April 3rd, 2017
This is a terrible week on the home market, mostly. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story comes out on DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack and the competition has clearly scared away any other top-level releases. The only other first-run release is Office Christmas Party, which is worth a rental, if you like anti-Christmas movies. As far as Pick of the Week contenders are concerned, there’s Rogue One... and really that’s it. There are a couple of other releases I highlighted, but they wouldn't be contenders during an average week. Don’t Kill It looks good for a low-budget horror movie, while Paterson is coming out on a featureless DVD / Blu-ray. They are worth picking up if you are a fan of their respective genres.
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March 21st, 2017
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It is an interesting week on the home market with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dominating the competition. However, it is only coming out on Video on Demand and doesn’t come out till Friday. As for Tuesday releases, there are a few contenders, but no film that immediately jumps out as the Pick of the Week. If you go with quality, extras, and overall audience appeal, then Sing on Blu-ray Combo Pack comes out on top. I would also definitely checkout Insecure: Season One and Lifeboat, if you don’t already own the latter.
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December 23rd, 2016
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story grew by 12% to $16.77 million on Thursday for a first-week total of $222.00 million. This shows that it was hit by new releases on Wednesday, at least a little bit. It is impossible to compare this day to The Force Awakens, because this day in its run was Christmas Eve. For the record though, The Force Awakens fell by 28% to $27.40 million on that day and had pulled in $390.86 million during the same time period.
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December 19th, 2016
As expected, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dominated the weekend box office chart with $155.08 million. This is well over twice as much as every other release combined. It is nearly twice as much as last weekend’s total box office. This helped the box office grow by 154%, reaching $211 million. Sadly, this was over $100 million or 32% lower than the same weekend last year when The Force Awakens dominated the chart. The year-over-year decline can be best summed up as within expectations. 2016 is still ahead of 2015 by a massive amount at $10.47 billion to $9.96 billion, but that will change as we see more numbers for Rogue One come in. On a more big picture look, Disney became the first studio ever to hit $7 billion worldwide in one year. They now have the record for biggest yearly domestic box office and biggest yearly worldwide box office, while it is just $160 million away from the international record as well.
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December 17th, 2016
There’s a lot of great news coming out of Friday. For starters, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned $70.07 million. This means its previews were 41% of its opening day figure, compared to 48% for The Force Awakens. I was expecting Rogue One to bounce back a little bit from its previews, but not this much. If Rogue One merely maintains The Force Awakens’ internal multiplier, it will earn $148 million over the weekend. There are some positive factors and some negative factors. For example, not all schools are closed on Monday, so it won’t be able to hold onto its box office numbers on Sunday, at least not as well as The Force Awakens did. However, its prospects improved from the afternoon shows to the evening shows and that shows word-of-mouth is strong. This makes sense, as its reviews have settled at 84% positive and it scored an A from CinemaScore. An opening weekend of $150 million is certainly within reach; our model is predicting $151 million. Disney is predicting a more cautious $145 million to $150 million.
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December 15th, 2016
It is a deceptively busy weekend, as there are two wide releases, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Collateral Beauty, and two films that are “expanding wide”, Manchester by the Sea and La La Land. However, while that looks like a lot, in reality Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the only film most people are talking about. In fact, it is going to dominate the box office to such a degree that its only real competition is The Force Awakens, which opened this weekend last year. Unfortunately for Rogue One, there’s almost no chance it will match The Force Awakens. In fact, there’s almost no chance the entire box office will match the $247.97 million The Force Awakens opened with. 2016 is going to get crushed in the year-over-year comparison. That said, 2016 has a nearly $460 million lead over 2015, so has long as Rogue One tops $100 million over the weekend, it should be enough to keep 2016 ahead in terms of raw box office numbers.
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December 14th, 2016
For the fourth and final time, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them earned first place on the international chart, this time earning $33.1 million in 67 markets. It now has totals of $480.7 million internationally and $679.6 million worldwide. This will be the last weekend the film will spend in first place, but it should last long enough to overtake Suicide Squad on the 2016 Worldwide chart.
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December 13th, 2016
The winners of our Christmas Time contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Office Christmas Party opening weekend were...
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December 13th, 2016
As predicted, Moana was able to grab first place on the weekend box office chart. On the downside, it slipped a little faster than expected. Additionally, Office Christmas Party missed expectations and this led to the overall box office falling 13% from last weekend to $83 million. That said, this is still 7.0% higher than the same weekend last year and that’s more important. Year-to-date, 2016 maintained its $460 million / 4.7% lead over 2015 at $10.23 billion to $9.77 billion. This lead will take a serious hit this coming weekend when Rogue One goes against The Force Awakens. That said, unless Rogue One opens with less than $100 million during its weekend, 2016 should still come out ahead at the end of the year.
