July 4th, 2012
After a run of several good weeks, it is a complete disaster on the home market this week. The best selling first run release will be... nothing. This is because there is no first run release coming out this week. According to Amazon.com, the best selling new release of the week is Midsomer Murders: Set 20, while the top ten is dominated by limited releases and Blu-ray catalogue titles. This makes choosing a Pick of the Week difficult, because there are so few prime releases. Rocko's Modern Life: Season Three is on the short list for contenders, as is The Hunter on Blu-ray. But in the end, I went with God Bless America on either DVD or Blu-ray. It's a great movie and there's a surprising number of extras on the DVD.
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July 3rd, 2012
God Bless America had a lot of pre-release buzz, certainly more than most Indie films have. However, its reviews were only good and not great, while it struggled at the box office. Its box office numbers were not helped by its Video on Demand premiere weeks earlier. Now that it is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray, will it find a more receptive audience? Or was it too much hype and not enough substance?
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May 15th, 2012
No new releases managed to earn a spot in the $10,000 club on this week's per theater chart. That doesn't mean it was empty, as The Avengers remained potent with an average of $23,696 during its second weekend of release. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was arguably even more impressive, as it expanded into more than 150 additional theaters, but its per theater average only fell to $15,012. It did well enough to grab eighth place overall, and with this average, it will certainly expand more. On the other hand, the best new release was Dark Shadows with an average of $7,906. This is good, but not great. The best limited release was Girl in Progress. That was was playing in more than 300 theaters and managed an average of $4,298. That's a good start, but I don't think it will expand greatly.
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May 10th, 2012
God Bless America is one of four limited releases opening in more than ten theaters this weekend, but of those four films, it is the only one earning overall positive reviews. In fact, it is one of only four films on this week's list earning overall positive reviews. The others are I Wish, Nobody Else But You, and Sleepless Night, all three of which are foreign language films, which tends to limit box office potential. Hopefully one will have breakout success, otherwise, new releases might not show a lot of strength on the per theater chart this week.
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May 1st, 2012
There's good news / bad news going forward into May. First the bad news, April was really weak. It was weak compared to the previous month and weak compared to last year. For the first time all year, we had losses for a month on the year-over-year comparison. As for the good news... it could have been worse? Maybe there wasn't good news with regards to April, but there is certainly good news going forward. Every weekend in May has at least one film with the potential to hit $100 million, while there are a couple that could hit $200 million, and one that, pie in the sky, could reach $400 million. That one film is The Avengers, or as it is officially called, Marvel's The Avengers. I guess they don't want people reminded of the 1998 TV adaptation. While there are four films that should reach $100 million, there are only three other films opening wide, maybe two, maybe four. (More sources have Chernobyl Diaries opening wide than in limited release, but it is not a sure thing either way. Meanwhile, the opposite is true for LOL.) Additionally, there are a couple films opening in limited release this month with a real potential to expand wide: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and God Bless America. By comparison, last year had no film reach $300 million, but it had five films reach $100 million. If we are going to earn the win this year, we need strength from the top.
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