October 19th, 2016
The winners of our Number Crunching contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for The Accountant opening weekend were...
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October 12th, 2016
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The winners of our Demon Night contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for The Girl on the Train opening weekend were...
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October 10th, 2016
When The Neon Demon was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it earned a lot of praise including a standing ovation... also people booed the film, while there have been plenty of reports of people walking out of the movie. You rarely see such a divergent opinion on a film and that made me very intrigued. Will I love the film? Will I hate it? Will I be one of the few people who were indifferent?
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October 6th, 2016
While Kevin Hart: What Now? is opening truly wide next week, which is a bit of a surprise, there’s little doubt that The Accountant will come out on top at the box office. As such, it is the choice for the target film in this week's Box Office Prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for The Accountant.
This is the second week with The Neon Demon on Blu-ray as a prize. Don’t worry about entering both contests, because if someone does end up winning two of the same prize, they will be offered a replacement horror movie.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will also win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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October 5th, 2016
The winners of our Dark Urges contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Deepwater Horizon opening weekend were...
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September 30th, 2016
I’m fairly certain The Girl on the Train will top the chart next weekend, as neither The Birth of a Nation nor Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life are expected to be anything more than midlevel hits. Because of that, The Girl on the Train is the obvious choice for the target film in this week's Box Office Prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for The Girl on the Train.
I was planning on starting the Trick or Treat contests this week; however, that plan lasted about 24 hours, as I checked my mail and found five copies of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray. I will be reviewing one and over the next two weeks I will be giving away the other four. The Neon Demon is technically a psychological horror movie, so it fits with the Halloween theme.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will also win either one of two “Treat” prizes, a copy of The Neon Demon on Blu-ray, or the “Trick” prize, a really bad movie that I’ve previously reviewed.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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September 27th, 2016
It is a pretty good week on the home market with a few releases worth picking up. The biggest of these is Central Intelligence, but while it is worth picking up, it isn’t a contender for Pick of the Week. There are some smaller releases that were up for that title, including The Shallows, An American Werewolf in London and The Innocents. However, in the end, I went with Captain America: Civil War. The Blu-ray screener arrived late, and I held off on naming it Pick of the Week when it came out for that very reason.
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July 6th, 2016
The Purge: The Election Year earned top spot on the theater average chart, at least among those films we don’t have doubts about their box office numbers. It pulled in an average of $11,271, putting it just ahead of The Legend of Tarzan, which earned an average of $10,819. The only other film in the $10,000 club was The Innocents at $10,500 in three theaters.
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June 28th, 2016
As predicted, Finding Dory repeated as the box office champion and came very close to matching our prediction with $72.96 million over the weekend. This is well above Independence Day: Resurgence's opening of $41.04 million. The Shallows was great as a low-budget horror film. The other two films... let's not talk about them. Overall, the box office fell 19% from last weekend to $188 million; however, this is to be expected, given how big Finding Dory opened. The weekend box office was even better than the same weekend last year, albeit by only 2.3%, which is not enough to keep up with inflation. Likewise, the year-over-year comparison is not great either. 2016 still leads 2015, but only by $5.38 billion to $5.31 billion, which is a lead of just 1.2%. Hopefully this weekend's win is a sign of things turning around, but I'm not so sure of that.
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June 26th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is getting crushed at the box office this weekend, thanks in part to a strong second weekend for Finding Dory, but mostly because it failed where the original succeeded. Back in 1996, Independence Day pretty much invented the event movie, as it became the film everyone wanted to watch over the July 4 holiday weekend. Its $50.2 million 3-day weekend fell fractionally short of the then-record $52.8 million earned by Batman Forever over its opening weekend in June, 1995, but the $96.1 million it earned over its first five days was unprecedented. Resurgence had a storied past to live up to, and is falling well short.
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June 25th, 2016
Finding Dory held on to first place on Friday and that’s not good news, at least not for the box office as a whole. The film pulled in $23.21 million last night, which puts it on track to earn approximately $76 million. We predicted $74 million, so I’m calling this a victory. This will give the film close to $290 million after just ten days of release and puts it on pace to reach $300 million late Monday / early Tuesday. It will obviously hit $400 million at this pace, and it could become the first film of 2016 and the first animated film of all time to reach the $500 million milestone. That’s not a sure thing, but I think it’s at least 50/50 at this point.
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June 24th, 2016
Wow. This is a great week for limited releases. Not only are there a few releases earning a lot of buzz (The Neon Demon, Swiss Army Man, and Wiener Dog). There are also even more movies earning 100% positive reviews. Of those, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the one that I think will have the best chance of breakout success.
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June 23rd, 2016
This is the last weekend in June and there are three wide releases hoping to challenge Finding Dory for top spot. I don’t think any of them will come close. Independence Day: Resurgence is the only new release with a shot at first place and it should come out on top on Friday. It better win on Friday, or the month will end on a soft note. The Shallows and Free State of Jones will be fighting for fourth place. The Shallows cost less than $20 million, so a fourth place finish wouldn’t be a bad start. On the other hand, Free State of Jones cost $65 million to make, so a fourth place finish would be a disaster. Also opening this week is The Neon Demon. It isn’t opening wide, but it is opening wide enough to compete for a slot in the top ten. This weekend last year, there were two wide releases that earned less than $50 million combined. On the other hand, the top two films, Jurassic World and Inside Out both earned more than $50 million. Can the top four this year out-earn the top four last year? I think they can. We might get an actual win in the year-over-year comparison.
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