March 20th, 2015
It is a busy week with a number of limited releases earning outstanding reviews. This includes a couple of foreign-language films (Amour fou and La Sapienza), as well as a couple of horror films (Backcountry and Spring). However, of the films on this week's list, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is the one with the best chance of earning some measure of mainstream success.
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November 13th, 2013
On Tuesday we launched The Numbers Bankability Index, a new service to help assess the value that different people bring to the industry, from actors and actresses to directors, screenwriters, producers, and anyone else involved in the creative process of making a movie. In this article, I'll look more deeply into how the Index is compiled, and how we use the tools behind it to analyze questions about people in movies.
If you haven't already, now's a good time to look at our announcement video, and the November Edition of the Worldwide Bankability Index.
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November 5th, 2013
Twilight came out in 2008 to a mixture of high buzz and abject horror. There were a lot of people who were major fans of the book series by Stephenie Meyer, while others consider Stephenie Meyer the worst author of all time. That might be a bit harsh. The first movie opened with mixed reviews, but smashed through all expectations with nearly $200 million domestically. A year later, New Moon came out and despite earning just 27% positive reviews. That's awful any way you look at it, but even so, it earned nearly $300 million at the box office. Clearly this franchise is critic-proof and I'm under no delusion that any of my criticisms will stop anyone from buying this 10-disc Blu-ray box set. I'm so convinced that no one will change their minds over my opinion of the movie that I'm going to keep that portion of the review to a minimum and concentrate on the extras instead. After all, anyone interested in this box set has already made up their mind about the movie and just want to know if this box set has enough extras to be worth the price.
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November 15th, 2012
As The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 prepares to re-write the record book, it would be easy to overlook the rest of the top five. However, there are a few other films of note. Firstly, Lincoln, which is expanding this weekend and will nearly be at the truly wide level. Nearly everyone thinks this film will grab a spot in the top five. Also, despite a lot of people predicting Breaking Dawn will break records, a lot of people think Skyfall will hold up pretty well over the weekend. By comparison, last year, Breaking Dawn, Part 1 had an impressive opening, but it was the only thing about the weekend that was impressive, as Happy Feet 2 crashed and burned. There's a slim chance Breaking Dawn, Part 2 will open with more than the combined openings of those two films. Adding in Skyfall and 2012 should come out with a major win this week.
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November 1st, 2012
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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