Magic Mike’s Last Dance will dance to the top of the box office chart this weekend as what Warner Bros. described this morning as a “specially curated list” of 1,500 theaters will be enough to beat out a long list of returning films, and the re-release of Titanic. Overall box office is looking predictably soft over Super Bowl weekend.
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The big question going into this weekend is not whether Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will top the chart (it will), but whether it can beat the $187.4 million earned by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on its opening weekend, and thereby record the biggest weekend of 2022 (so far). What we do know right now is that it’ll have to beat that record while playing in 138 fewer theaters.
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This weekend will be a pleasant change from the last one at the box office as we see two new wide releases make their way into North American theaters. Both are starting out with targeted releases, rather than opening as wide as possible. The one with the largest release is the romantic musical West Side Story, which is directed by Steven Spielberg and stars a distinguished ensemble cast including Ansel Elgort and Ariana DeBose. West Side Story will open in 2,820 locations. Also new this week is National Champions. The film from STX Entertainment follows a star collegiate quarterback who ignites a players’ strike hours before the biggest game of the year in order to fight for fair compensation, equality, and respect for the athletes who put their bodies and health on the line for their schools. Arriving in 1,197 locations, National Champions stars Stephan James and J.K. Simmons, along with an array of cameos from the NFL and sports world.
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A Quiet Place was expected to be a box office hit, but very few people thought it would be this big a hit. It pulled in over $300 million on a budget of just $17 million. It had a very interesting hook, but is that all it had? Does it do something with the hook?
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Ready Player One not only opened in first place over the weekend, but its three-day total of $41.77 million was Steven Spielberg’s best opening weekend as a director in almost exactly a decade. Acrimony was a solid second place finisher with $17.17 million. God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness missed the top ten. Overall, the box office rose 4.9% from last weekend hitting $136 million, but this was still 20% lower than the same weekend last year. 2018 is now 4.9% or $150 million behind 2017’s pace at $2.84 billion to $2.99 billion.
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The gulf between blockbusters and also-rans could hardly be starker these days. Since the release of Black Panther to a whopping $202 million on February 16, three movies that could have caught the general public’s imagination have arrived on the scene, and earned somewhere between a fifth and a seventh of that on opening weekend. Ready Player One is the most successful among them, with an opening of $41.2 million predicted by Warner Bros. as of this morning. That compares favorably to the openings of A Wrinkle in Time (which started out with $33.1 million), and Pacific Rim: Uprising ($28.1 million), and is, in fact, the best weekend in 2018 for a movie not called Black Panther, but it barely starts to chip away at considerable marketing costs, let alone a reported $150 million production budget.
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February was an amazing month, thanks mainly to Black Panther, but Fifty Shades Freed and Peter Rabbit were also significant hits and overall the month was a massive improvement over last February. Looking forward, there’s nothing opening in March that will earn as much in total as Black Panther did during its opening weekend. That said, A Wrinkle in Time and Ready Player One should have no trouble getting to $100 million, while Tomb Raider has a 50/50 chance of getting there. Unfortunately, compared to last March, this is still a pittance. There’s a chance that no film opening this March will earn as much in total as Beauty and the Beast opened with last march. We will need Black Panther to have good legs to keep 2018 ahead of 2017 by the end of the month.
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2017 wasn’t a good year. It started out well and ended on a high note, but the summer was a disaster and that proved to be too much for the rest of the year to overcome. Fortunately, The Last Jedi and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle are still doing very well and will help January get off to a fast start. Unfortunately, the biggest new release of January is Paddington 2 and it isn’t expected to match its predecessor at the box office; it certainly won’t top $100 million domestically. It is unlikely any of the Oscar contenders will hit the century mark in January either. This is really bad news, as last January, we had a new release, Split and an Oscar contender, Hidden Figures, which both topped that milestone with ease. 2018 should get off to a faster start in the first two weeks, but overall, this month will end with a loss.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. Sort of. (WGA announced the nominations for TV, radio, etc., but not their theatrical nods.) It is still very early in the year, so it is hard to say if there are any real snubs, or if there are any real favorites. The Shape of Water led the way with seven nominations, while The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were right behind with six a piece.
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It's July 1st, which is Canada Day. To celebrate, I wanted to give a gift to my American readers down south, so here's a bunch of "u"s. U, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u. Now you can spell words like "colour" and "neighbour" correctly. As for the July preview... June wasn't a good month, despite Finding Dory being on pace to become the biggest hit of the year so far. Most other films failed to match expectations and as a result, 2016's lead over 2015 has nearly evaporated. In fact, ticket sales are below last year's pace. So how does July look in comparison? Well, last July, there were five films that earned more than $100 million, led by Minions, which earned more than $300 million. This July, there are five films that should earn more than $100 million, led by The Secret Life of Pets, which should earned around $250 million. I don't think July 2016 will live up to July 2015, but it should be close. Maybe if one of the expected midlevel hits is a surprise $100 million hit, or if two more of the $100 million hits crack $200 million, then the month will look great. Or one of the expected $100 million hits could flop and 2016 will actually fall behind 2015, even without taking into account ticket price inflation.
