October 5th, 2010
It was another week where new releases dominated the DVD sales chart with ten of them placing in the top 30. This includes Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, which took top spot with 920,000 units sold, while its opening week sales of $16.80 million were actually second best. This is a drop from The Lost Treasure; however, it did much, much better on Blu-ray than either of the previous releases.
More...
September 28th, 2010
New releases flooded the sales chart this week, taking the top nine spots, plus a couple more in the top 30. Leading the way was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with a disappointing opening week of 664,000 units and consumer spending at retail of $15.05 million.
It was relatively better on Blu-ray, however.
Letters to Juliet opened in second place with 486,000 units and $8.26 million, which is fine given the film's theatrical run. Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale opened in third place with $283,000 units / $3.95 million, which is huge for a direct-to-DVD franchise.
More...
September 13th, 2010
TV on DVD season continues, which is great news for fans who want to relive last season, or missed many episodes of their favorite shows. It's bad news for these people's wallets, as they are quite expensive compared to first run releases. (Although TV on DVD releases tend to be inexpensive entertainment on a per-minute basis.) It's worse news for critics, as trying to review several full season releases in one week is tough to pull off. That's not to say there were no first run releases, but the ones that did come out were second-tier, or lower, leaving them out of competition for Pick of the Week. I'm going with The Big Bang Theory: Season Three for Pick of the Week, with both DVD and Blu-ray worth picking up, but the High Definition release is arguably the better deal.
More...
June 20th, 2010
For the third weekend in a row, Robin Hood remained in fourth place. This time it pulled in $7.19 million on 5742 screens in 54 markets for a total of $183.71 million internationally and $283.17 million worldwide. This week it opened in China and India, two countries that rarely release box office numbers in a timely fashion.
More...
May 30th, 2010
A weaker-than-expected debut by Sex and the City 2 will leave Shrek Forever After the comfortable winner over Memorial Day Weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
Shrek's 3-day projected gross is $43.345 million, which takes it to $133.1 million after ten days.
That's not, in itself, a spectacular result, since it's a decline of 39% from a soft-ish opening weekend on one of the biggest box office weekends of the year, but it puts the ogre movie over $10 million ahead of Sex over three days -- a lead that will get bigger once Monday's numbers are in.
More...
May 25th, 2010
I'm starting to get a little concerned about summer. Granted, we are only three weeks in, but so far we have had two films that came short of high expectations and another that was expected to struggle at the box office and did. This time around, the number one movie failed to meet even the low end of expectations and the overall box office managed just a hair under $150 million. This was 8% more than last weekend, but 15% lower than the same weekend last year. Granted, this time last year was Memorial Day long weekend, so the comparison isn't entirely fair. But still troubling. Year-to-date, 2010 has amassed $4.04 billion, which is 4.8% higher than last year, but the boom in 3D films and the higher ticket prices that go with it means that attendance is down 1.7%.
More...
May 23rd, 2010
Perhaps DreamWorks Animation saw the writing on the wall before anyone else, but their decision to make Shrek Forever After the last film in the series is looking wise after the Ogre comedy/adventure posted what has to be considered a very ordinary opening.
Paramount's weekend estimate is $71.25 million, over $50 million less than Shrek the Third's debut in 2007, and it will take incredible legs through the Summer for the movie to deliver the kind of box office enjoyed by previous movies in the franchise.
More...
May 20th, 2010
It's the first long weekend of the summer; at least it is up here in Canada. What effect will this have on the box office? Not a whole lot, but Canada does represent about 10% of the total domestic box office and every little bit will help. This time last year saw the debut of two box office hits and we only have Shrek Forever After this time around. Granted, even the low end estimates have the pseudo-final chapter in the Shrek franchise crushing either Night at the Museum or Terminator, individually. The question is, can it top their combined opening? It might need to if 2010 is to keep pace with 2009.
More...
May 17th, 2010
The overall box office this past weekend was adequate. While three of the top five films were unable to match Thursday's predictions, none were off by a significant degree. All combined, the box office brought in $139 million, which was down 22% compared to last week. Again, this was expected. Compared to last year it was higher, but by a mere 1.3%. Not enough to keep pace with inflation. Year-to-date, 2010 is still ahead of 2009 at $3.85 billion to $3.62 billion. However, due to the influx of 3D ticket sales and the much higher ticket prices they command, attendance is actually down by a fraction of a percent. It's nothing to worry about at the moment, but it is still interesting.
More...
May 16th, 2010
This Summer's first blockbuster face-off ended with a victory for Iron Man 2 as the superhero actioner saw off the medieval actioner, Robin Hood.
Both movies enjoyed weekends roughly in line with expectations.
Iron Man 2 posted a respectable 59% drop from its opening weekend to earn $53 million, and take its domestic box office total to $212 million.
With another $210 million internationally, the movie is well on its way to topping Iron Man's $582 million worldwide tally.
Robin Hood couldn't match that level of performance, but posted a decent $37.1 million opening in North America, and earned an estimated $77 million internationally, to take it past $100 million worldwide on its first weekend.
More...
May 13th, 2010
The second weekend in May tends to be weak at the box office; for instance, it was the second weekend of May that saw the release of Speed Racer and Poseidon, just to name two recent examples. It is unlikely that Robin Hood will do that poorly at the box office; in fact, it might open with more than Speed Racer made in total. If it can, it will go a long way towards helping 2010 keep pace with last year. But even if it does, it will likely have to settle for second place.
More...
May 1st, 2010
It's summertime! April started off okay, but ended with a thud. In fact, How to Train Your Dragon was arguably the biggest box office draw of the month, and it opened in March. That said, it's May, and that means there's a clean slate for the box office, as even under the best of circumstances holdovers mean very little at the beginning of the month. As long as the overall box office is healthy, we should be fine. And given the number of $100 million hits that have opened in 2010 so far, plus the $300 million hit that is Alice in Wonderland, I think it is fair to say that we will be fine. The real question is how well May 2010 will compare to last year, when we had six $100 million movies including two that reached $200 million. This time around there's one less weekend, so we will need help from some of the counter programming to match that number. Since there are only three films that you could call counter programming, this could be a problem.
More...