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December 11th, 2016
Moana will get to enjoy one last weekend at the top of the box office chart, in spite of a good debut for Office Christmas Party. Disney’s animated adventure will post about $18.8 million in its third weekend, for $145 million to date. It’s beginning to lag behind the performance of Frozen, which made $22.6 million in its third weekend in wide release, and had amassed $164.8 million. That still puts Moana well on course for $300 million domestically, although $350 million is looking like a stretch. Internationally, Moana will earn around $23.5 million this weekend, taking its total overseas to $93.8 million, and its global haul to $238.8 million.
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December 10th, 2016
As expected, Office Christmas Party earned first place on Friday with $6.6 million. Its reviews have settled at 44% positive, which is lower than you would like, but fine for this type of release. Likewise, it earned a B from CinemaScore. Neither figure will help its legs, but neither will really hurt them either. By comparison, The Night Before earned $3.56 million during its opening day on its way to a $9.88 million opening weekend. If Office Christmas Party has the same internal multiplier, then it will earn $18.3 million this weekend. However, The Night Before earned 66% positive reviews and an A- from CinemaScore. Office Christmas Party’s weaker performances with critics and audiences will likely result in a lower legs and an opening weekend of just over $17 million.
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December 9th, 2016
Office Christmas Party got off to a wild start last night with $950,000 during its previews. This is much better than the $350,000 Bad Santa 2 earned last month, but that was a Tuesday preview. The Night Before might be a better comparison and it earned $550,000 during its Thursday previews. If Office Christmas Party has the same legs, then it will earn $17 million over the weekend, but its weaker reviews will likely get in the way.
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December 8th, 2016
There is only one wide release this week, Office Christmas Party. There are also two films expanding semi-wide, Miss Sloane and Nocturnal Animals. I doubt both of them will make the top ten, but I would be equally surprised if neither did. At the beginning of the month, I assumed Office Christmas Party would win this weekend, but it is looking like Moana has a shot at the threepeat. It could be a really close race with the two films changing positions on the daily chart. Meanwhile, this weekend last year, In the Heart of the Sea bombed earning just $11.05 million on a $100 million budget. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 earned first place with $11.41 million. Both Office Christmas Party and Moana will top that with ease. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them might also beat that. On the other hand, last year there were four films that earned more than $10 million, while this year there will be no more than 3. I still think 2016 will win, but it could be close.
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December 6th, 2016
The winners of our Secret Prizes contest contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Incarnate opening weekend were...
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December 1st, 2016
There is only one wide release next week, Office Christmas Party, as the other two releases are expanding wide. This makes it easy to pick 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 Office Christmas Party
Also... it’s Christmas time. And that means we have lumps of coal to give out, although not literally. Two of the three winners will receive either two previously reviewed movies or one TV on DVD release pulled randomly from the prize pool. The third will receive a lump of coal, a movie / TV show on HD-DVD. I doubt anyone reading this still has a working HD-DVD player hooked up.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will be one of the potential winners.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also be one of the potential winners
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will be the final potential winner.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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December 1st, 2016
November was good, but not great. Fortunately, 2016 had a large enough lead going into November that the month only needed to be good. In fact, it could have been mediocre and 2016 would have still had an excellent shot to end the year above 2015. As for December, it’s a race between Star Wars and Star Wars. Almost no one thinks Rogue One is going to match The Force Awakens, but if Rogue One earns just half of what The Force Awakens managed, then 2016 will come out on top in the year-over-year comparison. There are only two other films with a better than 50/50 chance of hitting $100 million, Passengers and Sing. Either one could earn second place for the month, but Passengers will likely start faster. Last December, the only other film to earn more than $100 million was Daddy’s Home, which earned just a hair over $150 million. There’s a chance both Passengers and Sing will earn more than $150 million, which would be a boon to the box office. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was just too strong last year and it would take a miracle for 2016 to have a stronger December. That said, it would take a complete collapse for 2016 not to top 2015 in raw dollars. The growth might not be enough to keep pace with ticket price inflation, on the other hand.
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July 26th, 2016
Comedy with an ensemble cast led by Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, T.J. Miller, and Olivia Munn opens December 9 ... Full Movie Details.
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