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It's the first weekend of July, which means I should probably start the monthly preview. (I'm kidding. Although, I did have a computer crash this morning and lost a few hours of work. Save early. Save often.) Like last week, Finding Dory should earn first place over the weekend, while there are a trio of wide releases hoping to take advantage of the holiday. The BFG is the biggest in terms of box office potential. The Legend of Tarzan is the biggest in terms of production budget. Finally, The Purge: Election Year is the biggest in terms of profitability. This weekend last year, Inside Out climbed over Jurassic World for first place, as both films earned just under $30 million, Finding Dory will make almost that much combined.
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All-in-all, this could be a year of studio dominance the likes of which we haven’t seen since, well, last year, when Universal could do no wrong. Their incredible year really took flight at the beginning of April, when Furious 7 posted a monthly record $147 million opening weekend. The Jungle Book won’t hit those heights, but it will most likely be the second film to top $100 million in April, with Disney projecting a weekend of $103.57 million as of Sunday morning.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and you can read them on their site... in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order is very useful in most circumstances, but not here. On the other hand, the nominees within each category are not presented in alphabetical order. ... Are the BAFTAs trolling us? As for the actual nominees, the big winners here are Bridge of Spies and Carol, both of which earned nine nominations. For Carol, this is just another impressive score, but this was a pleasant surprise for Bridge of Spies.
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Most of the new releases were not expected to do well at the box office. ... Almost no one saw this coming. We had some near-record bombs this weekend and even the best of the new releases were terrible. This left The Martian in first place; in fact, the top three spots and four of the top five were held by holdovers. The best new release, The Last Witch Hunter, barely cracked the $10 million mark. The overall box office fell 14% from last weekend to $105 million. This was also 9.5% lower than the same weekend last year. Midweek numbers were better this year than last year, so the year-over-year actually improved and 2015 now has a 5.2% lead over 2014 at $8.60 billion to $8.18 billion.
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Dismal is about the politest word that can be applied to the box office performance of new releases this weekend. None of the five films new in wide release managed to make the top three on the chart, and two of them didn’t even crack the top ten. That leaves The Martian and Goosebumps to battle it out for first place, and a fourth-week decline of just 25% for The Martian looks virtually certain to give it the win. Fox projects it will make $15.9 million for a total by the end of the weekend of $166 million or so. Its performance to date falls neatly between that of Interstellar and Gravity, which puts the sci-fi adventure on course for a final domestic box office of $230 million (see full comps here).
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A slightly-softer-than-expected (but still good) opening for Goosebumps will be enough to take the film to the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio projections released on Sunday morning. Sony expects the family horror adventure to come in with $23.5 million on opening weekend, which is a solid enough start, and sets the film up for a good run, helped by strong reviews and Halloween coming up in a couple of weeks. The Martian will land in second with a projected $21.5 million as of this morning, a slightly steeper-than-expected 42% decline from last weekend, and a total to date around $144 million. In general, we’re looking at quite a few steep drops from last weekend thanks to an unfavorable comparison with the Columbus Day long weekend and a batch of new releases.
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September ended on a record note with the debut of Hotel Transylvania 2. Additionally, there was great depth and 2015's lead over 2014 grew to nearly $500 million. How do things look going forward? The month starts out with The Martian, which should have no trouble becoming the biggest hit of the month and might even top $200 million. On the other hand, no other film is expected to get to $100 million. There's only one or two that will even come close. Fortunately, last October was very similar with one $100 million hit, Gone Girl, while two other films came close, Annabelle and Fury. It looks like it will be up to the depth films from both years to determine which year comes out on top.
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The Hundred-Foot Journey came out in August and was counter-programming, to be generous. It opened in barely more than 2,000 theaters and only managed fourth place during its opening weekend. On the other hand, its multiplier was 4.94, which is incredible compared to the average wide release, while it ended up a solid midlevel hit. Obviously the word-of-mouth was strong, but now that it is on the home market, will those who missed it in theaters want to check it out? And will those who saw it in theaters want to pick it up?
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In some ways, it is a great week on the home market, as there are several excellent releases worth picking up. In other ways, it is an even better week, because there are so few releases and almost no filler. The only downside is trying to select a release for Pick of the Week, as there are a number of competitors. One of the biggest releases of the week is X-Men: Days of Future Past on DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack and it is also one of the best. Other contenders include Mr. Peabody & Sherman on DVD, Blu-ray Combo Pack, 3D Combo Pack, Fargo: Season One on DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack, and Witching and Bitching on DVD. Strangely, I'm still waiting for the screeners for all four films. In the end, I literally rolled a dice to determine the winner and it was X-Men: Days of Future Past.
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It's a short list this week, because there's almost nothing worth talking about. The best-selling new release according to Amazon is Veronica Mars, while the first page of new releases is dominated by Godzilla titles, and not even good Godzilla titles. There are not a lot of new releases that are contenders for Pick of the Week, but Still Mine on DVD is the best of what is out there. Meanwhile, another Canadian release, Republic of Doyle: Season 1 earns an honorable mention and is the Puck of the Week.
