November 30th, 2018
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It’s another slow week for new releases, so like last week, I had to be a little more liberal when it came to including films on this list. There are some films that I think could find an audience, including Alanis and Bathtubs Over Broadway. However, Anna and the Apocalypse is the film I’m most interested in seeing.
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May 4th, 2015
Selma is the latest film about African-American history that I've reviewed in the past few years. Twelve Years a Slave and The Book of Negroes where both about slavery, while Selma is about the civil rights movement. The change of setting will be nice and I'm hoping the film will be just as good without being as difficult to watch.
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March 8th, 2015
A soft opening for Chappie and a weak returning field will combine to make this the worst weekend at the box office since the dark days of early December last year. Total spending will be around $90 million, down substantially from this time last year when 300: Rise of an Empire opened with $45 million. Chappie won’t manage a third of that, with a $13.3 million weekend projected by Sony as of Sunday morning. A slightly stronger $8.6 million opening from 1,573 theaters for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel won’t help the overall numbers much, but does add a bit of diversity to the top of the chart.
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March 1st, 2015
February was strong thanks to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and Fifty Shades of Grey, both of which beat expectations. This March could actually be even better, as there are three or four films that have a decent shot at earning $100 million or more. The top film will likely be Cinderella, which has a real shot at $200 million. Insurgent will almost assuredly get beyond the $100 million mark, while Get Hard, Home, and perhaps Chappie will also get to the century mark. Last March, there were four $100 million hits, led by Divergent, which pulled in $150 million. While this March should be better than February, I'm not sure it will be better than last March. I don't think March 2015 will be much worse than last year, but I think its percentage lead will be chipped away at by the end of the month.
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June 28th, 2014
The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest film from auteur director, Wes Anderson, and it is also his biggest box office hit. I liked some of his earlier films, but after The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, I didn't consider myself a fan of his work. Then I saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom and I loved both. Because of this, I was super excited to see The Grand Budapest Hotel and its box office success caused my expectations to rise even more. Did they rise too high? Is this Wes Anderson's best movie, as well as his biggest hit?
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July 1st, 2013
For the most part, June was a really strong month at the box office with nearly every film either matching expectations, or at least coming close enough to call it a victory. Looking forward, there are a dozen films opening wide in July, more or less. One of them, The Smurfs 2, is opening on a Wednesday, so I'm going to hold off talking about that movie till the August preview. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain is opening in less than 1000 theaters, but it has a shot at reaching the top ten during its opening weekend. If we include both of them, there are twelve films, but I think it is better to stick with the ten truly wide, truly July openings. Of these, Despicable Me 2 is clearly going to be the biggest hit at the box office. It could become the second biggest hit of the year so far. It is not the only film that could be a $100 million hit. In fact, there are six films opening in July that I think have a better than 50% chance of reaching that level. There is currently only one film that I think won't at least become a midlevel hit. By comparison in 2012, there were three $100 million movies, led by The Dark Knight Rises, but the rest of the new releases struggled. There's no chance any movie opening this month will top $400 million, in fact, it is quite possible no film will get to $300 million. That said, 2013 has a lot better depth, so it might come out on top in the end.
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