May 8th, 2012
Contraband benefited from a really weak slate of new releases and this helped it earn first place on the DVD sales chart. During its first week of release, it sold 470,000 units and generated $7.52 million, which is good given its box office numbers.
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May 2nd, 2012
There were not a lot of new releases to reach the top 30 on the DVD sales chart this week and only one of them reached the top five. We did have a new number one film, as Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol easily topped the chart with 661,000 units / $10.24 million. This is a disappointing start for a film that made $200 million in theaters. Fortunately, it did better on Blu-ray.
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April 25th, 2012
The winners of our The Lucky Two contest were determined and they are...
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April 25th, 2012
This literally could turn out to be the worst week of the year on the Blu-ray sales chart. The best-selling new release was The Darkest Hour, which only managed 158,000 units / $3.17 million. The only good news is the film's opening week Blu-ray share, which was an impressive 54%.
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April 25th, 2012
It was a bad week for DVD, which is common at this time of year. The Iron Lady was the best of the new releases, but it only managed second place. War Horse climbed into top spot with 244,000 units / $4.67 million over the week for totals of 830,000 units / $14.62 million after two.
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April 18th, 2012
This is becoming a pattern on the Blu-ray sales chart. Just like it has been for the past few weeks, new releases were soft. Granted, War Horse did top the Blu-ray sales chart, but with just 314,000 units / $7.84 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 36%, which is about average for the format.
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April 18th, 2012
There were not a lot of new releases to reach the top 30 on this week's DVD Sales Chart, but at least there was some action on top. Hop overtook Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked for first place with 729,000 units / $10.52 million for the week and 2.04 million units / $33.51 million after three. It is now just the third DVD of 2012 to sell 2 million units.
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April 17th, 2012
This week's list of DVD and Blu-ray releases is dominated by Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The Blu-ray Combo Pack is worth picking up, but you'll want the Best Buy exclusive, or perhaps you want to tell studios to stop doing retailer exclusives, as they are annoying. That added complication is the reason I'm not awarding the release Pick of the Week, but there are not a lot of other films worthy either. Shame has two amazing performances, but the Blu-ray Combo Pack doesn't have a lot of extras. Fans of nature documentaries might want Frozen Planet: The Complete Series on Blu-ray or IMAX: Born to be Wild on 3D Combo Pack. But in the end, I went with the underseen The Last Rites of Joe May on DVD.
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April 15th, 2012
We Bought a Zoo was a family friendly film opening on Christmas weekend. This is a great time of year to open a film like this; however, the competition was really stiff that weekend and the film never managed a spot in the top five. On the other hand, it did finish with just over $75 million, so it clearly it had legs. Is it as good as its legs? Or as bad as its opening?
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April 13th, 2012
There should be a close race for top spot next weekend between The Lucky One and Think Like a Man. I honestly don't know which one will win at the box office, but we are going with The Lucky One as the target film in this week's box office prediction contest, because it's easier to come up with a name for the contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for The Lucky One.
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 We Bought a Zoo on Blu-ray Combo Pack.
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 We Bought a Zoo on Blu-ray Combo Pack.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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April 12th, 2012
The winners of our Uniting People with Prizes contest were determined and they are...
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April 10th, 2012
There were not many new releases on the Blu-ray sales chart and many of the top selling DVDs were family films, which tend to struggle on high definition. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked did grab first place, but with just 270,000 units / $6.29 million. Its opening week Blu-ray Share was just 23%, which is weak for the format as a whole and only average for the genre.
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April 3rd, 2012
It wasn't a busy week on the home market with only a few first run releases of note. Both War Horse on Four-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack and We Bought a Zoo on Blu-ray Combo Pack are worth picking, but not Pick of the Week material. For that we have to look to Chinatown on Blu-ray. It is shovelware, but it is such a great movie that I'm willing to overlook this.
