April 12th, 2017
It is another shallow week on the home market. There are a number of Oscar-contenders on this week’s list, but the quality quickly drops off from that point. A couple of releases are contenders for Pick of the Week, but it is mostly filler. The best of this week’s list was Hidden Figures on Blu-ray and it is the Pick of the Week.
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January 24th, 2017
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Split dominated the weekend box office earning $40.01 million, which is nearly double predictions and nearly double its nearest competition, xXx: Return of Xander Cage. The overall box office still shrunk from last weekend, but it was down just 3.2%, which is excellent for a post-holiday weekend. Compared to this weekend last year, 2017 was 27% stronger. Year-to-date, 2017 is still behind 2016, but that gap has closed to 9.4% at $736 million to $812 million.
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January 21st, 2017
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Split easily won on Friday, doubling its nearest competition, and earning $14.6 million. This is the best opening day for M. Night Shyamalan since The Last Airbender opened in 2010. Its reviews are 76% positive, and it earned a B+ from CinemaScore, which is good for a horror film. This puts it on pace for an opening weekend of $34 million, which is more than it cost to make and advertise. If the film can match this during the rest of its run, then it will break even on its domestic numbers alone.
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January 18th, 2017
As expected, Hidden Figures remained in first place as the box office was dominated by holdovers. The best of the new releases / wide expansions was The Bye Bye Man, which earned fifth place with $15.20 million. On the positive side, while there was only one film to earn more than $20 million over the weekend, there were seven that earned $10 million or more. That’s really good depth. It’s good enough for an 8.5% increase from last weekend reaching $149 million. However, this is still 10% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2017 is behind 2016 by 15% at $562 million to $659 million, but again, it is way too soon to make any predictions.
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January 15th, 2017
A pile-up at the box office this weekend will leave a crush of new releases behind Hidden Figures and La La Land, which remain the top two films at the box office. Hidden Figures will be down just 10% (in part thanks to expanded distribution) to $20.45 million, for $54.8 million in total, as of Sunday evening. Fox is projecting a $25.3 million 4-day weekend for the film. La La Land is even more impressive, growing its box office by 43% and moving from fifth to second on the chart with $14.5 million, and $74.1 million to date. It’s record-breaking performance at the Golden Globes has clearly lifted it to another level with audiences.
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January 14th, 2017
Hidden Figures unexpectedly led the way on Friday with $5.53 million. This is 28% lower than last Friday, but that was the film’s first weekend wide and this is a holiday weekend, so it should bounce back a lot over the rest of the weekend. Award-worthy reviews and continued Awards Season presence will also help the film earn about $23 million over the four-day weekend. Its running tally will be about $57 million on Monday, putting it on pace for $100 million domestically.
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January 13th, 2017
Patriots Day earned $560,000 from 2,000 theaters during its Thursday previews. This is less than half of what Hidden Figures made last week. Worse still, Patriots Day’s target audience should be more likely to go see a film’s previews than Hidden Figures’ target audience would be. That said, it is still a holiday weekend and it should bounce back over the next few days. I think it will miss our predictions, but it should come close with about $19 million.
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January 12th, 2017
Six films are opening or expanding this weekend, which have a shot at the top ten. However, only one of them, Patriots Day, has a real shot at first place. In fact, it might be the only “new” film in the top five. The biggest wide release of the week is Monster Trucks, which is opening in 2,800 theaters. I didn’t see that coming. [Ed.: The final announced theater count for Monster Trucks is an even more impressive 3,119] Meanwhile, Sleepless is only opening in 1,800 theaters, while Silence is expanding into 750 theaters. We still haven’t mentioned all of the new films. As for holdovers, Hidden Figures has a real shot at first place, while La La Land should get a boost from its Awards Season success. This weekend last year, Ride Along 2 opened with just over $35 million over the three-day weekend. There’s no film that will match that figure during the four-day weekend. On the positive side, there were only four films that earned more than $10 million during the three-day weekend and this year we should have five. That’s not enough to win in the year-over-year competition. It likely won’t even be close.
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January 1st, 2017
December box office numbers helped 2016 end on ... a note. The good news and the bad news almost exactly balance out. On the one hand, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will finish the year with more than $400 million after just 16 days of release. That’s a stunning amount of money that helped 2016 earn a record box office at the domestic market. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned $650 million during December of 2015, so the month lost a lot of its lead over 2015, so much so that ticket sales fell behind last year’s total. The weakness at the end of the year will spill over into 2017, which is terrible news. A slow start could result in the dominant box office story being 2017 struggles compared to 2016. Bad news like this can sometimes become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sadly, 2017 is also going to get off to a slow start when it comes to wide releases / expansions. There are 16 films scheduled to open or expand wide this month and none of them are expected to get to $100 million. It is likely none of them will even get very close. xXx: Return of Xander Cage is expected to be the best of a weak bunch, but I could see it getting beat by one of the five Oscar contenders opening wide this month, if it gets off to a slow start and one of the Oscar contenders starts picking up steam. Hidden Figures got off to a great start on Christmas Day and should it continue to earn Awards Season recognition, including some Oscar nominations, it could be in wide release well into February. Last January wasn’t as busy with 13 films opening or expanding wide over five weeks. Of these, two of them, The Revenant and Kung Fu Panda 3, topped $100 million domestically, while another, Ride Along 2, came close. 2017 is going to get destroyed in the year-over-year comparison.
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