January 19th, 2010
The flood of home debuts for September releases continues this week and unfortunately there are not a lot of TV on DVD releases or limited releases to take up the slack at the top.
There are a few releases that are of interest though, including The Invention of Lying on Blu-ray and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging on DVD.
The former probably has more mainstream appeal, but the latter is the better film, and with plenty of extras on the DVD, it is the Pick of the Week.
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May 5th, 2007
New releases again dominated the rental charts as there were able to capture the top three spots, in fact, all three of these new releases were able to score more than last week's top film was able to. Leading the way was Night at the Museum with $11.56 million; this quite low compared to its theatrical box office of just over $250 million, but the younger target demographic explains this.
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April 27th, 2007
New releases went one-two-three on the rental charts with Smokin' Aces leading the way after taking in $6.68 million.
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April 16th, 2007
For the second weekend in a row I had to dig hard to find some of the DVDs on this week's list. But unlike last weekend, there are a number of DVD releases that jumped out as contenders for DVD Pick of the Week including the gritty La Haine - Criterion Collection - Buy from Amazon and the Oscar winning The Last King of Scotland - Buy from Amazon. But in the end I went with sublime humor of The Venture Bros. - Season Two - Buy from Amazon, which may seem like a lowbrow choice compared to the others above, but it earns the title of DVD Pick of the Week.
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March 18th, 2007
There was quite an international flavor on the charts this past weekend with five local hits charting, and one more just missing that mark. The best of these was Lubov Morkov, which opened in sixth place with $5.38 million on 492 screens in 4 markets over the weekend and $6.28 million in total. Of this amount, $4.90 million on 427 screens was earned over the weekend in Russia while it managed $5.80 million including midweek numbers.
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March 11th, 2007
Music and Lyrics remained in sixth place with $5.64 million on 1645 screens in 18 markets for a total of $32.01 million internationally. The film disappointed domestically, but it appears to be making up for that softness on the international scene. The film's best opening of the weekend came from South Korea where it placed second with $2.06 million on 144 screens while it also grabbed second place in Brazil with $490,000 on 140. Holdovers were led by the U.K. where the film earned $1.09 million on 364 screens during its fourth week of release for a total of $15.71 million in that market alone. That's close to a $100 million run here, taking into account the relative sizes of the two markets.
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February 11th, 2007
Babel just missed the top five this past weekend and showed that
Oscar nods still meant something at the box office, at least internationally. The film added $5.16 million on 1467 screens for a total of $61.31 million so far. It was aided by a first place, $1.23 million opening on 256 screens in Russia, but that is one of the film's last significant openings.
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February 6th, 2007
The first weekend in February lived up to muted expectations with four of the top five meeting or exceeding Thursday's predictions.
However, this still led to a massive 22% drop-off from the previous weekend, with a total box office of just $93 million.
While the Superbowl certainly had something to do with that, it can't take all of the blame as the box office was down 12% from the same weekend last year, which also played host to the Superbowl.
So far, 2007 hasn't gotten off to a strong start, but it is way too early to push any panic buttons just yet.
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February 4th, 2007
For the second weekend in a row
Apocalypto earned sixth place on the international charts, this time pulling in 7.03 million on 2308 screens for a total of $47.42 million. Its best market of the weekend was Mexico where it had an easy first place finish with $2.43 million on 502 screens over the weekend and $2.66 million including previews. It was also strong during its second weekend in Spain as it was down 40% to $1.17 million on 284 screens for a total of $3.64 million.
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February 1st, 2007
It's February, but you can't tell by looking at the quality of the new wide releases.
Neither film is wowing critics and both look like mid-level hits at the most.
Granted, it's Superbowl weekend and that could explain why studios were hesitant to put out any top dollar films this weekend.
Even so, the two new releases should finish in first and second place.
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January 30th, 2007
Well, January is finally over and we survived.
The final four entries tried their luck this weekend and while two earned enough to be considered box office successes, none came close to wowing critics.
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January 28th, 2007
Apocalypto climbed into sixth place despite dropping 13% to $6.72 million on 2072 screens for a total of $37.90 million. Its best market of the week was Spain where it opened in first place with $1.94 million on 283 screens.
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January 26th, 2007
This year's crop of summer blockbusters still haven't started opening movies site in earnest yet, and until they do, this column will be lacking. It's yet another week without a truly award-winning site but
Catch & Release -
Official Site is the best of the rest.
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January 25th, 2007
The final weekend in January gives us plenty of new releases, but not much in terms of quality.
Of the four wide releases opening this week, two are earning roughly 30% positive reviews and the other two are not being screened for critics.
However, movie fans should not fret as several Oscar hopefuls are expanding this week and are giving moviegoers plenty of choice.
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January 21st, 2007
The Holiday slipped out of the top five this week, but still has plenty of reason to celebrate as the film hit $100 million on the international scene. Over the weekend it added $8.16 million on 3104 screens in 45 markets to its running tally of $102.54 million. This includes Mexico where the film opened with a respectable third place earning $711,000 on 230 screens while it took fourth place in Argentina with $153,000 on 40.
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January 20th, 2007
Another slow week, but its been that way for a while. I'm hoping that will change when the summer blockbusters start launching their full sites soon, in fact,
Spider-Man 3's
Official Site did go live this week, but it is mostly marked coming soon and too soon to give it the award just yet.
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January 13th, 2007
A slow week, but that's not surprising. The movie industry is seasonal with peaks and valleys throughout the year. With movie websites, there tends to be the same peaks and valleys, just a few months earlier. (The same is true for DVDs, just a few months later.) While there are a few sites on this week's list that show promise, there are none that are really award-worthy.
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January 6th, 2007
Big list as I try to catch up after the holidays. I think I caught all the updates. Not only are there a lot of sites on this week's list, several of them are potential award winners with the best of the best being
Smokin' Aces -
Official Site.
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January 2nd, 2007
It is the beginning of a new year. A time to start fresh. So why do most of the new releases smell so stale? It's the January dumping ground, home to films that looked promising on paper but just didn't pan out.
That doesn't mean there are no films that could be worth checking out.
Out of the twelve new films opening wide this month (that's opening, not expanding), Smokin' Aces looks great and so does ... no, that's about it.
Almost all of the new releases are likely to struggle at the box office and with critics alike.
And to make matters worse, six of these new releases are going wide on the same weekend.
This is complete madness and guarantees that at least two films that would otherwise succeed are going to fail.
On the other hand, there are nearly a dozen films that have previously opened and are expanding wide (Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth, for example), or are being re-released to grab some last minute Oscar buzz,
(The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, among others).
This makes for an incredibly busy month, but not one that will likely produce many hits.
Two additional notes...
Firstly, Letters from Iwo Jima is expanding throughout the month but likely won't go wide until February.
Secondly, The Dead Girl has a planned expansion on the 19th, but after struggling in limited release since opening last weekend, this seems unlikely.
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December 16th, 2006
The end of year big movie rush continues, the last few big movies are launching their sites. And one such movie,
Night at the Museum -
Official Site, is the winning of the Weekly Website Award.
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December 2nd, 2006
Good week with plenty of strong site, but there was not a whole lot of competition at the very top as
The Good Shephard -
Official Site took home the Weekly Website Award.
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November 5th, 2006
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for National Treasure 2, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, some DreamWorks digital animation movies and more.
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October 28th, 2006
There was a good selection of sites this week in terms of updates, but unlike last week there were fewer contenders for the Weekly Website Award. That's not to say
Let's Go to Prison -
Official Site didn't deserve to win, it just had a lot less competition than it would have had if it launched last week.
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August 6th, 2006
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a sequel to Madagascar and more.
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