April 15th, 2014
It is a busy week on the home market with five films that either opened at least semi-wide or expanded semi-wide. However, unlike last week, there's no monster hit like The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug leading the way. In fact, most of the semi-wide or wide releases on this week's list were critical and box office disappointments. Only Philomena did well with critics. Fortunately, it did well enough that it is a contender for Pick of the Week without even considering the extras on the DVD or Blu-ray. There are a few other new releases that are noteworthy, but most of them are catalog Blu-ray releases. These include Touch of Evil on Blu-ray and Double Indemnity on Blu-ray. In the end, I went with Touch of Evil, but I literally had to roll a dice to decide.
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January 23rd, 2014
The Wolf of Wall Street rocketed from fifth place to first place with $32.84 million in 4,446 screens in 36 markets for an international total of $80.86 million over four weeks of release. The film opened in first place in the U.K. with $7.65 million on 500 screens, while in Germany it earned first place with $6.66 million on 502 screens. Meanwhile, it made $3.62 million on 327 screens in Spain, earning first place in that market as well.
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January 15th, 2014
After being in second place for a long time, Frozen finally scored first place with $27.8 million in 50 markets for totals of $394.6 million internationally and $711.9 million worldwide. The film had no major market openings this past weekend, but it opens this weekend in South Korea and in Japan in March.
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January 9th, 2014
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug began 2014 the same way it ended 2013, on top. This weekend it pulled in $58 million in 62 markets for totals of $527 million internationally and $756 million worldwide. The film had no major market openings this past weekend, but did remain in fourth place in Russia with $9.6 million on 1,378 screens for a total of $42 million after three weeks of release. It was able to remain in top spot in Germany for the fourth weekend in a row with $8.6 million on 1,40 screens for a total of $75.1 million there. Granted, the film won't match An Unexpected Journey's debut, but it will end its run with well over $800 million worldwide, possibly even $900 million worldwide. There's no way to look at that figure and not call the movie a smashing success.
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January 7th, 2014
The box office wasn't as boisterous as anticipated and this is partially due to the seasonal storm that hit the east coast. This is also partially due to weaker than expected numbers for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which only managed second place in its debut. This allowed Frozen to return to top spot on the chart, even though it was a little weaker than expected. The overall box office fell 27% from last weekend down to $141 million. Compared to last year, the box office was down 4%, which isn't a good result, but it is also not terrible. Had The Marked Ones merely matched expectations, it would have been a virtual tie.
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January 1st, 2014
As it has the past couple of weeks, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug topped the international chart earning $99.7 million on 15,782 screens in 61 markets for totals of $424.8 million internationally and $615.1 million worldwide. The film opened in Australia on Boxing Day, but due to the holidays earning first place with a total opening of $12.9 million on 629 screens; however, this was a little behind An Unexpected Journey's debut there. On the other hand, the film set the record for biggest total opening in Poland with $5.6 million on 425 screens.
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December 30th, 2013
Some studios are still closed and won't open till this time next week, so we won't have all of the final numbers for the past two weeks till then. We do have some final numbers, as well as some studio estimates that we can look at now. As for the upcoming week, it will look a lot like last week in terms of stories. We won't have a per theater chart, we might have an international top ten, while prediction, contest, and limited releases will be mostly normal. We might even have a review this weekend. (That's assuming some of the late screeners finally arrive, because at the moment I have nothing to review.)
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December 29th, 2013
The Hobbit will extend its run at the top of the chart to three weekends, according to studio estimates released on Sunday, but Frozen is the real winner, with a 47% increase in box office from last weekend (the second-best in the top 10 behind Saving Mr. Banks), and a new entry in the record books as the second-most-successful film in its 6th weekend in theaters -- only Avatar tops it.
The rest of the chart is a mess of new releases enjoying varying degrees of success.
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December 27th, 2013
It's the final weekend of the year and there are a lot of films fighting for spots in the top five, including five films that opened on Christmas Day. Unfortunately for those films, it looks like The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will remain in first place for the third weekend in a row. The Wolf of Wall Street will likely be the biggest of the five new releases, but it is unlikely that it will have a shot at first place; it might only finish fifth. The other new releases are even weaker. Last year there were only three new releases for the final weekend of the year, but none of them bombed, so 2013 might end on a low note. 2013 should still win in the year-over-year comparison, but losing on the final weekend of the year is a bad sign for 2014's debut.
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December 23rd, 2013
It's Christmas week and that means most stories will be delayed and / or shortened. Many studios are closed for the next two weeks, and some did so before releasing final box office numbers for the weekend. (This includes Paramount, so we we won't have a winner in our Box Office Prediction contest either.) International numbers will likely be delayed for a couple weeks as well. As far as weekend predictions go...
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December 1st, 2013
We had some good news and some bad news in November. The bad news is the overall weakness at the box office continued and 2013 lost its lead over 2012. Strong runs by The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen did help it bounce back in the end, but 2013 is still going to have a tough time topping 2012. Looking forward to December, we find about a dozen wide releases, sort of. There are several films that are opening in limited release that are expected to expand wide by the end of the month, but I'm not sure that will be the case for all of them. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug should be the easy winner this month and if it is a little lucky, it might even top its predecessor at the box office. There is a huge amount of hype surrounding Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues and it could double the first film's box office numbers. On the other hand, those two films might be the only two December wide releases to reach $100 million. There are a few that have the potential to get to the century mark, if they are big players during Awards Season. Obviously some of the films coming out this month will win awards, but there's already a lot of competition in theaters before the month begins. There were three $100 million movies last December, led by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, so while it could be close, it looks like December will lose in the year-over-year comparison. This is really bad news, as 2013 can't afford to go out on a losing streak if it wants to top 2012.
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