May 9th, 2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was one of three new releases to finish in the top three spots on the March 24th, 2013 edition of the Blu-ray sales chart. It sold 1.36 million units and generated $31.34 million for an opening week Blu-ray share of 56%. It wasn't that long ago that reaching the 50% mark would have been record-breaking, but here it was expected.
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May 9th, 2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey dominated the new releases and easily won first place on the March 24th edition of the DVD sales chart. The film sold 1.07 million units and generated $13.05 million in opening week sales, putting it in the top ten of the year after just one week of release.
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March 22nd, 2013
While there are a few wide releases opening next week, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is the only one with a real shot at top spot. (Although I'm not sure if the year-long delay in its release will hurt or help its box office chances.) Because of this, it is the target film for this week's box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of This is 40 on Blu-ray
Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of This is 40 on Blu-ray
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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March 19th, 2013
It is a very healthy week on the home market, at least at the top, as there are a number of big hits and Awards Season contenders. The biggest of these is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The film didn't live up to expectations, but it is still worth picking up, especially if you've made the leap to 3D. There are also a couple of Awards Season contenders coming out this week, but I'm waiting for the screeners for both of them. Les Miserables has generated a lot of praise, but also some harsh criticisms. On the other hand, Zero Dark Thirty was one of the best movies of the year and even sight unseen, the Blu-ray Combo Pack is the Pick of the Week.
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March 19th, 2013
This is 40 is a spin-off from Knocked-Up, which remains Judd Apatow's biggest hit and one of his most loved films. It had high expectations associated with it, but it failed to live up to them. Is it a case of the expectations being just too high? Or did it struggle because it is a flawed film?
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January 3rd, 2013
All of the final box office numbers we're going to get are in, so let's take a look at the last two weeks at the box office. There were not a lot of changes with the final numbers and no film switched places, so there's not a lot to update. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey remained in top spot in both weeks with Django Unchained in close second this weekend and Jack Reacher a distant second the weekend before. The year ended with $10.76 billion, or about 5.8% higher than last year's total and just a hair above 2009's record total.
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December 27th, 2012
This year, Christmas fell on a really awkward day and compounded with the smart decision for some studios to close the entire week, dealing with the weekend box office numbers is a little trickier this year. We are still stuck with a mixture of final numbers and studio estimates, but since we won't get absolute final numbers till likely January 2nd, we should at least talk about the numbers we have. We won't be able to compare the full weekend to last week or last year, because we don't have the full weekend numbers. But since most of the films failed to match expectations, things look grim.
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December 19th, 2012
For the next week, starting tonight and running till Christmas day, there are eight films opening wide, or at least wide enough to predict they will enter the top ten. Despite that level of competition, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will very likely remain in top spot. Jack Reacher looks to be the best of the new releases, at least for the weekend. Meanwhile, This is 40 probably won't start as fast, but Judd Apatow's films tend to have really good legs. Monsters, Inc. is debuting in 3D tonight, but is destined to be a midlevel hit and nothing more. The Guilt Trip is also opening tonight, but I'm not sure it has the buzz to even be a midlevel hit. The final new release of the weekend is Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, but with an opening theater count of just 800, it will struggle just to reach to the top ten. And because Christmas lands on the Tuesday, and we won't have another weekend prediction column till Friday, we need to talk about the three Christmas day releases, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, and Parental Guidance. Last year, Christmas day landed on the Sunday, which makes the comparisons between weekends nearly impossible. I'm going to assume 2012 is going to come out ahead, mainly because they had nothing to compare to The Hobbit, so as long as this year's new releases are as strong as last years holdovers, victory is a safe bet.
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December 1st, 2012
November was a strong month and left 2012 with a very easy path to a new all time record. There was only one major miss the entire month, Rise of the Guardians, while The Silver Linings Playbook was pulled from wide release at the last minute, so it is a little hard to judge its box office performance. On the positive side, Skyfall might top original expectations by $100 million. All this December has to do is maintain pace with last December to ensure 2012 sets the new record. I would like to say that will be easy to do, but I really don't know. Last year, there was only one $200 million hit, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, plus a few others that reached $100 million, so the bar isn't set too high. This year, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is expected to at least come close to $300 million. Some think it will earn more than $400 million. However, it could also be the last film to make $100 million till February. December is normally a very good month to release a film, but the release schedule is so messed up that it makes it very hard to predict what will happen. There appears to be just ten films opening truly wide this month (I'm getting mixed signals on a few of them). That's a really light schedule for a month and a light schedule tends to help maximize the box office potential for individual films. However, eight of these films open wide within a seven-day period. That's insane. There's no way all of those films will find an audience and there's a chance that due to the competition, none of them will. Let's hope the situation isn't as bad as that, but there are some serious reasons to be concerned for most new releases coming out this month.
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