October 10th, 2006
The Thanksgiving long weekend signifies the start of the holiday shopping season... Of course, that's the American Thanksgiving, which occurs sometime in November. The
Canadian Thanksgiving, which occurred this weekend, is most closely associated with the start of
Hockey season. (Have I mentioned how much I hate the
New York Rangers? I have. Good.) However, just because shopping season has officially started, doesn't mean it's a slow week.
Far from it.
This week there was a bumper crop of contenders for the DVD Pick of the Week.
I narrowed the list to two TV on DVD releases (
Scrubs - The Complete Fourth Season -
Buy from Amazon and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law - Volume 2 -
Buy from Amazon) and two limited releases, (
Twelve and Holding -
Buy from Amazon and
A Prairie Home Companion -
Buy from Amazon).
If I was forced at gunpoint to choose just one, it would be
Scrubs - The Complete Fourth Season -
Buy from Amazon, but I can all but guarantee all four, and a few others, will end up in my DVD collection.
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September 26th, 2006
It was a difficult week to come up with a winner for the DVD Pick of the Week.
This was partially because of the huge list of movies being released tomorrow and partially because I'm on cold medication.
There were several contenders for the honor but in the end I went with Lady Vengeance - Buy from Amazon and Masters of Horror - Imprint - Buy from Amazon.
But be warned, their extreme storytelling means that they are not for everyone.
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February 21st, 2006
With the
Oscars just a few weeks away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Animated Feature.
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February 11th, 2006
For the second week in a row,
Flightplan lead the way on the rental charts taking in $8.22 million in DVD rentals. That was down just 15% from its opening, which pushed its total to $18.07 million so far.
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January 31st, 2006
Brokeback Mountain again led the list of nominees as with 8 Oscar nods. There were three films with six nominations a piece,
Crash,
Good Night and Good Luck, and
Memoirs of a Geisha, (although for that last one, they were all the less prestigious technical awards.
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January 30th, 2006
This week is busier than it has been for about a month, but there still isn't much in the way of contenders for the DVD Pick of the Week. The best of the bunch is
Corpse Bride -
Buy from Amazon, but the special features are not up to par and that prevents it from being a true DVD Pick of the Week.
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January 6th, 2006
It's guild day today as the
Producers Guild of America nominations were announced this week.
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December 18th, 2005
Just Like Heaven dipped at the box office falling out of the top five with $4.53 million on 1609 screens in 30 markets over the weekend for an early total of $18.04 million internationally. Its best opening was in Belgium where it debuted in second place with $252,000 on 40 screens over the weekend and $290,000 in total. It also had debuts in Holland with $139,000 on 57 screens over the weekend and $167,000 overall, and in Greece with $116,000 on 24 and Norway with $113,000 on 26. Holdovers include Germany where the film dropped 24% to $890,000 on 273 screens for a total of $2.41 million so far, while in Spain the film fell 39% to 718,000 on 200 screens for a two-week total of $3.09 million.
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December 11th, 2005
Flightplan fell out of the top five with $5.13 million on 2,430 screens in 38 markets for a total of $94.65 million on the international scene.
It did fall from second to sixth on this week's charts, but it should still reach $100 million by this time next week. Its best market of the weekend was the U.K. where it remained in second place with $2.14 million on 416 screens for a two-week total of $6.59 million.
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December 4th, 2005
Here's this week's round-up of international box office numbers.
In Her Shoes fell out of the top five this week with $3.95 million on 2,050 screens in 23 markets for a $30.60 million international box office.
The film held up amazingly well in Spain, dropping just 8% to $810,000 on 290 screens, but it wasn't as fortunate in France where it lost more than half its opening, earning $400,000 on 293 screens, falling out of the top ten in the process.
It suffered a similar fate during its third weekend in the U.K. where it was down 55% to $736,000 on 268 screens, but the film already has $7.06 million there, which is better than its domestic run if you take into account the relative sizes of the two markets.
