September 27th, 2016
It is a pretty good week on the home market with a few releases worth picking up. The biggest of these is Central Intelligence, but while it is worth picking up, it isn’t a contender for Pick of the Week. There are some smaller releases that were up for that title, including The Shallows, An American Werewolf in London and The Innocents. However, in the end, I went with Captain America: Civil War. The Blu-ray screener arrived late, and I held off on naming it Pick of the Week when it came out for that very reason.
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August 21st, 2016
Three even-matched debutants proved to be no match for the incumbents at the box office this weekend, with Suicide Squad taking a third straight victory at the box office with $20.71 million, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday morning projection. Sausage Party stays in second with $15.3 million, and that leaves the new entrants in 3rd, 4th and 5th. This was a weekend where diversity isn’t the problem, but novelty is.
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July 21st, 2016
Star Trek Beyond leads a pack of three wide releases this weekend and there are some who think it will have the best live-action release since Captain America: Civil War. That would be great news for the overall box office. Ice Age: Collision Course has to deal with direct competition and terrible reviews, but it should still do relatively well thanks to goodwill its franchise has built up. The final new release of the week is Lights Out. This low-budget horror film won’t need to earn $20 million over the weekend to break even, but there’s a slim chance it will. In fact, The Secret Life of Pets should easily add another $20 million to its running tally, and Ghostbusters has a good shot at doing the same. So we could have five films earning $20 million over the weekend for the first time in a year. We should have three films earning more than $25 million. Meanwhile this weekend last year, there were no films that earned more than $25 million. Hopefully 2016 will win the year-over-year competition with ease.
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June 22nd, 2016
Finding Dory started its international run in first place with $50.0 million in 29 markets. Its biggest market was China, where it earned second place with 18.15 million over the weekend and $18.18 million including previews. This is not a lot of money compared to last week's winner; however, China is not a market that is kind to animated films. Before this year, no animated movie had earned more than $100 million in China and the current record is held by Zootopia at $235.77 million. Zootopia only made $23.99 million during its opening weekend in China, so this isn't a bad start for Finding Dory. Additionally, Finding Dory doubled Zootopia's opening in Australia with $7.63 million on 524 screens. It also performed very well in Argentina ($3.5 million) and in Russia ($3.25 million on 1,220 screens). It is still too early to tell if Finding Dory will top $1 billion worldwide, but this start gives box office watchers a reason to be optimistic.
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June 21st, 2016
In our prediction column, I said I wanted the top two films to earn a combined total of $150 million to $170 million. Finding Dory's and Central Intelligence's combined opening weekend was $170.60 million. The overall box office was 53% higher than last weekend at $233 million. However, this was still 6.3% lower than the same weekend last year. Finding Dory did do better than either Jurassic World or Inside Out individually, but couldn't compete with their combined totals. 2016 is still ahead of 2015, but its lead was cut by a third at $150 million or 3.1%. That said, 2016 hit $5 billion a week faster than 2015 did and its lead of $5.06 billion to $4.91 billion is still substantial.
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June 19th, 2016
Finding Dory is rewriting the record books this weekend, posting the biggest weekend ever for an animated film. Disney is projecting a total of $136.18 million in its first three days, which will easily break the record of $121.6 million set by Shrek the Third back in 2007. The previous top mark for a Pixar movie was Toy Story 3’s $110.3 million. With an A CinemaScore (for the 17th time straight for Pixar, per Disney), and 95% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the film should enjoy Pixar’s traditional good legs. In the Summer, that has meant a ratio between opening and final box office of somewhere between 3 and 4, which points towards a final box office somewhere between $400 million and $520 million for the fish pic. By way of comparison Finding Nemo earned $518 million, adjusted for inflation.
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June 18th, 2016
Finding Dory led the way on Friday with $54.95 million. This is the best opening day for a Pixar film and the best opening day for an animated film. Simply, a fantastic start. Our prediction of $129 million seems woefully inadequate. It is a family-friendly film with 95% positive reviews and a CinemaScore of A, so it should have good legs, meaning a $140 million is the new target. This would also be a record for an animated film and put it in the top twenty opening weekends. If this calculation holds true, then getting to $400 million domestically will be an easy feat. Hitting $500 million isn’t out of the question.
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June 16th, 2016
This weekend should be the best weekend in June, led by Finding Dory. Finding Dory should easily be the biggest hit of the month, one of the biggest hits of the year, and the fastest opening film in Pixar's history. On the other hand, Central Intelligence is just hoping for a solid second place opening in its role as counter-programming. If it hits $30 million, then the studio will be very happy. This weekend last year, Jurassic World led the way with $106.59 million, while Inside Out opened in second place with $90.44 million. 2016 is going to lose more ground to 2015. I just hope they keep it close. I will be happy if Finding Dory and Central Intelligence earned a combined $150 million to $170 million.
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June 16th, 2016
Warcraft roared into first place with $185.8 million in 52 markets for totals of $261.7 million internationally and 285.9 million worldwide. There are some amazing news to report from over the weekend, but also some bad news. First the positive news. The film broke records in China earning $156.17 million during its five-day opening. That topped the previous record held by Furious 7. Unfortunately, outside of China, its box office run was much closer to its North American debut. For example, it earned second place in South Korea with $4.26 million on 736 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $5.09 million. Because of how much money the film is earning in China and how little of that the studio sees, the film could make $600 million internationally and still struggle to break even.
