May 2nd, 2018
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It is a really shallow week. There are releases that are fighting for a spot in the top five that normally would be so far down the list that we wouldn’t even cover them. That doesn’t mean there are no releases that are worth picking up. In Between was a limited release that earned near perfect reviews. The 1970s film, Legend of the Mountain, got a recent release and its reviews are even better. I reviewed Mary and the Witch’s Flower last week and it nearly won Pick of the Week then. I reviewed Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: The Complete Series this week and it is one of my favorite recent Anime comedies. It was a really close race between these four films and in the end, it came down to a coin-toss with Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid coming out ahead.
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April 17th, 2018
It’s a slow week on the home market, which is common for this time of year. The biggest release of the week, The Post, is also one of the best and one of only three contenders for Pick of the Week. In the end, I went with MST3K: Season 11 and awarded it the honor.
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February 13th, 2018
Fifty Shades Freed topped our prediction by a tiny margin earning first place over the weekend with $38.56 million. Peter Rabbit also beat expectations with $25.01 million. Then there’s The 15:17 to Paris. Overall, the box office rocketed up 49% from last weekend to $140 million. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to compete with this weekend last year, as 2018 was 26% lower. That sounds devastating, but remember, there is a misalignment in holidays, so next weekend 2018 will bounce back. Likewise, because of the misalignment in holidays, the year-to-date comparison isn’t particularly useful. 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by 5.0% or $65 million at $1.22 billion to $1.28 billion. However, by this time next week, that entire deficit could be erased.
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February 6th, 2018
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle earned first place for the fourth time over the weekend with $10.93 million, while Maze Runner: The Death Cure was a close second with $10.47 million. This left Winchester in third place with $9.31 million, but it could have been much worse. Overall, the weekend fell 33% from last weekend with $95 million. More importantly, is 3.6% lower than the same weekend last year. 2018 lost its small lead over 2017 before the weekend and it is now 0.8% or $8 million below last year’s pace at $1.04 billion to $1.05 billion. It’s going to get a lot worse next weekend, due to the misalignment in holidays, but I think 2018 will quickly recover after that.
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February 4th, 2018
In spite of a decent opening, Winchester is proving to be no match for Jumanji this weekend. The holiday holdover returns to top spot on the chart in its seventh weekend with $11 million, down 32% from last time out. That makes it four weekends at the top of the chart for Jumanji, after opening in second place back on December 20. One needs to go back the best part of 30 years to find a film that matches that performance.
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February 3rd, 2018
Winchester started out in first place on Friday with $3.61 million. That’s the good news. The bad news is, well, everything else. Its reviews have fallen to just 8% positive, while it earned a B minus from CinemaScore. To be fair, a lot of horror movies actually do worse than that with CinemaScore, as horror fans are notoriously hard to please. Since it is a new release and its word-of-mouth is likely going to be quite bad, it will have shorter legs than the rest of the films on this list and will very likely drop to third place by the end of the weekend with roughly $9 million. This is close enough to our prediction that I’m going to call it a victory.
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February 2nd, 2018
Winchester is the only wide release of the week, but it looks like having the weekend to itself won’t be enough to overcome the Super Bowl. It only managed $615,000 during previews, which is well below the $800,000 Rings managed this time last year. Worse still, the film has gone from no reviews to just 10% positive reviews, so its legs likely won’t be long either. We predicted between $8 million and $9 million during its opening weekend and I’m still relatively confident with that result. It may even get between $9 million and $10 million instead. We will have a better picture tomorrow when Friday's estimates are in.
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February 1st, 2018
It’s Super Bowl weekend and the only film attempting to compete with the sporting event is Winchester. Unfortunately, its nearly noon on Thursday and there are still no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. This means Maze Runner: The Death Cure and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will be in a race for first place over the weekend, while Winchester will have to settle for third place. This weekend last year, Rings was the biggest new release of the week. It wasn’t a hit, but it was bigger than any film this week will be, preventing 2018 from winning the year-over-year competition.
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February 1st, 2018
2018 got off to a good start and January more or less held its ground when compared to 2017. There were some misses, but surprise holdovers made up the difference. Looking forward, February will be dominated by Black Panther. In fact, it will very likely make more during its opening weekend than the second place film, Fifty Shades Freed, will likely make in total. Black Panther likely won’t break records, but it could come close, while Fifty Shade Freed and Peter Rabbit both have a 50/50 shot at $100 million. Last February, The Lego Batman Movie both earned $175 million, while Fifty Shades Darker earned over $100 million. Black Panther will easily beat any film from last February; in fact, it could earn more than the top two films earned combined. As long as the rest of the box office isn’t a complete disaster, February should help 2018 earn a significant edge over 2017 in the year-over-year comparisons.
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January 5th, 2018
Supernatural thriller starring Helen Mirren opens February 2 ... Full Movie Details.
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