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.
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February 20th, 2005
The Annual Writers Guild Awards held their 57th annual awards on Saturday. Among the more than a dozen awards handed out were three for theatrical releases, including the inaugural award for best
documentary, (which had been handed out earlier.)
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January 25th, 2005
The Oscar Nominations were announced this morning and at first glance it appears that most of the nominations went to films with smaller budgets and box office results.
Box office hits were nearly shut out of the major nominations.
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November 18th, 2004
September 27th, 2004
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 the co-winners of the DVD Pick of the Week
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -
Buy from Amazon and Degrassi: The Next Generation - Season 1 -
Buy from Amazon.
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September 14th, 2004
The Village again was the weekend champ in the international box office with $15.3 million on nearly 3,500 screens in 31 markets. Highlights for the weekend include and impressive debut in Germany at $5.5 million and a less spectacular $3.1 million in Japan. The film also suffered a 55% drop-off in its second weekend in Australia while it held up much better in Brazil. So far the film has earned $63.2 million internationally and is well on its way to matching its $112 million domestic total.
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July 14th, 2004
The documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which some are describing as a real life Spinal Tap, pulled in $46,359 in three theatres for an average of $15,453. Two other films topped $10,000 including De-Lovely with a $14,212 average and the overall box office champ, Spider-Man 2 with $10,845.
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June 7th, 2004
Just a month ago it was looking as if 2004 would suffer through a disastrous summer as the first two tent-pole releases failed to live up to expectations. However, since then we've had record after record fall. The first weekend in June continued this trend as the top 3 films broke several records between them. Since it was a post holiday weekend, a drop in the overall box office was expected, but with a decline of just 2.8% to $186.7 million it was enough to become the largest ever 3-day weekend. And the increase from last year was an incredible 14.6% there's more and more to celebrate about 2004.
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June 4th, 2004
If you were to ask a hundred moviegoers at the beginning of the year what their most anticipated film of 2004 was, I'd bet
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban would be in the top three, if not number one. And because of that, it's no surprise that no other studio would try and take on Harry Potter.
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June 3rd, 2004
The boost to the box office due to the long weekend helped several films cross $10,000 per theatre with a pretty even mix of wide and limited releases. But it was last week's winner
Control Room that won the weekend with $24,755 per theatre over the 3-day weekend. Coming in second was
The Day After Tomorrow with an impressive $20,071; coincidentally, the film also came in second place on the overall charts. Next on the list were two films with very similar averages:
Saved! brought in $17,257 and just behind was
Shrek 2 at $17,090 per theatre. Rounding out the $10,000 films was
My Mother Likes Women, which saw its per theatre average increased to $11,024 last weekend.
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June 1st, 2004
In retrospect, I may have been a little harsh on the new films opening this weekend as two of the three earned more during the 3-day weekend than I thought they'd earn during the 4-day weekend. And that helped this Memorial Day long weekend become the biggest weekend ever. Comparing the 3-day total we see a 12.4% increase from last weekend and a 9.9% increase from last year. However, last year at this time it was not Memorial Day. Compared to last year's Memorial Day the three-day portion is up 16.9% and the four-day potion is up an incredible 22% to nearly $250 million. This will create a lot of buzz, which will result in free publicity for the rest of the summer movies.
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May 26th, 2004
Three films earned per theatre averages of more than $10,000 this weekend lead by the debut of the documentary
Control Room, which earned an impressive $27,125 in its lone theatre. Close behind in second place was
Shrek 2's record setting debut with an unbelievable average of $25,952 in an unprecedented 4,163 theatres. Lastly,
Coffee and Cigarettes managed a second weekend above the $10,000 average mark with $11,558 despite more than tripling its theatre count to 17.
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May 25th, 2004
Finally, we have something to celebrate this summer. The lone wide release this week,
Shrek 2 had a multi-record breaking opening, and that meant a huge 51% increase in the overall box office from last weekend. And that lead to a huge increase over the same weekend last year, right? Well not quite, the increase was rather minimal at just 3.6%, inline with estimated ticket price increases. However, this weekend last year was the Memorial Day long weekend, so the comparison is not quite fair. Further more, 2004 has again slipped behind 2003 year-to-date, albeit by the narrowest of narrow margins $3.125 billion to $3.119 billion based on Sunday's estimates.
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May 19th, 2004
While the overall box office hasn't caught on fire since the beginning of May, the per theatre average charts have seen a much needed boost. This week another four movies were able to earn more than $10,000 per theatre lead by the debut of Coffee and Cigarettes with an impressive average of $19,832 in 5 theatres. Next on the list was the overall box office leader Troy, which was well back with $13,739. Perhaps more impressive is the sophomore stint of Godzilla: The Original Japanese Version; despite doubling its theatre count it was able to maintain a large portion of its average finishing at $12,176. Rounding out our quartet of $10,000 films is the comedy / social commentary film A Day Without A Mexican, which earned over $600,000 in 56 theatres throughout Southern California for an average of $11,071.
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May 12th, 2004
Four movies crossed the $10,000 per theatre mark, lead by Godzilla: The Original Japanese Version with $19,015 average in two theatres. The debuts of Van Helsing with $14,475 per theatre and Super Size Me with $12,601 also placed high on the list. And in its ninth weekend of release Games People Play: New York managed an unbelievable $14,388 in its lone theatre.
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May 7th, 2004
This week we have 10 limited releases hitting theatres, and all but one are opening in more than one theatre. So this might be the best chance to see a limited release on opening night for a lot of people.
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May 6th, 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,
Shrek 2 - >
Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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