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January 15th, 2012
With Beauty and the Beast disappointing slightly over the 3-day MLK frame, Contraband will take first place by a fairly comfortable margin, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. The action movie is set to pick up about $24.1 million, per Universal, while Disney pegs Beast's Friday-Sunday total at $18.5 million. Joyful Noise will bring in a solid, if slightly disappointing, $11.3 million for Warner Bros..
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January 3rd, 2012
2011 ends and 2012 begins, but the new beginnings didn't change. The overall box office rose to $155 million over the weekend, $200 million if you include Monday. This is higher than last weekend, but since Christmas landed on the weekend, this was to be expected. It is troubling that for the three-day portion of the weekend, the box office was 3% lower than last year, which is weaker than expected. 2011 ended with $10.22 billion, which was 3% lower than 2010. Attendance was down 4%, meaning the year had the lowest tickets sales since 1995. We can only hope the next 52 weeks are better than the last 52 weeks were.
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December 29th, 2011
The New Year's Eve weekend is one of the most prosperous at the box office, but it also usually has no wide releases. This is the case this year, for the most part. War Horse and The Darkest Hour will have their first full weekends at the box office, but that's as close as we have to a new release. This means it is unlikely there will be many major changes in the ranking of the top five films and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol has a clear shot at first place. Also, because Christmas Eve fell on Saturday, we should see strong growth across the board. Anything less than double-digit growth by any film will be considered a disappointment. This means we could actually end 2011 on a winning note compared to 2010. It wouldn't be enough to make a difference in the big picture, but a win is a win.
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December 27th, 2011
Due to the placement of Christmas Day, we are still dealing with mostly studio estimates for weekend numbers. However, while we wait for the final numbers, we can look at some of these early results and compare them to expectations and in some cases use them predict how these films will end their theatrical runs. (In some cases, there's not enough information to guess where it will go in the future.) As for the overall box office numbers, we don't know if the final tally will be higher or lower than last year, but I'm not optimistic.
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December 26th, 2011
A mess of Wednesday, Friday and Sunday openings makes for a somewhat confusing picture at the box office over Christmas weekend, but Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol came out the clear-cut winner according to studio estimates released on Sunday and Monday. Its weekend haul of approximately $29.5 million left it $9 million clear of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which is the only other movie that can claim to be really strong at the box office at this point in time.
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December 21st, 2011
This year Christmas is a mess, when it comes to the box office. There are six films opening or expanding wide spread over six days. This includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was bumped up at the last minute and opened on Tuesday. At the other end of the time frame, War Horse and The Darkest Hour don't open till Sunday. The number of films virtually guarantees at least two will struggle at the box office, but hopefully by spreading out the releases, moviegoers will be able to spread their daily movie contact among the new releases. That is if people will bother going to the movies. The longer the slump continues, the more likely it is due to a systemic issue. When people stop going to the movies, they don't see as many trailers and posters for upcoming releases and they are less excited about upcoming releases and, therefore, they are less likely to see movies in the future. It's a vicious cycle. Last year wasn't a great weekend at the box office, because Christmas Eve, which is a dead zone at the box office, landed on a Friday. This year it lands on a Saturday, so it could be even worse.
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December 1st, 2011
Well... game over. At the beginning of November, 2011's total box office was $340 million behind 2010's pace. We needed that gap to be closed significantly by the end of the month, but it actually grew wider. So now that there's virtually no chance that 2011 will avoid a year-over-year decline at the box office, not unless there's a surprise Avatar coming out this month. But is there at least some hope for the next four weeks? Last December six films reach $100 million, including one that opened in limited release and expanded wide, but none reached $200 million. This year, four are practically sure bets at $100 million, including one or two that could reach $200 million. Plus, there are four others that should make between $75 million and $100 million. I doubt all of them will reach the century mark, but if one did, it wouldn't be a shock. Then there's a couple of limited releases that should expand wide and, maybe, if one of them becomes the big play during Awards Season, it could reach $100 million as well. Even if every film beat expectations, 2011 won't come out ahead. But maybe if enough do, we can at least end the year on a high note. Unfortunately it has come down to that. Instead of talking about the box office record being broken, we are hoping 2011 doesn't end on yet another sour note.
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