September 17th, 2005
Crash landed at the top of the rental charts this weekend, but it was a very close race. The film earned $8.30 million in DVD rentals and $560,000 in VHS rentals for a total of $8.86 million. The film also led the DVD sales chart, but as usual, no numbers were given.
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September 11th, 2005
The 40-Year Old Virgin topped the U.K. marked with an impressive $3.26 million on 394 screens in the U.K., but this is probably not indicative of its potential in other international markets. The film should do well in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, but will likely struggle in non-English speaking markets. (Germany may be an exception.)
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September 10th, 2005
For the first time in a long time it was a good week on the rental charts with two films cracking $10 million in combined rentals. Leading the way was
Monster-In-Law with $11.06 million in combined rentals, $9.84 million from DVDs and $1.22 million from VHS. On the other hand, it came in second on the DVD sales chart, but more on that later.
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September 4th, 2005
War of the Worlds opened in its last international market over the weekend making $3.0 million on 583 screens in China. That's about 10% more money that
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith earned, but
War of the Worlds needed nearly double the number of screens. Overall the film added $4.5 million to its $345 million international total, easily the second best of the year so far.
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September 3rd, 2005
This week there were three new releases ranking in the top five on the rental charts led by
The Ring Two with $7.45 million, $6.99 million of that coming from DVD rentals. On a side note, many rental places are phasing out VHS rentals and it won't be long before the industry stop tracking these numbers entirely.
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August 28th, 2005
The Skeleton Key opened in 10- more markets over the weekend and in now playing on 1400 screens, however, it still hasn't found the success the studio was hoping for. It did open in first place in Germany, but it still had a very soft opening with $1.6 million. It also opened in first place in Russia with $625,000 over the weekend and $780,000 since Thursday, but in Australia and New Zealand it had to settle for a distant second place with $760,000 and $110,000 respectively.
The Skeleton Key also open in Austria with $230,000 for the week, but its placing is unknown at the moment. Add in holdovers in France, ($250,000 for $2.2 million) and the U.K., ($130,000 for $4.5 million) and you have roughly $4 million for the weekend and $16.5 million so far.
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August 22nd, 2005
Every week films get a second chance at success from the home market; or, in some cases, a first chance at success. Here is a list of wide releases, limited releases, classics and a few from the growing TV on DVD section. It's a strange week with several special edition releases coming out for movies that range in age from just a couple of years to a couple of decades. The quality also varies from guilty pleasure to award winning classic. It's hard to pick just one DVD pick of the week, and usually I just pick all of the DVDs I'm planning on picking up. However, this week I'll just highlight the top few choices: Harakiri - Criterion Collection -
Buy from Amazon,
The Truman Show - Special Edition -
Buy from Amazon, and
Witness - Special Collector's Edition -
Buy from Amazon. Any of those would make excellent additions to most people's DVD collections. And out of the guilty pleasures selection,
The Transporter - Special Delivery Edition -
Buy from Amazon is the best choice.
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May 8th, 2005
Golden Week helped
Shall We Dance? climb 19% to $2,250,195 for the weekend and $7,270,348 during its run. The film now has $90.3 million internationally and could break $100 million if it continues to show strong legs in Japan.
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May 1st, 2005
It was a good news, bad news kind of weekend for
Constantine. The film remained in top spot in Japan with $2,330,027 on 349 screens for a $9,011,671 running tally in the market. Bad news, it dropped 37% during its second weekend in the market, which is really steep for Japan. Overall the film brought in $3 million on 1,200 screens in 40 markets for a international box office of $136.4 million.
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April 11th, 2005
It was another weak weekend at the box office as no film was able to break $20 million for the first time since the first weekend in February and Sahara had the worst box office for a number one film for the entire year. This pushed the box office down an incredible 17.8% from last week and an even more troubling 25.0% from last year. (This time last year was Easter, so that mitigates the situation somewhat.) Year-to-date, 2005's box office now sits at $2.134 billion, down 4% from 2004. Considering how poor box office receipts were at this time last year, 2005 is in serious trouble if things don't turn around soon.
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April 8th, 2005
Two wide releases hit theatres tonight, compared to the five that come out this time last year. But overall this year should still come out on top. And while neither of the films looks like it will be a massive, breakout hit, at least they don't look like they will be massive bombs either and that should lead to an interesting weekend at the box office.
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April 4th, 2005
April started off well but not great. A strong number one film and impressive holdovers helped the market climb 7% over last weekend. But for the sixth straight weekend 2005 was behind the same weekend in 2004, this time by 17.0%. Year-to-date, 2005's box office is now at $2.02 billion, 2% behind 2004, but will hopefully do some catching up next weekend.
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April 1st, 2005
April gets off to a fast start with the mostly highly anticipated film of the month debuting tonight. It should win, and win big - more than doubling its nearest competitor.
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April 1st, 2005
April is one of the weakest months of the year because it is so close to the massive summer box office season. A film released in late April only has one or two weeks at the box office before being crushed by the competition, so studios tend to be wary of what they release at this time. On the plus side, they tend not to dump too many duds either and it doesn't take much for any of these films to please the studios since expectations are low to begin with.
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March 31st, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner, The Longest Yard - Official Site.
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March 30th, 2005
Beauty Shop, the
spin-off from the successful
Barbershop franchise hits theatre tonight.
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March 1st, 2005
March is a transitional month that lacks the huge hits that get people excited, and also lacks the real obvious train-wreck movies that get released during the various dumping grounds during the year.
Because of that, it's a month that's hard to predict - the releases all seem so average.
There are three films that have a reasonable shot at $100 million, but probably only one of those films will make it there.
And that will be helped out dramatically by the Easter holidays, which falls in March this year.
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February 10th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
The Jacket -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to
e-mail me with the details.
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January 20th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Fantastic Four -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to
e-mail me with the details.
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December 23rd, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner
Hotel Rwanda -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to
e-mail me with the details.
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November 8th, 2004
Every week films get a second chance at success from the home market; or, in some cases, a first chance at success. Here is a list of wide releases, limited releases and a few from the growing TV on DVD section, including the nominees for the DVD Pick of the Week, which we'll get to in a second. This was a strange week, there was only one first run release, a few limited releases, several nearly re-releases complete with ads for upcoming movies and more than a couple really old movies mostly sold in sets. Even the best of the bunch is going to have a really narrow appeal, so instead of naming a Pick of the Week, I'll name the best of each group. Best Limited Release:
Ju-On: The Grudge -
Buy from Amazon. Best Ad for A Sequel:
Bridget Jones's Diary - Collector's Series -
Buy from Amazon. Best Box Set Containing Movies Made Before I was Born: Fritz Lang Epic Collection -
Buy from Amazon.
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October 7th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner
Beauty Shop -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to
e-mail me with the details.
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May 13th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates including the winner for the week,
The Chronicles of Riddick -
Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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