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November 27th, 2005
The Legend of Zorro fell from second to sixth this week and because of that its quest from $100 million internationally took a serious hit. Over the weekend the film pulled in $4.20 million on 4062 screens in 62 markets for a running tally of $80.73 million. In France the film fell 57% to $1.01 million over the weekend and $14.80 million during its four-week run while it had a similar drop-off in Spain where it was down 56% to $475,000 over the weekend and $9.10 million in total. The box office was less kind in Russia, (down 68% to $136,000); Germany, (down 70% to $232,000) and the U.K., (down 83% to $120,000).
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November 20th, 2005
The Corpse Bride missed the top five by the narrowest of narrow margins losing out to
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit $5.50 million to $5.45 million. The film earned its $5.45 million on 2586 screens in 28 markets pushing its total to $53.4 million total at the international box office. In South Korea the film fell 43% to $753,000 on 114 screens, which is better than average for the market. And the film is also doing well in Italy adding $764,000 on 268 screens to its $2.67 million running tally there, $700,000 in France for a $8 million box office, and $462,000 in Japan for a $7.0 million box office.
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November 9th, 2005
The Legend of Zorro saw serious declines in many major markets, but was still able to take top spot on the international charts with $17.5 million on 6,150 screens in 60 markets for an international total of $60 million so far. In France, the film fell by 57% to $2.46, and in Spain it fell by 46% to $1.71 million, but remained first in both markets.
Meanwhile, it was down 64% in the UK to $1.18 million.
It did show surprising legs in Germany, where it was down just 25% to $1.33 million, in Holland down 27% to $270,000, and in Turkey where it was down just 8% to $275,000. However, in that last market, it was one of only two films in the top ten to suffer week-to-week declines.
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November 2nd, 2005
The Legend of Zorro started its international run with a nearly worldwide day-and-date release, coinciding with its US domestic launch.
This allowed the film to take top spot easily on the international charts with $27 million.
However, it was playing on 6,140 screens in 50 markets, giving in a rather lame per screen average.
The film finished first in many markets, including France with $5.8 million on 690 screens, Spain with $2.8 million on 550 screens, Mexico with $1.4 million on 500, China with $1.38 million on 250, Brazil with $1 million on 319, and Russia with $1 million on 301.
But it also struggled in many of the major markets, finishing second in Germany with $1.65 million on 674 screens, third place in the U.K. with $2.8 million on 485 and, and fourth in Italy and South Korea with $1.25 million on 500 and $1.06 million on 160 screens respectively.
Even with the better legs most films have on the international scene and a few more markets left to open, The Legend of Zorro will struggle to reach $100 million internationally, which is well below the original.
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October 26th, 2005
For the third weekend in a row Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit led the race on the international charts.
This time it added $15.75 million on 3,782 screens in 32 markets to its total of $63.7 million so far.
Slightly more than half of the film's weekend haul came from the U.K. where it added $8.3 million over the weekend, down 26.5% from its opening.
It now has $29.4 million in that market, which is nearly half of its international total.
Holdovers in other major markets were equally impressive as the film dropped just 19% in Germany to $1.86 million and 24% in France to $2.22 million.
On the other hand, the film doubled its opening weekend haul in the Netherlands, taking in $440,000 over the weekend and $960,000 during its run.
There was not much on the new openings front, but the film did take first place in Belgium with $427,000 on 86 screens, but that was since Wednesday.
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October 16th, 2005
Company 9 remained in first place in Russia, its home market, down just 13% to $4.3 million for a running total of $14.3 million, which is well ahead of Revenge of the Sith's final box office in the market (which was just shy of $10 million).
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October 10th, 2005
It was a bad weekend at the box office. Granted, the box office hit $104 million over the weekend, up 17.6% from last weekend, but it was down 2.9% from last year, making this a weak start to October. The fall box office is still ahead of last years pace by 4.9% at $581.8 million, but year-to-date, 2005 is off by 6.5% at $6.608 billion.