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June 14th, 2016
As anticipated, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist led the weekend box office with ease pulling in $40.41 million. The second place film, Warcraft, earned 40% less. Now You See Me 2 only managed third place and it will need a lot of help to break even. The overall box office was $152 million, which is 13% more than last weekend. However, it was also more than $100 million less than this weekend last year. Normally a 44% collapse like this only happens when there is a misalignment in holidays. In this case, it's because of Jurassic World. 2016 is still ahead of 2015 by a substantial margin at $4.76 billion to $4.54 billion. 2016's lead is now 4.8%, more than a full percentage point lower than it was this time last week, but hopefully Finding Dory will help prevent a similar descent this week.
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June 12th, 2016
This weekend’s box office is a tale of two continents. In North America, The Conjuring 2 is off to a great start, easily winning the weekend with $40.35 million, and averaging over $10,000 per theater. In Asia—China to be specific—Warcraft has made a record-breaking debut. Its domestic prospects look horrible though, with just $24.36 million expected for the weekend.
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June 11th, 2016
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist is the only bit of good news to come out of Friday, and even then it was muted. The film earned $16.4 million on Friday, which is enough for first place, but it is also about 3.3% lower than the original’s opening day and sequels really need to open faster than the original. Its outlook for the rest of the weekend is mixed when compared to the first film. Both films earned identical A- CinemaScores, but the sequel’s reviews are weaker and sequels tend to be more front-loaded. Look for an opening weekend of about $38 million. This is a little better than predicted and almost as much as it cost to make. Hopefully it is enough to get to $100 million domestically, because we could use some good news at the box office. Even if it doesn’t quite get to the century mark, as long as it doesn’t completely collapse, it will break even sooner rather than later.
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June 10th, 2016
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist had the best run during Midnight showings earning $3.4 million on Thursday. By comparison, The Conjuring earned $3.3 million during its previews. The Enfield Poltergeist does have a good Tomatometer Score (74% positive), but the Sequel Effect will still be in play and that will limit the film's weekend box office. Look for $35 million, or close to it. This will make it the biggest horror release of 2016 by Sunday, perhaps as early as Saturday.
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June 9th, 2016
If this weekend is as bad as some fear it will be, it could begin to cause a panic among some studio executives. Two of the three wide releases are sequels and there are some who expect both to fail to match their predecessors by significant margins. If this happens, we will have six sequels failing to match expectations during a four-week stretch. Worse still, there are more than six additional sequels left to open before the end of summer. (Finding Dory seems safe, but the rest could flop as well.) The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist should come out on top at the box office, but with less than the original made. Now You See Me 2 will likely continue Lionsgate's losing streak. Meanwhile, Warcraft could do well enough in China to justify a sequel, which is great news, because it will likely bomb here. This weekend last year, Jurassic World opened with $208 million. There's no way the entire box office will make that much this year. 2016 is going to get pummeled in the year-over-year comparison.
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June 9th, 2016
X-Men: Apocalypse returned to top spot on the international chart with $84.4 million in 66 markets for totals of $286.0 million internationally and $403.0 million worldwide. Most of the film's weekend haul came from China, where it earned first place with $59.33 million. This is the best opening in the franchise in that market. The film has yet to open in Japan, but will likely fall out of the top ten before it gets there.
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June 3rd, 2016
There are three wide releases coming out next week. The Conjuring 2: The Enfeild Poltergeist is expected to top Now You See Me 2 for top spot. (Warcraft is just hoping to not embarrass itself at this point.) While there is a chance of an upset, The Enfeild Poltergeist has a large enough advantage that I'm confident in making it 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 The Conjuring 2: The Enfeild Poltergeist.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a Frankenprize of previously reviews DVD and / or Blu-rays. I grabbed a few more boxes from storage, so we can do winner's choice again. The choices are, two movies, one TV on DVD release, three single-disc kids DVDs, or two items from the mystery box.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a Frankenprize, as described above.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win the final Frankenprize.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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June 2nd, 2016
Alice Through the Looking Glass opened in first place on the international chart with $65.0 million in 43 markets for a worldwide opening of $91.9 million, not including holiday Monday. The film's biggest opening was in China, where it made $26.88 million. It also did well in Mexico opening in first place with $4.85 million. On the other hand, it had mediocre openings in Russia (second place with $3.95 million on 1,199 screens), in the U.K. (second place with $3.33 million in 603 theaters) and in Australia (first place with $2.18 million on 503 screens). Those three openings were similar to a $20 million opening here, more or less. If the film can get to $300 million to $350 million worldwide, then it will have a shot at breaking even, eventually. It opens in France this week, Japan next month, and closes its international run in South Korea in September. It will be a while before we will know where it ends.
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June 1st, 2016
May was great, as long as you don't compare it to last May. Captain America: Civil War was a monster hit and is closing in on $400 million, while both X-Men: Apocalypse and The Angry Birds Movie will earn over $100 million. Looking ahead, every week in June, there is one movie that should top $100 million; however, only Finding Dory is expected to make more than $200 million. In fact, that film is expected to make close to $400 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Last June, there were two monster hits, Inside Out and Jurassic World, plus one $100 million hit, Spy. I don't see how 2016 will top that. Even if every film with a shot at $100 million gets to that milestone, 2016 still might not top last year's pace. Fortunately, 2016 does have a large lead and that could be enough to keep 2016 ahead of 2015's pace in the year-over-year competition. It could be really close at the end of the month, on the other hand.
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