May 21st, 2007
Yet another potential $100 million movie opens this weekend.
In fact, Memorial Day Weekend pretty much guarantees Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End will hit $100 million.
However, that also complicates our box office prediction contest, as we are only interested in the film's 3-day opening weekend and we have to wait a day to get those numbers.
To win one must simply predict the opening weekend box office of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Alone With Her on DVD as well as Catch & Release Soundtrack on CD.
Meanwhile, the person who comes the closest to the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a copy of The Lost City on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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May 19th, 2007
It was not a good week for new releases on the DVD rental chart.
None were able to take a spot in the top three, and this left Night at the Museum in first place with $7.38 million for the week and $28.01 million during its run.
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May 8th, 2007
It is not a particularly strong week for DVD releases, and I think Spider-Man 3 had a lot to do with that as it is dominating the news so much that it scared studios enough to keep them from putting out their A-list releases.
There were a few TV on DVD releases that caught my eye, like The 4400 - The Complete Third Season, as well as a few Special Editions, like Big - Extended Edition.
But in the end I'm going with a double-shot of Canadian releases, Things to Do and Trailer Park Boys - Season 6, because I'm such a hoser.
(Important note, you must import the latter title from Canada, but it's worth it.)
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February 6th, 2007
The first weekend in February lived up to muted expectations with four of the top five meeting or exceeding Thursday's predictions.
However, this still led to a massive 22% drop-off from the previous weekend, with a total box office of just $93 million.
While the Superbowl certainly had something to do with that, it can't take all of the blame as the box office was down 12% from the same weekend last year, which also played host to the Superbowl.
So far, 2007 hasn't gotten off to a strong start, but it is way too early to push any panic buttons just yet.
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January 30th, 2007
Well, January is finally over and we survived.
The final four entries tried their luck this weekend and while two earned enough to be considered box office successes, none came close to wowing critics.
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January 26th, 2007
This year's crop of summer blockbusters still haven't started opening movies site in earnest yet, and until they do, this column will be lacking. It's yet another week without a truly award-winning site but
Catch & Release -
Official Site is the best of the rest.
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January 25th, 2007
The final weekend in January gives us plenty of new releases, but not much in terms of quality.
Of the four wide releases opening this week, two are earning roughly 30% positive reviews and the other two are not being screened for critics.
However, movie fans should not fret as several Oscar hopefuls are expanding this week and are giving moviegoers plenty of choice.
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January 13th, 2007
A slow week, but that's not surprising. The movie industry is seasonal with peaks and valleys throughout the year. With movie websites, there tends to be the same peaks and valleys, just a few months earlier. (The same is true for DVDs, just a few months later.) While there are a few sites on this week's list that show promise, there are none that are really award-worthy.
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January 2nd, 2007
It is the beginning of a new year. A time to start fresh. So why do most of the new releases smell so stale? It's the January dumping ground, home to films that looked promising on paper but just didn't pan out.
That doesn't mean there are no films that could be worth checking out.
Out of the twelve new films opening wide this month (that's opening, not expanding), Smokin' Aces looks great and so does ... no, that's about it.
Almost all of the new releases are likely to struggle at the box office and with critics alike.
And to make matters worse, six of these new releases are going wide on the same weekend.
This is complete madness and guarantees that at least two films that would otherwise succeed are going to fail.
On the other hand, there are nearly a dozen films that have previously opened and are expanding wide (Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth, for example), or are being re-released to grab some last minute Oscar buzz,
(The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, among others).
This makes for an incredibly busy month, but not one that will likely produce many hits.
Two additional notes...
Firstly, Letters from Iwo Jima is expanding throughout the month but likely won't go wide until February.
Secondly, The Dead Girl has a planned expansion on the 19th, but after struggling in limited release since opening last weekend, this seems unlikely.
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December 9th, 2006
Good week for websites with a number of candidates for the top spot. In the end I went with
Ghost Rider -
Official Site, but there's a few others here that will undoubtedly win in the coming weeks.
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December 29th, 2005
This week's list of movie site is abridged and only contains the two films that are opening this week plus more than a dozen site that have never appeared on this list before. However, it was one of the two new openings,
Match Point -
Official Site, that took the weekly website award.
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