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October 9th, 2005
Company 9 opened in its native market of Russia with a stunning $5.0 million over the weekend and $6.25 million including the midweek numbers, which is better than Revenge of the Sith's opening in that market.
This also means there were two films that did so well in their local markets that they managed to place in the top five overall.
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October 7th, 2005
Five new films are opening in varying degrees of wideness from 3,645 theatres for Wallace and Gromit to 969 for The Gospel. All while all five could have an impact at the box office, the real question is whether the overall market can rebound from last weekend's setback.
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October 3rd, 2005
The mini-winning streak the box office was on came to a crashing end this weekend as the total box office was only $88 million, down 11.4% from last weekend and a stunning 21.7% from last year. Of course, this time last year was the first weekend in October, so the year-to-year drop-off is to be expected. Year-to-date, 2005 is behind 2004 by 6.6% at $6.479 billion to $6.934 billion. But at least the Fall is still ahead by 7.7% at $453 million, and at this point you have to take whatever good news you can find.
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September 30th, 2005
Today is the last day of a very successful September. Unfortunately, this does mean the year-to-year gains we've been seeing will come to an end.
This time last year was the first weekend in October and all three wide releases combined won't top the debut of Shark Tale.
But hopefully that will be a momentary setback for an otherwise healthy Fall box office.
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September 26th, 2005
The weekend didn't go exactly as planned as the top two films finished in the opposite order to expectations, but the overall result was the same.
The box office was up for the week by 16.4% and was up by an astounding 38.9% from last year.
Since Labor Day, 2005 is up 15.6% over the same period last year with $332.7 million. Year-to-date, 2005 has brought in $6.36 billion in ticket sales, which is still behind 2004 but the gap has closed to 6.5%.
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September 23rd, 2005
September is usually an extremely weak month at the box office, but so far we've seen better than expected results and have had significant growth from last year. That trend will likely continue this weekend as there are two films that could top $20 million over the weekend.
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September 20th, 2005
It's safe to say that Award Season is unofficially underway, as there were four films in the $10,000 club with another just behind.
Leading the way was the prestige opening of The Corpse Bride, which pulled in almost $400,000 in just 5 theatres for an average of $77,016.
Next up was the Oscar hopeful Proof, which made close to $200,000 in 8 theatres for a $24,230 per theatre average.
And lastly we have two films with nearly identical per theatre averages, Separate Lies and Everything is Illuminated with averages of $11,171 and $11,134 respectively.
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September 16th, 2005
It's the best time of the year for quality limited releases as studios try and release films they hope will be contenders for the various award shows coming up. That doesn't mean all of this week's films are high quality, just that there are more high quality films than are usual released in one week.
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September 15th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Cry Wolf -
Official Site.
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September 1st, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Serenity -
Official Site.
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September 1st, 2005
September is the prime dumping ground for movie studios, where the films that just didn't work get ditched to die an undignified death. So why are there no less than five movies opening wide that look like they should be reasonably good? Either the studios are trying to counteract the poor reputation September has, or I have really bad taste in movies.
This month is very difficult to predict for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fluidity of the release schedule with several films on the bubble for wide releases.
In fact, there are almost as many films that may or may not open wide in September than there are films with a solid release schedule.
Predicting what a film will earn without knowing if it will open wide is tricky because you have to figure out how much it would earn if it opens wide, how much it will earn if it goes the limited route, and what are the odds it will open wide versus a limited release.
This resulting weighted average is lower than a similar prediction for a movie that is known to be opening wide, which makes the month look even worse that it otherwise would.
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August 25th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Corpse Bride -
Official Site.
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July 21st, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -
Official Site.
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June 16th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -
Official Site.
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January 27th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and a few updates, including this week's winner, The Wedding Date - Official Site.
If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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