July 5th, 2024
Despicable Me 4 will continue the run of animated films at the top of the box office chart this weekend. It won’t match the opening of Inside Out 2, but it will still record a very healthy extended opening over the sort-of holiday weekend.
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January 26th, 2023
Our widest releases list this week is close to being a replay of last week with A Man Called Otto still occupying the top spot by playing in 3,957 cinemas. The Tom Hanks comedy-drama has scored just short of $60 million worldwide to date during its four-week run.
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January 19th, 2023
After spending five weeks as the widest release, Avatar: The Way of Water finally drops into the second spot, going from 4,045 locations last week, to 3,790 this week. In its place, the widest release this week will be A Man Called Otto. After expanding into 3,802 theaters last week, the film retains that count this week. The Tom Hanks comedy-drama has earned just over $25 million since debuting in just four cinemas on December 30.
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May 18th, 2020
Emma. is the latest adaptation of the Jane Austen novel of the same name. It was previously adapted a number of times, arguably most famously as Clueless back in 1995. The film earned excellent reviews and opened well in limited release, but it struggled when it tried to expand and was all but gone from theaters the weekend after. However, it also opened just as the Covid-19 pandemic became a serious threat in the United States and its box office numbers were obviously negatively impacted by those events. Is it worth checking out for fans of period pieces? Or would it have struggled even under better circumstances?
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January 29th, 2019
Suspiria earned good reviews, but not reviews that were good enough for most limited releases to thrive. Then it opened with a theater average of nearly $100,000. At that point, I thought it could be a surprise box office hit. Unfortunately, as soon as it tried to expand, its audience collapsed and it quickly exited theaters. Is the film as good as its opening weekend theater average? Or is there a legitimate reason it collapsed so quickly?
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November 1st, 2018
October continued 2018’s phenomenal box office run, for the most part. There were a couple of films that missed expectations by $10 million or more, but on the other hand, Vemon and Halloween were smash hits and are now the first and second biggest October debuts of all time. Furthermore, 2018’s lead over 2017 is, as I’m writing this, just shy of $1 billion and if 2018 can maintain this lead, it will be one of the biggest year-over-year increases of all time. It won’t. The fun times end now. Why is that? Last November was amazing. There were only eight wide releases, but six of them earned more than $100 million. Three of those hit $200 million, including Thor: Ragnarok, which earned over $300 million. This year, there are a lot more movies opening in November, but it is a case of quantity over quality. No movie is expected to come close to $300 million and it would take a bit of luck just to have five $100 million hits. The film I’m looking forward to the most is Ralph Breaks the Internet, while it, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald are all aiming for $200 million this month. Fortunately, even if 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by around $300 million, 2018 has built up such a large lead that it should still go into December with an insurmountable lead at the box office.
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February 1st, 2017
January turned out to be a good month. Granted, it didn’t live up to last January, but its box office was one of the top five Januarys of all time, so that’s still a good start to the year. Also, we will have our first $100 million movie released in 2017 and that doesn’t happen this early very often. As for February, there’s potentially the first $200 million hit of the year, The Lego Batman Movie. Fifty Shades Darker and The Great Wall both have a shot at $100 million. That said, it is more likely that both will miss that milestone than both will get there. As for the rest of the films, there are a few that are aiming for solid midlevel hits, like John Wick: Chapter Two and Get Out, while there are very few potential bombs. By comparison, last February there was one monster hit, Deadpool, and a lot of bombs. No other movie besides Deadpool made $50 million. No movie opening this month will match Deadpool, but we won’t have as many bombs either, so hopefully that will balance out and 2017 won’t fall further behind 2016.
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