Home Market Releases for October 11th, 2016

October 11th, 2016

Ghostbusters is the biggest release of the week and the best first run release. Combined with its fully-loaded Blu-ray (extended edition), it is a Pick of the Week contender. There’s not much competition. The main competition is a new Collector's Edition Blu-ray for The Thing, but this is at least a double-dip, which hurts its value. There are a couple of smaller releases as well. In the end it was a literal coin toss to decide the Pick of the Week and Ghostbusters won. More...

Weekend Estimates: Pets Keep Trophy with $50 Million to Ghostbusters’ $46 Million

July 17th, 2016

After a huge amount of speculation on how it would perform at the box office, Ghostbusters is coming in right in the middle of (a very wide range of) expectations. Sony is projecting a $46 million debut for the supernatural comedy, which is far from the disaster many had feared, but some way short of the top tier. It’s also not enough for first place, even though The Secret Life of Pets will be down 52% in its second weekend. More...

Friday Estimates: Ghosts Have Lively Debut with $17.2 million

July 16th, 2016

Ghostbusters topped the box office chart on Friday with $17.2 million. This is the best opening day for the director, Paul Feig, topping his previous champ, The Heat by 25%. If this film has the same internal multiplier as The Heat, then it will earn $49 million over the weekend. This seems a little high, but not out of the question. Ghostbusters’ reviews are better than The Heat’s reviews were, although both films earned B+ from CinemaScore surveys. On the other hand, Ghostbusters is a remake, so that tends to make the movie more front-loaded. Look for an opening weekend of $45 million. This is right on the edge between financial success and failure. The film will need help internationally in order to break even, but it is way too soon to know if that will happen. More...

Weekend Predictions: Will the New Releases get Busted?

July 14th, 2016

This weekend is rather sparse when it comes to wide releases. Ghostbusters opens this weekend and its buzz and reviews are better than expected and it could be a huge hit. On the other hand, The Secret Life of Pets opened with more than $100 million last weekend and unless it falls more than 50% this weekend, it will remain in first place. That doesn’t feel likely at this point. On the other hand, The Infiltrator opened on Wednesday, but in less than 2,000 theaters. Its reviews are barely in the overall positive range, so it likely won’t be a major factor over the weekend. This weekend last year, Ant-Man opened in first place, pushing Minions into second place. Meanwhile, Trainwreck was a solid midlevel hit. I just don’t see 2016 being able to top that depth. More...

Contest: Green With Envy

July 8th, 2016

It is an easy week to pick the target film for the Box Office Prediction Contest. I’m not 100% sure The Infiltrator is opening truly wide, plus it is a Wednesday release. On the other hand, if Fandango is correct, Ghostbusters will be the biggest comedy of the summer and if early tracking is correct, it will have the best non-family film opening since X-Men: Apocalypse. Regardless if they are correct, Ghostbusters is 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 Ghostbusters.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Green Room on Blu-ray, plus an additional previously reviewed movie. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a Frankenprize, consisting of two previously reviewed DVDs or Blu-rays. Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will also win a Frankenprize, consisting of two previously reviewed DVDs or Blu-rays.

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

2016 Preview: July

July 1st, 2016

It's July 1st, which is Canada Day. To celebrate, I wanted to give a gift to my American readers down south, so here's a bunch of "u"s. U, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u, u. Now you can spell words like "colour" and "neighbour" correctly. As for the July preview... June wasn't a good month, despite Finding Dory being on pace to become the biggest hit of the year so far. Most other films failed to match expectations and as a result, 2016's lead over 2015 has nearly evaporated. In fact, ticket sales are below last year's pace. So how does July look in comparison? Well, last July, there were five films that earned more than $100 million, led by Minions, which earned more than $300 million. This July, there are five films that should earn more than $100 million, led by The Secret Life of Pets, which should earned around $250 million. I don't think July 2016 will live up to July 2015, but it should be close. Maybe if one of the expected midlevel hits is a surprise $100 million hit, or if two more of the $100 million hits crack $200 million, then the month will look great. Or one of the expected $100 million hits could flop and 2016 will actually fall behind 2015, even without taking into account ticket price inflation. More...