September 7th, 2012
The Hunger Games dominated the Blu-ray Sales Chart during its first full week on the home market. It saw its sales numbers grow a little bit to 1.75 million units / $34.99 million for the week giving it totals of 3.42 million units / $68.32 million. It is already in the top ten best-selling Blu-rays of all time and the best-selling Blu-ray of the year. It likely won't last in first place for long, as The Avengers is coming out soon and should be record-breaking on Blu-ray.
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August 22nd, 2012
It is an amazing week on the home market, if you count The Hunger Games. That film made its DVD and Blu-ray debut on Saturday, so it didn't quite come out this week, but it is still selling well. The best-selling Tuesday release was NCIS: Season Nine - Buy from Amazon, while the top five is dominated by Blu-ray catalog releases. I think Bernie comes close to being a Pick of the Week Contender and A Separation is even better, but I'm going with The Hunger Games as top pick.
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August 19th, 2012
Chimpanzee is the fourth DisneyNature Documentary to get a theatrical release. I've been lucky enough to see previous ones, and even the one that went direct-to-DVD. So how does this one compare to the others? And is the Blu-ray worth picking up?
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April 30th, 2012
If someone were to describe the box office this weekend in just one word, that one word would be, "Yuck". Only one of the four wide releases matched expectations, and that was the film that was expected to do the worst. Think Like a Man easily repeated on top of the chart, despite falling nearly 50%. The overall box office fell 18% from last weekend to $110 million, which was 30% lower than the same weekend last year. Declines like this usually only happen due to a misalignment in holidays. Year-to-date, 2012 is still ahead of 2011, but the lead has shrunk to 14% at $3.29 billion to $2.88 billion. Fortunately, The Avengers is on track to break records, so 2012 should get back to its winning ways very soon.
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April 23rd, 2012
Every single film in the top five either matched or exceeded expectations, Think Like a Man more than doubled its predictions, but it still wasn't enough to match last year's total. Granted, there was still reason to celebrate, as the box office soared 18% when compared to last week reaching $135 million over the weekend, while the box office fell short of last year's total by less than 0.5%, so it is hardly a reason to panic. Additionally, 2012 is still ahead of 2011 by a massive 17% margin at $3.14 billion to $2.69 billion. Next weekend will be a disaster, but the weekend after that is the start of summer, and analysts are bullish on the overall box office chances.
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April 22nd, 2012
Although it won't be enough to give the industry a year-on-year win, Think Like a Man will deliver a very impressive $30 million opening this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday, a performance that is well ahead of projections going into the weekend. The Lucky One also beat expectations and will finish second with around $22.8 million. The Hunger Games will be pushed into 3rd place, picking up around $14.5 million in its fifth weekend and passing $350 million in the process. Nature documentary Chimpanzee will land in fourth place with $10.2 million.
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April 20th, 2012
There are only a few limited releases on this week's list, and only one of them is earning overwhelmingly positive reviews. Marley's reviews are fantastic, but it is opening in 45 theaters, which is a lot for a limited release. It could prove to be too many. To the Arctic 3D is also opening in dozens of theaters, but its reviews are barely above the overall positive level.
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April 19th, 2012
It has been nearly a month since we've had a new release top the box office chart, but it looks like The Hunger Games is finally going to be pushed from top spot. It looks like The Lucky One will be the film that breaks The Hunger Games winning streak, as it is the only saturation level release. On the other hand, Think Like a Man and Chimpanzee are barely opening wide. Fortunately, the three wide releases this year appear about as strong as the three wide releases from last year. Unfortunately, last year was led by Rio during its second weekend of release, so 2012 has about a $25 million hole it will need to plug if it is to avoid the first three-week slump of the year.
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April 1st, 2012
There's good news / bad news going forward into April. First the good news, aside from one week where we saw a minor dip, March was fantastic. There were a number of films beating expectations and the overall the month was even stronger than predicted. As of this weekend, the box office is now 20% higher than the same pace last year. The bad news? That winning streak will certainly come to an end in April. Last year, there was one film that reached $200 million, Fast Five, plus two others that reached $100 million, Hop and Rio. Granted, due to the shifting calendar, Hop is actually being compared to the last weekend in March, so this April only needs one $200 million hit and a $150 million hit to keep pace. But even so, there's almost no chance that will happen. In fact, there's a chance that we might not have one film topping $100 million this year. Only three films have a real shot at this milestone: American Reunion, Five-Year Engagement, and Titanic 3D. And quite frankly, only the first one has a 50/50 chance of getting there. We will likely see 2012 shed some of its lead over 2011, but it should still end the month with a solid year-over-year lead.
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