January 15th, 2013
It is a rather shallow week on the home market. Taken 2 should come away with an easy win, but after that, there's almost nothing that will reach the top 30 for the week. Also, Taken 2 is not Pick of the Week material. I don't know if there is anything that is truly Pick of the Week material. Wake in Fright comes the closest, but the DVD or Blu-ray is still late, I hate giving this title when I'm still waiting for the screener.
More...
April 27th, 2009
We are about to enter the summer blockbuster season, which is great for box office numbers, not so good for the home market. In fact, it is arguably the weakest time of the year for DVD sales. Looking at this week's list, that's not a huge surprise. There are no first run releases that are must haves, nor are there are lot of smaller releases to pick up the slack. The clear DVD Pick of the Week is Star Trek - The Original Series - Season One - Blu-ray, which is better than the previous HD DVD release. Also worth picking up is One-Eyed Monster on DVD, but that has a more limited target audience. While there's not a lot on the top, there's plenty of bulk, so much so we need a second page, which can be found here.
More...
January 20th, 2009
A terrible week for first run releases. There are five such releases on this week's list, but they has a combined haul of around $130 million, and nearly $100 million of that came from two films. With no big releases, we had to look other places for the DVD Pick of the Week. Repo! The Genetic Opera on Blu-ray is a clear contender for that title, but its lack of mass appeal is troublesome. This American Life - Season Two is a safer pick, but it is a Borders Exclusive release. Regardless of these issues, both releases are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week. Despite the weakness at the top, there are still more than enough total releases to cause this column to stretch into two parts. The second part can be found here.
More...
July 3rd, 2005
Summer blockbusters continue to squeeze out the competition, so much so that the only real news is about such blockbusters. For instance,
War of the Worlds managed $13.35 million during its first day of release on the international scene, which is good, but below expectations. On the other hand,
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith broke another record earning $4.96 million during its preview in Japan.
More...
March 26th, 2005
As expected,
The Incredibles topped the home market this week taking first place in DVD and VHS rentals, ($8.16 million and $1.48 million respectively) as well as DVD and VHS Sales. As mentioned
last week,
The Incredibles sold 5 million DVDs on its first day of release alone, however, no figure has been released for its weekly sales total.
More...
March 19th, 2005
Ladder 49 topped both the DVD rental charts, ($8.39 million) and the VHS rental charts ($1.61 million) for $10.00 million total rentals for its first week of release. Granted, it was a slow week for releases as no other new release made it in the top twenty on combined rentals.
More...
March 13th, 2005
Shark Tale finished its international run with a second place $2.08 million opening in Japan on 485 screens. Its $4,296 per screen average it quite low for the market and generally means the film won't have the usual legs films in Japan have. The film performed much better in Italy where it finished first again with $3.0 million, down just 23% during its sophomore stint. Overall it took in $5.2 million to raise its international total to $181 million, but without any more openings it might struggle to hit $200 million.
More...
March 6th, 2005
The Aviator beat weekend estimates by a substantial margin leading to a $5.9 million box office on 3000 screens in 34 markets. The multi-
Oscar winning movie has hit $86.2 million internationally and will cross $200 million worldwide before too long. The film dropped a spot to fifth place in South Korea with $834,660 for the week and slipped to second in Australia with $798,000. The only market the film opened it was Argentina, where it easily took top spot with $232,000.
More...
March 5th, 2005
Thanks in part to a slow week for DVD releases,
Saw remained the top DVD rental on this weeks charts with $6.80 million this week, a drop of 28% from last week, and a two week total of $16.27 million so far. On the VHS side, the film dropped first to third with $1.09 million, down 38% for a total of $2.83 million.
More...
February 24th, 2005
The low-budget
horror movie,
Saw was the top rental this week bringing in $9.47 million in DVD rentals and $1.75 on the VHS side.
More...
February 7th, 2005
Every week films get a second chance at success from the home market; or, in some cases, a first chance at success. Here is a list of wide releases, limited releases and a few from the growing TV on DVD section including this week's winner, which we'll get to in a moment. This week is further evidence in the power of the growing TV on DVD market. There are nine shows making their debut on DVD. All-in-all there are 537 DVDs being released tomorrow, but it seems like 500 of them are re-releases. There was so much that any real gem was buried under an avalanche of dreck. Nothing stood out as a must have, but two limited releases, Before Sunset - Buy from Amazon and Robot Stories - Buy from Amazon are worth a rental.
