August 17th, 2011
As previously stated many, many times recently, the summer is the worst time of year for the home market. However, there was a bright spot this week with the release of Rio, which not only topped the Blu-ray sales chart, it topped studio estimates. During its opening week, the film sold 1.02 million units on Blu-ray generating $21.37 million in opening week sales, which was the best figures since we debuted the weekly Blu-ray sales chart at the beginning of summer, and in fact the best summer release in the history of the format. Its Blu-ray ratio for its opening week was 37%, which is stunning for a kids movie and certainly raises the bar for the summer CG blockbusters.
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August 16th, 2011
It has been more than three months since any DVD has sold more than 1 million units during any given week, but finally that streak is over this week. It should come as no surprise that Rio led all new releases, as it was for a time the biggest hit of 2011. However, the fact that it sold 1.77 million units and generated $26.58 million during its opening week is better than expected.
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August 12th, 2011
It was a slow week on the home market, especially on Blu-ray, where it was a rare week suffering from year-over-year declines. But more on that in a bit. The number one selling Blu-ray was Source Code with 189,000 units. It was a little disappointing on DVD and its opening week Blu-ray ratio was just under 33%, acceptable, but not great. It was visual enough that upgrading to High Definition wasn't a bad choice, but second-tier enough that I would understand if a lot of people just didn't want to bother with the extra price.
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August 9th, 2011
It was a really slow week on the home market with only two new releases reaching the top 30. One those was Source Code, which led the way with 386,000 units / $5.54 million.
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August 3rd, 2011
Rango remained the best selling Blu-ray this week with 317,000 units / $6.34 million for the week and 670,000 units / $13.39 million after two.
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July 25th, 2011
Summer time at the box office is amazing. From the first weekend in May until sometime in August, there is usually an average of one $100 million dollar movie released per week. This year will have at least three months in a row with at least one $100 million film. On the home market, on the other hand, summer time is crappy. This year has been particularly tiresome, as the spring wasn't a fun time at the box office. The biggest release this week is Source Code, which was only a midlevel hit. To be fair, it is one of the best-reviewed wide releases of the year. On the other hand, neither the DVD nor the Blu-ray are exactly overloaded with extras.
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April 11th, 2011
Ugh. It's time to break out the thesaurus to look up different ways of saying, "disappointing". This past weekend three of the four new releases missed expectations, while the holdovers were not able to compensate. This led to a 7% drop-off from last weekend to $116 million, which was 9% lower than the same weekend last year. 2011 continues its depressing pace and is now behind 2010 by 21% at $2.49 billion to $3.13 billion. Hopefully things will turn around next weekend. We need at least one win going into summer, or we could be in desperate trouble.
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April 4th, 2011
It was mostly a good news start to the month as the top film, Hop, beat expectations with ease and nearly became the fastest opening film of the year. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the top five at least came close to matching expectations. This helped the box office grow 3% from last weekend to $125 million. Unfortunately, this was nearly 30% lower than the same weekend last year. This means 2011 continues to lose ground on 2010 and it is now off last year's pace by just over 20% at $2.34 billion to $2.93 billion. Things need to turn around very soon.
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April 3rd, 2011
Universal have a shot at posting the biggest opening of 2011, thanks to a stronger than expected opening for Hop, which is currently estimated to open with $38.118 million. If that number holds up, it would just beat the $38.079 million opening enjoyed by Rango at the beginning of March. Encouraging as that performance is, it also highlights the overall weakness of the market in 2011, as four movies had opened over $40 million by this time last year, and Clash of the Titans debuted with $61 million the first weekend of April, making for another tough year-to-year comparison. The weekend as a whole will likely be down around 27% from last year, continuing the industry's losing streak into the second quarter.
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April 1st, 2011
Another month has gone by and 2011 has slipped further behind 2010's pace. March was a bit of an improvement over the first two months, but only in the most generous of terms. It still lost ground to 2010, but not at the same disastrous pace as January and February did. There is some good news, as last April was rather weak and there's a chance 2011 could actually gain ground. After all, only Clash of the Titans earned $100 million last year (although Date Night came awfully close). This year, there are three or four films that could hit the century mark. That would be welcome news indeed. On a side note, April is usually a bit of a dumping ground as studios fear going head-to-head with summer blockbusters opening in May. However, I get the feeling that this year they are hoping to extend summer by having it open a couple of weeks early. Maybe they'll succeed.
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March 31st, 2011
It's a new month and we are hoping for reasons to celebrate. So far 2011 has not brought a lot of big hits with it. Only once in three months did 2011 top 2010 in the year-over-year comparison, and even then it was due to a misalignment in holidays. Sadly, that won't turn around this weekend, as it is very likely that all three new releases combined won't make as much as Clash of the Titans opened with last year. On the other hand, perhaps Hop and the others will be bigger than expected hits and we can build on that success.
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