September 10th, 2013
The home market is looking to be a whole lot brighter this week with Star Trek into Darkness leading the way. It's not the only first-run release to come out this week, but it is by far the biggest. On the other hand, there are tons of TV on DVD releases, tons and tons of them. This includes Homeland: Season Two, which is a contender for Pick of the Week. However, the screener is on its way, so I'm going to hold off on that declaration. Instead, that honor goes to Castle: Season Five. Meanwhile, War Witch's DVD release earns the Puck of the Week for the best Canadian release.
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May 21st, 2013
There was some bad news this weekend, mostly at the top. Star Trek into Darkness did open in first place with a very healthy 4-day total, but it opened below its predecessor and not a lot of people were predicting that. The overall box office fell 2.8% from last weekend to $154 million. On the other hand, this was 7.8% higher than the same weekend last year, which is great news, as 2013 has really struggled in the year-over-year comparison. It's going to take a lot more than one good weekend to turn things around.
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May 16th, 2013
The second big summer release comes out this week, Star Trek into Darkness. The film has already opened internationally and has proven to be a bigger hit than its predecessor was, which is good news for its opening weekend. Iron Man 3 will likely take a pretty big hit due to the direct competition, while The Great Gatsby is a bit of a wild card. This weekend last year there were three wide releases, but the best of them was Battleship, which only made $25.53 million during its opening weekend, while all three new releases made a total of $53 million. Star Trek into Darkness should easily make more than that combined. However, The Avengers still dominated the chart last year and it will be that film that will be the biggest challenge in the year-over-year competition.
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May 14th, 2013
Iron Man 3 remained on top of the chart, as expected, but the big news of the weekend was The Great Gatsby. The film opened with more than $50 million, which is twice as much as some analysts were expecting and about 50% more than the average. Does this mean 2013 ended its losing streak? Nope. Iron Man 3 missed expectations by a couple of million dollars, while Peeples bombed utterly. This left the overall box office down 27% from last weekend to $158 million. This is 7.5% lower than the same weekend last year. Hopefully Star Trek into Darkness will help end this losing streak next weekend.
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May 12th, 2013
To no-one's great surprise, Iron Man 3 will top the box office chart again this weekend, with a very creditable projected $72.4 million, the 4th-biggest second weekend of all time. The more notable number this weekend, however, is the $51 million projected opening for The Great Gatsby. That's Baz Luhrman's best weekend by a huge margin -- in fact, only Moulin Rouge earned more than that in total domestically (and only by a small margin, with $57 million). It's also Leonardo DiCaprio's second-best weekend, behind Inception. In short, it's a great weekend for a movie that looked like a tough sell.
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May 9th, 2013
Summer got off to a fantastic start last weekend, but sadly it is not going to continue this weekend. Neither The Great Gatsby nor Peeples have blockbuster potential. In fact, the pair combined won't match Iron Man 3's sophomore stint. This is similar to what happened last year, as Dark Shadows got crushed by The Avengers, which broke yet another record. Iron Man 3 won't be able to do the same this year, but we could have better depth. I'm not saying 2013 will win the weekend, but it won't as bad as it has been either.
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May 1st, 2013
As April ends and summer begins, we see the 2013 box office on a losing streak. There is some good news, as May should be much, much, much better than April was. Much better. During the five weekends in May, there are nine films opening wide. Of those film, there are seven that at least have a shot at $100 million. And of those seven films, four at least have a shot at $200 million, two have a shot at $300 million, and we might even have a $400 million hit this month. Iron Man 3 should turn out to be the biggest hit of the month, while there are some who think Star Trek: Into Darkness could be a close competitor for that honor. There's also some bad news. The Avengers opened last May and earned more than $600 million. No film opening this month will come close to that figure. There's a chance the top two films opening this month won't match that combined. On the other hand, last year there was a huge drop-off from the biggest hit of the month to the second biggest hit of the month. There were so many high-profile failures last year, that 2013 might actually start winning some weekends in the year-over-year comparison.
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