More...
February 5th, 2005
The 11th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards are handed out tonight and while there are numerous awards only five are for theatrical releases.
More...
October 27th, 2004
Despite a 45% drop in its weekend haul,
Shark Tale was able easily able to earn it third first place finish on the international charts. Still early in its run, the film took home $16.2 million in 4,368 theatres in 24 markets pushing its total to $80.3 million internationally. Without any openings the film relied on strong holdovers like in the U.K. where it drop 39%, in France it was off 32% and 35% in Germany.
More...
October 20th, 2004
Thanks to mostly unopposed openings several more markets,
Shark Tale was able to repeat as the international box office champ this week. Not only that, but its $29.6 million more than doubled its international tally prior to the start of the weekend as the film now sits at $56.2 million. The best opening of the weekend, and most likely of its international run, was in the U.K. where the film managed to take in $9.1 million, ($13.6 million if you include last week's previews.) In France the result was strong with $4.2 million but in the face of local competition, it could only manage $3.4 million in Germany.
More...
July 12th, 2004
No real surprises this weekend, at least none of them pleasant. The box office was a little slow compared to predictions and that lead to a serious decrease of 10.5% from last weekend. The year-to-year comparison and not bad, but are starting to show signs of serious weakness; the weekend box office was up, but at just 2.65% it's below ticket price inflation. With a year-to-date box office increase of only 6.5% so far, it won't take much to see this year's gains drop below ticket price inflation.
More...
July 7th, 2004
Most analysts were expecting
Spider-man 2 to crush many records; that didn't work out. In fact, none of the films met expectations over the weekend. Fortunately, while reality couldn't keep up with expectations, it was still enough to post big increases both from last weekend (11.4%) and last year (21.5%.) However, the increase from last year is a bit misleading as July 4th fell on the Friday, which has historically hurt the box office.
More...
July 2nd, 2004
Just the one film opening this weekend, but it's a monster. It's also going to suck all the box office away from the other movies. Last weekend we had seven films break $10 million, this weekend even with the 4th of July boost we might only have three or four films do the same.
More...
June 28th, 2004
There was a new movie on the top of the charts this weekend, but it wasn't the film most analysts were predicting. Also good news: every film in the Top Ten beat expectations, albeit by the narrowest of margins in some cases. This led to a serious increase of 9% compared to last weekend and a massive increase of 22% from last year.
More...
June 25th, 2004
Three new films open wide this week, or four new films if you really stretch the definition of wide. Even so, there's a good chance there won't be a change at top spot on the charts.
More...
June 24th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates including the winner for the week,
Suspect Zero -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
More...
June 11th, 2004
While three films open wide this weekend, none seem likely to finish first. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised if at least one of them misses the top 5. However, if any one new movie doubles my predictions I wouldn't be too surprised. Nor would I be all that shocked if any one movie failed to reach half of what I predicted. It's just that kind of week.
More...
June 1st, 2004
After a rather mediocre May, June looks a lot stronger with two films that should break $300 million. Not surprisingly, these monster hits are being released unopposed during their respective weeks. And also not surprisingly, they are being released at opposite ends of the month. The rest of the films are unlikely to make much of an impact, although a few should cross the increasingly irrelevant $100 million plateau.
More...
March 25th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates including the winner for the week,
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -
Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
More...
March 19th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies
were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates including the winner for the week,
Connie and Carla -
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
More...
February 6th, 2004
This week's new batch of movie release dates has some more shuffling around of this Summer's blockbusters, and even next Summer's blockbusters.
We also have release dates for some smaller (and more interesting) movies.
Among movies with moved dates: Welcome to Mooseport,
13 Going on 30,
Raising Helen,
Mr. 3000,
The Notebook and Shall We Dance?.
We also have a announced date for Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and a new name and date for the XXX Sequel.
More...
January 23rd, 2004
Each week, the studios do another dance, shuffling around the release dates of their movies in an effort to best position themselves for future success.
This week sees the sudden disappearance of Mindhunters from the schedules and new release dates for Raising Helen, Mr. 3000, The Clearing, Wicker Park, Beauty Shop, Amityville, The Notebook, Secret Window, 13 Going on 30 and Breakin' All the Rules.
More...
December 5th, 2003
This week sees new release dates announced for Taking Lives, Godsend, Laws of Attraction, The Notebook, A Sound of Thunder, Beyond the Sea and The Aviator.
More...
