This graph shows Kumail Nanjiani’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
As the lone wide release to enter theaters last week, Wonka dominated both the domestic and international box office, scoring a solid $39 million from North American showings, while adding just over $54 million to its previous overseas total of $59 million. The Willy Wonka origin story starring Timothée Chalamet will begin its sophomore frame by adding 10 locations this week, making the musical the widest film in the land with availability in 4,213 cinemas. Wonka will face far stiffer competition however this week at the box office as a bevy of new films make their way into theaters in time for the Christmas holiday.
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Some major movies hit streaming services this week, with Fantastic Mr. Fox debuting on Disney+, and Rocketman coming out on multiple services. I highly recommend both. There is also some original fair and some smaller releases that likely slipped beneath most people’s radar. Of these, The Lovebirds is the film I’m looking forward to the most. It was supposed to be a wide release in April, but it was one of the films affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, and was picked up by Netflix.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I will be happy no matter who wins Best Supporting Actress. One last note: The contest is still going and the leading for Best Picture Switched from The Shape of Water to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to tied over the time I was writing this story. This is the closest I’ve ever seen it. Guessing the best picture correctly will go a long way to winning.
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The Independent Spirit Awards were handed out tonight, and Get Out was the big winner, sort of. It earned two Awards, including the two most prestigious, awards. However, it wasn’t the only film to pick up two awards tonight.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try to figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at the two Screenwriting Categories, ending with with Best Original Screenplay. This category is actually competitive, which is the first time I’ve been able to say that so far this year. In fact, there are three nominees that have a reasonable shot at winning.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year and no one has been able to adequately explain why to me. At least there were some interesting results this year. The Shape of Water led the way with 13 nominations, which is one below the current record and nearly as many as the next two films combined. Overall, there were seventeen films that earned two or more nominations.
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The Writers Guild of America is the latest group to announce award nominees. There are a lot of categories that WGA hand out awards for, but only three of them are for theatrical releases. The list of nominees include several major Awards Season players, and not a lot of surprises. The Big Sick, Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, Get Out, The Shape of Water… We've seen almost all of these films appear on lists of nominations before.
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Both the first installment First-run Releases and the second installment, TV on DVD releases, were shorter than I would have liked, as this hasn’t been a great year for either wide releases or TV on DVD releases. That said, the third installment of our Holiday Gift Guide deals with limited releases, classics, and foreign imports and this list can get out of hand rather quickly. There will more releases on this list than the previous two, starting with...
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The Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced yesterday and thus the 2017 Awards Season begins. The movie with the most nominations is Call Me by Your Name, which opens on Friday. This is amazingly good timing. It’s not the only film that should get a financial boost.
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I think it is a really good week on the home market. The biggest release of the week is Wonder Woman, which is also one of the best wide releases of the year. The extras are strong and the Blu-ray Combo Pack / 3D Combo Pack are Pick of the Week contenders. It isn’t the winner, as The Big Sick is one of the best movies I’ve seen all year and the DVD / Blu-ray Combo Pack is loaded with extras.
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I hate it when the first of the month lands on a Saturday. By the time this story goes live, we will still have almost no box office data for Despicable Me 3, so we won’t know if June ended on a positive note. Fortunately, Wonder Woman beat expectations and might end up as the biggest hit of the summer, at least for a little while. July begins with Spider-Man: Homecoming, which should make at least $300 million and is the last film being released this summer that has a shot at being a $400 million hit domestically. It is very likely that nothing else this month will come within $100 million of that movie, so that could help its legs. There are a few potential $100 million hits, including War for the Planet of the Apes, Dunkirk, and a couple of other long shots. Last July had a similar feel with The Secret Life of Pets topping the list with well over $300 million, while there were five other $100 million hits. This July would have to beat expectations substantially to match this performance. I’m not confident 2017 will be able to maintain its pace at the box office. I’m worried at least one big film will struggled and 2017 will end the month behind 2016’s pace.
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Not many limited releases are earning any real buzz this week. The Beguiled has the best pedigree and its reviews might be good enough to help it thrive in theaters. The Bad Batch is the biggest in terms of theaters, but its box office potential is close to zero. This leaves The Big Sick as the best new release. That said, if you are not near one of the five theaters it is playing, you could always stay home and binge GLOW on Netflix. I reviewed it this week and it is worth the praise.
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Silicon Valley started in 2014 with an eight-episode first season. I didn't get a chance to review the first season, but I did see a few of the episodes and liked what I saw. Does it get better in season two? And is the DVD or Blu-ray worth picking up?
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