years Eve fell on a Sunday this year, there was precious little in terms of international box office numbers released this week. We have some studio estimates, some box office information for major markets, and some updated totals. But for the most, there's little to share.
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December 23rd, 2006
Curse of the Golden Flower started its international run in its native
China with a record breaking $12.27 million on 826 screens. That was almost enough to reach the top five falling just short to
Arthur & the Invisibles and its $12.47 million.
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December 17th, 2006
Open Season solidified its chances to reach $100 million with a first place debut in Italy. Over the weekend the film just managed to beat
Happy Feet $1.68 million to $1.66 million over the weekend, (with midweek numbers
Open Season earned $1.82 million on 430 screens). The film was not as successful in Japan with just $968,000 on 441 screens; with such a small per theatre average, it will likely disappear quickly from charts. Overall it earned $4.97 million on 3451 screens in 51 markets for a total of $87.16 million; and even with no major markets left to open in, it does have a great shot at $100 million before its run is over.
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December 15th, 2006
Babel led the way when the
Golden Globe nominations were announced today with seven nominations while
The Departed was close behind with six.
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December 6th, 2006
A slow week for
Casino Royale with only four openings, and only one of those in a major market. In Japan the film had to settle for second place with $2.34 million on 443 screens over the weekend and $3.25 million in total; this was a tiny margin behind local film, Love and Honor. The film also opened in a trio of African markets: South Africa with $509,000 on 77 screens, Kenya, $59,000 on 8, and Nigeria with $44,000 on 4. (Although I've received an e-mail saying the movie made $25 million there and I can earn 12.5% of that if I help a certain theatre owner smuggle it out of the country.) The film's best market remains the U.K. where it added $10.51 million on 506 screens for a total of $73.45 million. The film has already topped
Die Another Day in that markets and is gunning for
Dead Man's Chest, which ended its run in the market with $98.63 million. Overall, the film earned an easy first place with $43.73 million on 6728 screens in 53 markets for a total of $194.65 million. And with openings in Australia, South Korea, Italy, Mexico and other significant markets left to go, it should have no trouble topping $300 million before long.
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November 29th, 2006
Casino Royale's dominance of the worldwide box office continued as it opened in 18 new markets scoring first place in every one of them. In fact, it was number one in 40 of the 50 markets it is currently playing in. Overall the film earned $64.94 million on 6460 screens in 50 markets for a two-week total of $129.06 million. The biggest opening of the weekend was in Germany where it crushed the competition with $12.84 million on 839 screens, more than 10 times its
nearest competition. France was also a major contributor to its weekend success with $8.4 million on 823 screens while it captured $3.90 million on 500 screens in Spain, and a combined $8.02 million on 392 screens in the four Scandinavian markets. Not surprisingly, holdovers were led by the U.K. where it dipped just 25% to $16.51 million on 506 screens for a total of $53.96 million, which is nearly what
Die Another Day earned in total in that market. Next up for the film is Japan this weekend, Australia the weekend after and South Korea the weekend after that. As for the film's long term potential, it is likely to crack the $500 million milestone worldwide with $600 million being a tough but achievable goal.
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November 28th, 2006
As was the case last year, the Thanksgiving long weekend was dominated by holdovers, with the number one film earning almost as much as the four new wide releases combined.
Over the 3-day weekend the total box office was $162 million, which was more than 10% higher than last weekend but more importantly it was just over 2% lower than the same weekend last year.
Over 5 days the top ten pulled in $197 million, or about 5% lower than the same weekend last year.
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November 23rd, 2006
Casino Royale dominated the weekend box office earning $42.2 million on 3,063 screens in 27 markets, only one of them a true major markets. The film's biggest was the
U.K., no surprise there, but the magnitude of the opening caught a lot of people off guard. Its weekend total of $21.55 million on 505 screens was the third biggest opening of all time behind just
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Add in Thursday and the film earned $25.33 million, roughly 47% more than the previous best opening for a
Bond film in the market, and
Goldeneye had 5 days to earn its $17.2 million. The second biggest market was Russia where the film took in $4.55 million on 540 screens, which was more than four times the
nearesst competition and the highest opening ever for a non-
Russian film there. It had a similar result in Indian earning $3.2 million on an unprecedented 427 screens beating
Spider-man 2's record for a non-
Indian film by 87%. Other million dollar markets include Greece with $1.34 million on 111 screens, Thailand with $1.1 million on 154 and Taiwan with $1 million on 116. The film opens in most of the rest of Europe next weekend and should have no trouble remaining on top of the charts.
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November 22nd, 2006
The Thanksgiving long weekend marks the beginning of the holiday season and is traditionally one of the biggest weekends of the year.
This year is no exception with four films opening wide, and two others adding a massive number of theaters.
However, despite the glut of new and expanding films, there's a very good chance that it will be a holdover that claims the top spot over the weekend.
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November 21st, 2006
There were a few surprises on the charts this week, including the number one film.
But overall things played out almost exactly as expected, leading to a total of $146 million at the box office.
This was 15% higher than last weekend but 19% lower than the same weekend last year.
However, that was the weekend when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opened and no-one was expecting this year to be able to keep pace.
