August 25th, 2020
Normally this time of year is a transitional period, as the flood of TV on DVD releases begins to give way to the soon-to-be flood of summer blockbusters. However, the pandemic means there are no summer blockbusters coming out this week, or next week. Or next month. Or the month after that. There are still a couple of bigger TV-on-DVD releases, including The Flash, but the biggest recent theatrical releases hardly made an impact. The best release on this week’s list is Yes, God, Yes, but Amazon has it currently unavailable, so grab it from Target instead.
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May 21st, 2020
We are slowly looking towards returning to normal, and that includes opening more and more theaters in select parts of the nation. This week we have three limited releases with a variety of release strategies going from just virtual theaters for Lucky Grandma, to a mix of virtual and real-world theaters for The Painter and the Thief, to apparently everything all at once for The Trip to Greece. All three films are earning excellent reviews, so hopefully they can all find audiences, no matter where they are playing.
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December 12th, 2017
Christmas is rapidly approaching, so most of the big releases have already hit the home market. The biggest box office release on this week’s list is Kingsman: The Golden Circle, but its reviews were only mixed. The biggest release overall is Game of Thrones: Season Seven, while the only other competition for Pick of the Week is Election: The Criterion Collection. I’m going to award the title to Game of Thrones, even though the screener didn’t arrive until Monday afternoon.
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September 27th, 2017
Victoria and Abdul earned first place on the theater average chart with an average of $39,711 in four theaters. This is an excellent start and the movie has a lot of room to grow. Battle of the Sexes was playing in 21 theaters and earned an average of $24,545. It too has room to expand. It might even expand enough to get some Awards Season buzz. Unrest just managed a spot in the $10,000 club with $10,607 in one theater. That’s great for a documentary.
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August 16th, 2017
Ingrid Goes West opened in first place on the theater average chart with an average of $45,100 in three theaters. This is the third best average of the year behind The Big Sick (average of $84,315 in five) and The Beguiled ($57,323 in four). A24 had another success with Good Time earning an average of $31,275 in four theaters. The Trip to Spain opened with an average of $15,102 in three theaters, which is in the middle of the franchise average so far. Finally there’s Wind River, which was the only holdover in the $10,000 club. It managed an average of $13,615 in 45 theaters and already has nearly $1 million in limited release.
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August 13th, 2017
After a series of lackluster weekends at the box office, Annabelle: Creation is doing its bit to clear away the end-of-Summertime blues with a $35 million opening this weekend. That’s right in line with the $37 million Annabelle opened with three years ago, which is an impressive performance for a horror franchise. It’s also the best opening for a horror movie since Split’s $40 million start back in January. The first film in the franchise fell away quite rapidly, and ended up with $84 million in total, so a final total of over $100 million is far from assured, but with a production budget of only $15 million, and probably not much more than $20 million in marketing, this should be a highly profitable movie for Warner Bros., especially since the franchise is popular globally.
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August 11th, 2017
There are a number of limited releases coming out this week that are earning good reviews and / or strong buzz. Of these, The Trip to Spain is the one I want to see the most. It also has a good chance to earn more than $2 million in theaters, as its two predecessors did the same.
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