July 13th, 2010
A trio of new releases led the way on the sales chart this week with Percy & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief topping the chart.
It sold 823,000 units over its opening week for consumer spending at retail of $13.99 million.
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June 28th, 2010
It's not a bad week on the home market (for this time of year anyway), with a few midlevel hits worth checking out, as well as an assortment of TV on DVD, Limited Releases, and others to fill in the gaps. Of the first run releases, Hot Tub Time Machine is the one I'm looking forward to the most and if it has a good selection of extras, it could be Pick of the Week material. However, the screener won't be shipped to me till tomorrow, so the review will be a few days late at the earliest. That leaves Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage - Blu-ray as the clear Pick of the Week winner.
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May 2nd, 2010
Date Night fell out of the top five, but added $7.47 million on 3120 screens in 48 markets for a total of $28.31 million. The film opened in first place in the U.K., but only made $1.97 million on 400 screens, which is about the same as $11 million here. That's not a great start and there's little hope that the film will match its domestic total overseas, but it is still a solid midlevel hit and should show a profit by the time it reaches the home market.
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March 8th, 2010
Wow. There's no other word to describe it. Alice in Wonderland's record-breaking opening blew away all expectations and by itself was almost as much as the entire weekend box office last weekend and last year. Overall, the box office pulled in $197 million, which was 65% higher than last weekend and 69% higher than the same weekend last year. It pushed the year-to-date box office to $2.04 billion, which is 5.9% higher than last year's record-setting pace. Additionally, attendance is also above last year's pace by close to 4%.
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March 7th, 2010
The Princess and the Frog may have slipped out of the top five internationally, but it still added $8.32 million on 3053 screens in 28 markets for a total of $143.18 million. It had no major market openings again this week, but it added $2.84 million on 689 screens over the weekend in France for a total of $27.30 million after a month of release there. This weekend the film debuted in Japan, which could help it return to the top five. Regardless, it has made enough money that it should show a profit, eventually.
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March 4th, 2010
It is the beginning of a new month and there's lots of pressure on the box office to keep up pace with last year. There was only one wide release this time last year, Watchmen, but it opened with more than $55 million, which at the time was the third best March opening ever. This time around Alice in Wonderland is expecting to top that figure. In fact, a lot think it will set the March opening record.
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March 2nd, 2010
Overall, it was a solid weekend at the box office. While the new releases were not quite able to match expectations, holdovers were able to compensate, helping the overall box office to $119 million. This was down 11% from last weekend, but more importantly it was 6.9% higher than the same weekend last year. Ticket sales are still down by about 0.5%, but thanks to higher prices, 2010 is ahead of 2009 at $1.80 billion to $1.78 billion.
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February 28th, 2010
A decent 46% second weekend drop was good enough to keep Shutter Island at the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
With $22.2 million, the movie beat out good debuts by Cop Out and The Crazies, which picked up $18.6 million and $16.5 million respectively.
Overall business for the weekend looks as though it will be up about 20% compared to this weekend last year.
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February 25th, 2010
February ends with a couple of wide releases, both of which have a shot at taking first place. However, while both new films have a shot at top spot, Shutter Island will probably remain there over the weekend. This is not to say that the new releases are particularly weak, especially compared to the new releases that came out this time last year. In fact, the top three films from this year might all perform better than the top film last year, so 2010 has a real chance to stop the slide and maintain its record-setting pace.
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February 1st, 2010
2010 started in record-breaking fashion with the most lucrative January of all time, and only the second time that the box office reached $1 billion before the end of the month.
The first year to do that was 2009.
There were two problems preventing real celebration, however.
Firstly, roughly 30% of the total box office for the month came from one film, Avatar, which was a holdover.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, most films that were released / expanded wide in January missed expectations.
Because of this, February starts on a bit of a down note.
Compared to last year, the top of the list is about as strong with a couple of films aiming for $100 million, while there are fewer films that seem like they will bomb at the box office.
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