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November 16th, 2006
What do penguins and secret agents have in common? (Not counting the fact that they both wear tuxedos.) Not a whole lot. However, movies featuring both will be in a close battle this weekend for top spot on the box office charts. Personally, in these battles I usually put my money on the guy with the gun, but cuteness might win out.
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November 15th, 2006
Borat was again the top box office draw on the international scene taking in $15.37 million on 1147 screens in 20 markets for a total of $43.16 million after two weeks of release. The film opened in three markets, but they were of the smaller variety earning $287,000 on 17 screens in Greece, $51,000 on 10 in Bulgaria and $29,000 on 4 in Serbia. The vast majority of the film's weekend total came from the U.K. where it repeated in first place with $8.62 million on 430 screens for a two-week total of $27.13 million. Meanwhile in Germany the film grew by 2%, but was still stuck in second place with $2.76 million on 310 screens for a total of $6.35 million in that market. This week the film opens in France, Spain, and other smaller markets, but it will have a lot of competition from
Bond and it will take a minor miracle for the film to not be knocked out of top spot.
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November 14th, 2006
Volver fell a tiny 14.41% during its second weekend of release while it easily won the per theater race with an average of $33,842 in five theatres.
The only other movie to top $10,000 was the overall box office leader, Borat, with an average of $11,017 in its 2,566 theaters, which is simply amazing.
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November 14th, 2006
There were four new releases opening in varying degrees of wideness this past weekend, but none of them could live up to lowered expectations.
This left the overall box office at $127 million, which was down about 2% from last weekend while up less than 1% from the same weekend last year.
That's not a large enough increase to keep up with ticket price inflation, but any good news is still welcome at this point.
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November 10th, 2006
With Borat beating all expectations last weekend, all eyes are on it this weekend. Can it maintain this amazing pace? Will it be able to keep its momentum as it expands? Will it suffer a major drop-off? What about the competition? Can they handle the pressure?
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November 8th, 2006
Borat beat the competition with relative ease this week earning $18.64 million on 995 screens in 17 markets. In fact, the $11.87 million the film made on 428 screens in
Sacha Baron Cohen's native
United Kingdom was more than the
second place film earned in total. The film's second biggest opening was in Germany where the film had to settle for second place with a still fantastic $2.67 million on 234 screens. The film also had first place openings in smaller markets like Holland, ($731,000 on 64 screens); Sweden, ($717,000 on 39); and Denmark, ($366,000 on 36).
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November 7th, 2006
Just a trio of films in the $10,000 club, but they are managed that feat by a huge margin. Leading the way was Volver with just under $200,000 on 5 theaters for an average of $39,541. This is actually lower than the opening per theater average for Pedro Almodovar's previous two films, but his biggest opening ever. Second place went to the overall number one film, Borat with $31,607 while last week's per theater average champion, Babel, came in third with $26,264 despite a huge increase in its theater count.
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November 7th, 2006
To call this weekend unpredictable is an understatement as there was a surprise number one film and records fell.
But despite this, the overall market was only mixed. Sure, week-to-week the box office was up roughly 24% from last weekend, but Halloween tends to depress the box office, even when it doesn't hit on the weekend. Compared to the same weekend last year, the $130 million total box office was 4% lower.
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November 3rd, 2006
Slow week for websites with only one real contender for the weekly website award, (not counting those sites that have already won). Fortunately, that site,
Flushed Away -
Official Site, truly deserved to win.
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November 2nd, 2006
It's the first week of the winter / holiday season and this weekend alone we have two films coming out that are aimed at the family market.
While the time of the year is great for these films, the direct competition will keep both from becoming more than mid-level hits.
On the other hand, neither look likely to bomb either.
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November 1st, 2006
Note: Article updated 11/18/2006 with correct budget for Harsh Times
It's that time of the month again, a time to look forward, but it is also a time to look back.
October was a stronger month than expected and, while there are a lot of reasons for that, I think one must pay particular attention to the play of Taylor Pyatt.
The departure of Anson Carter to free agency over the summer was troublesome and many felt finding a right winger for the Sedin twins was a key in maintaining or even improving upon last year's numbers.
Without good chemistry, Daniel and Henrik might have taken a step back this year.
However, with a team leading 6 goals, Taylor Pyatt is more than proving he can play with the speedy Swedes. ...
What?
Oh right, movies.
It was a pretty good month for movies as well.
November sees the beginning of the most important time of year for the movie industry.
Not only do the holidays start with Thanksgiving, but this is also the time of year that award season really heats up.
This means there is an excellent mix of blockbusters, especially family films, and critically acclaimed films hoping that first impressions are lasting impressions.
It also means there are several limited releases that could expand wide later in their run; these include Fur, Bobby, For Your Consideration and others.
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June 30th, 2006
It seems a lot of people are starting their holidays early, but not this column as it's the busiest it's been in more than a month. Including in this list are a few newly released teaser trailers and a handful of flash sites, most of which are worth checking out. But the best of the best is the
Running With Scissors -
Official Site.
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June 16th, 2006
This is actually a pretty busy week with more than two-dozen site on the list. That makes it the busiest week in a month. However, it was one of the site that had no real updates this week that won the Weekly Website Award this week and it was,
Nacho Libre -
Official Site.
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