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The Terminal came out in 2004, just after Tom Hanks' record-breaking run of seven $100 million hits in a row came to an end. The streak ended with The Ladykillers, but many thought The Terminal would start a new streak. It didn't. Now that it has been ten years since it came out, does it feel like it underperformed at the box office. Or was this never going to be a big hit with moviegoers?
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Box office powerhouse Frozen has propelled head of Disney Animation (and Pixar) John Lasseter into 11th place in The Numbers Bankability Index for February. The Index measures the value people generate in the industry, and Lasseter certainly deserves his place towards the top of the chart, having built Pixar into an animation powerhouse, and rebuilt Disney's in-house animation studio so effectively that it's close to knocking Pixar off its perch as the industry leader.
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Last week I unveiled our new People Records section and talked about some of top performers across different types of acting, from the blockbusting superstars to the unsung heroes, to the cameo kings and queens. We've added some more charts to the record section this week, this time covering technical roles, and once more there's a lot of data to be mined.
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Lincoln was an Oscar contender right from the very beginning. Steven Spielberg directing a movie about Abraham Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Of course it was an Oscar contender. Lincoln earned twelve Oscar nominations and earned two wins. Did the film deserve these awards? Or did it coast on reputation alone?
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March is over and while it is a little too soon to tell where a few films will end their box office runs, it is clear Oz The Great and Powerful won the month. Some films beat expectations to become midlevel hits, like The Call, but it wasn't a great month at the box office, especially compared to last year. This month, there are only seven wide releases spread over four weeks. Only one of those films, Oblivion, has a shot at being anything more than a midlevel hit. None of the other six releases look like they will come close to $100 million, but none of them look like obvious bombs either. (Although I do have my worries when it comes to Scary Movie 5.) Last April was even weaker with no film earning $100 million, although Think Like a Man did come relatively close. We might actually see growth on the year-over-year comparison. We'd better, because 2013 is behind 2012's pace by a huge margin at the moment and things will get worse when May arrives.
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Argo was the big winner at the Oscars last night, although arguably, there were no big winners, but a lot of films that shared in the glory. There were also some pretty interesting twists and a few events that stand out. Due to ongoing computer difficulties, I was unable to live-blog the Oscars this year. I will still be giving my reactions on a category by category basis, but not in the order they were handed out.
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Voting is closed in our annual Predict the Academy Awards contest, and Argo is the clear favorite to pick up the Best Picture award, based on the opinion of nearly 500 entrants. Ben Affleck's thriller took an impressive 80% of the vote, more than six times the score of Lincoln, which took second place in the poll. Coincidentally, the contest has predicted the winner of the Best Picture Oscar 80% of the time in the 15 years we've been running it. Quite a few other categories have strong favorites, but there are also some really close calls, and it looks as though the awards will be shared by several films tonight.
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we will look at the Best Director, which is one of the stranger races this year. Before Awards Season began, I thought Kathryn Bigelow would be the favorite. She wasn't even nominated. The evidence suggests Ben Affleck will win. But again, he wasn't even nominated. So with the top two choices not even on the list of nominees, we are looking at the best of the rest.
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Directors Guild of America Awards were this weekend and the big winner shouldn't surprise too many people, assuming they've been paying attention. Argo won yet again and given this, Ben Affleck should be the favorite to win an Oscar at the end of the month... except he wasn't even nominated.
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The Directors Guild of America handed out their nominations for Feature Films last week and Documentaries today. No, I have no idea why they split up their announcements. Usually, there's a lot of overlap between the DGAs and the Oscars, but that's not the case this year, so we again have some surprises.
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The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and there's certainly a lot to talk about. There are some nominations that should surprise no one. For instance, Lincoln led the way with twelve nominations, and it has been seen as the major contender for a long time. However, there were also a few surprise nominations and some major snubs. Here are the list of nominations, and some reactions.
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The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations and the same list of films that have been mentioned since the beginning of Awards Season were rewarded today. Lincoln led the way with seven nods, while Argo and Django Unchained were close behind with five.
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Catch Me If You Can opened on Christmas day 2002, and while it was never able to reach top spot on the box office chart (a little film called Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was blocking it) it did become a huge hit. Ten year later, it is coming out on Blu-ray. Has the film aged well? Is the Blu-ray worth the upgrade?
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October was pretty good with a few films really crushing expectations, which made up for the few duds that opened at the end. 2012 gained about $100 million over 2011 during the month of October. We really needed this success and hopefully November will continue this push forward. However, November is a bit of a weird month. There are five weekends, but only eight true wide releases, half of which open on the Thanksgiving long weekend, leaving the other four weeks with just one true wide release each. There are a couple others opening in the semi-wide level and another opening in limited release with a planned wide release, but even so, it is not a busy month. That said, it is a case of quality over quantity. There are four films that are pretty much guaranteed to reach $100 million, one of which should reach $300 million. By comparison, last November only produced one $100 million film. Granted, that film was The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, which made nearly $300 million, which is a huge number no matter how you look at it. But this year, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 should top that number and with the other $100 million movies pulling in more than $400 million combined, it should be a very profitable month at the box office.
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