Home Market Releases for July 18th, 2017

July 18th, 2017

Last week, The Fate of the Furious scared away all of the competition. This week, the competition is still scared, as there’s very little in the way of top notch releases. Kong: Skull Island is by far the biggest new release of the week, while the next two biggest are The Promise and Free Fire. As for the best releases of the week, The Expanse: Season Two is a contender, but ultimately the Pick of the Week goes to the Stalker Criterion Collection Blu-ray. More...

Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Free Fire

July 16th, 2017

Free Fire opened in theaters in April. It wasn’t expected to be a major hit, or even a midlevel hit, but almost no one expected it to bomb as badly as it did. It didn’t just open below the Mendoza Line, had it opened with as much as it made in total, it still would have been below the Mendoza Line. Is it really as bad as its box office numbers would indicate? Or is it a hidden gem? More...

Home Market Releases for July 4th, 2017

July 3rd, 2017

This is one of the worst weeks on the home market that I’ve seen. The summer is usually a bad time on the home market, but this year July 4th lands on Tuesday, which further hurts the quality of releases coming out this week. The biggest non-VOD release of the week is The Zookeeper’s Wife, which would be a secondary Blu-ray release on an average week. The second biggest release, Song to Song, did so poorly on the box office that it would be filler if it weren’t for its pedigree. As for the best new release of the week... Free Fire is coming out on Video on Demand. The reviews are good, but not really Pick of the Week material. I guess the best new release on this week’s list is HYOUKA: Part One. I think this is the first time an Anime TV series has been named Pick of the Week. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: April’s Conclusion was a Wild Weekend

May 1st, 2017

The weekend box office was a wild one with two limited releases in the top five, How to be a Latin Lover and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. The Fate of the Furious remained in first place with $19.94 million, which is better than expected. Unfortunately, the overall box office was still weak down 8.3% from last weekend to just $99 million. Worse still, this is 8.9% lower than the same weekend last year. 2017’s lead over 2016 took a bit of a hit, but still has a 5.1% or $180 million lead, $3.66 billion to $3.48 billion. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: Furious Slows and New Releases Stall, Leaving Box Office short by $60 million

April 25th, 2017

As expected, The Fate of the Furious dominated the weekend box office chart. It held up a little better than expected with $38.41 million over the weekend; however, this was still over 60% lower than its opening weekend and the overall weekend fell over $60 million or 36% from last weekend for a total of $107 million. A lot of the blame can be pushed onto the new releases, as none of them earned a spot in the top five. Born in China was the best of the new releases earning sixth place with $4.79 million. Year-over-year, 2017 was 16% lower than 2016, but fortunately, 2017 still has an impressive $200 million lead over 2016 at $3.53 billion to $3.33 billion. More...

Weekend Estimates: Big Decline, Big Win for Fate of the Furious

April 23rd, 2017

A decline of 61% compared to its opening weekend still leaves The Fate of the Furious the big winner at the box office this weekend, with the five new wide releases combined making less than half the $38.7 million it will earn on its second weekend, according to Universal’s weekend estimate. The film’s domestic gross will end the weekend at about $163.6 million. As of last night, it has reached $636.3 million internationally, and it should end the weekend with $752.4 million overseas, for a global total of $916 million as of Sunday. $327.4 million of that will have come from China, where Fate is clocking up another $67 million this weekend. More...

Friday Estimates: Furious Falls 75%, Still Dominates Friday with $11.2 million

April 22nd, 2017

The Fate of the Furious dominated the box office chart on Friday with $11.2 million. This could be more than any other film will earn during the entire weekend. That’s the good news. The bad news is this still represents a decline of just over 75% from its opening Friday. This is not good by any stretch of the word, but it is also not unexpected. The film will rebound on Saturday, and earn about $35.5 million over the weekend, according to Universal, which is close to our prediction and will lift the film’s running tally to $160 million. This keeps The Fate of the Furious on pace for $200 million and the film should become the third film released in 2017 to get to that milestone. It might overtake Logan on the yearly chart, but Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 will probably get there first. More...

Thursday Night Previews: New Releases are Showing Very Little Promise

April 21st, 2017

There are five films opening wide or semi-wide this weekend and four of them have previews. (Phoenix Forgotten is the lone exception.) At the moment, we only have numbers for The Promise and they are not good. The film pulled in $200,000 in previews last night, putting it on par with The Space Between Us. That’s not good news, as that film missed the Mendoza Line by a large margin. The Promise is playing in fewer theaters and it is earning better reviews, so it might not open below the Mendoza Line, but its theater average won't be much above $2,000 in the best of circumstances. More...

Weekend Predictions: New Releases are Very Forgettable

April 20th, 2017

Late April is one of the traditional dumping grounds and this week is truly living down to that reputation. There are five new releases that have at least a shot at the top ten, but none of them have a shot at becoming midlevel hits. Unforgettable is the widest new release of the week and will likely be the biggest hit, but it very likely won’t be the best. Free Fire and Born in China are in a close battle for the best reviews for the week. Meanwhile, The Promise and Phoenix Forgotten are just hoping to avoid opening below the Mendoza Line. I think earning a theater average above $2,000 is overly optimistic for either film. There’s a lot of competition, but nearly all of it is terrible, so The Fate of the Furious will have no trouble repeating in first place. Furthermore, both The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast will likely remain in the top five, meaning there’s not a lot of room for the other films. This weekend last year, The Jungle Book earned just over $60 million over the weekend, while The Huntsman: Winter’s War opened with close to $20 million. There’s no way 2017 will be able to match this one-two punch. More...

Contest: Forget About It

April 13th, 2017

April is a mess. When I starting writing the April preview I identified nine films that I was not 100% sure were going to open truly wide. While writing the preview, one was pulled from the schedule and since then, two were downgraded to semi-wide or lower. Next weekend, Born in China is opening semi-wide, The Promise is right on the razor’s edge between semi-wide and truly wide, while we still don’t have an estimate for Free Fire. This leaves Unforgettable as the only confirmed truly wide release of the week. Because of this, it is the only choice for the target film in this week’s box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Unforgettable.

Our April Fools contests continue this week. Two of our winners will win La La Land on Blu-ray Combo Pack, while one will be chosen at random to be the fool and receive an HD-DVD release. The Blu-ray Combo Pack doesn’t come out until the 25th, but the film is already out on Video on Demand.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will be a potential winner of La La Land on Blu-ray Combo Pack, or the winner of the Fool’s Prize. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also be a potential winner of La La Land on Blu-ray Combo Pack, or the winner of the Fool’s Prize. Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will be the final potential winner of La La Land on Blu-ray Combo Pack, or the winner of the Fool’s Prize.

Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay! More...

2017 Preview: April

April 1st, 2017

March was a month of extremes, led by two strong performances: Beauty and the Beast breaking records and Logan cracking $200 million with ease. There were also two other $100 million hits and another potential $100 million hit that we don’t have significant box office numbers for yet. This is fantastic. On the opposite end, there were three films on last month’s list that didn’t even open truly wide. This month won’t be as lucrative at the top, as The Fate of the Furious is the only film expected to top $100 million. Fortunately, it is expected to open with over $100 million. On the other extreme, there are many, many films on this list that I’m not sure will open wide. Fortunately, last April wasn’t any better. The Jungle Book made nearly $1 billion worldwide, but the other nine films combined made less than half of that. To emphasize: the other nine films that opened last April averaged less than $50 million worldwide each. If The Fate of the Furious can just come close to the previous installment of the franchise, then 2017 has a solid shot at topping 2016. More...