This graph shows Viola Davis’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
After a successful opening week at the worldwide box office, Dune: Part Two adds three locations this week, once again taking the top spot on our theater count chart by playing in 4,074 theaters. Domestically, the sequel scored $82.5 million during its opening weekend and passed the $100-million mark on Wednesday, clocking with with a six-day domestic total of $104.62 million. The film’s opening weekend figure doubled that of its predecessor’s $41 million. This week will pose a much bigger challenge however as three new wide releases make their debut on the big screen.
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Walt Disney’s release of Jungle Cruise breaks a pandemic-era record for widest release, arriving in 4,310 theaters this weekend. The number matches that of another Disney feature, Onward, which debuted just before theaters began shutting down back in March, 2020. The new film, which is based on the popular theme park attraction, follows Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt as Amazon riverboat captain Frank Wolff and Dr. Lily Houghton as they encounter innumerable dangers while they travel through the Amazon rain forest. Jungle Cruise will be available to stream simultaneously on the Disney+ platform.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and The Favorite led the way with 12 nominations. Sometimes the BAFTAs are a really good indicator for who will do well on Oscar night. Other times their bias to British films is too much. I think this year will be an example of the latter and I don't think The Favourite is suddenly an Oscar favorite. That said, there’s still some things you can learn here.
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October continued 2018’s phenomenal box office run, for the most part. There were a couple of films that missed expectations by $10 million or more, but on the other hand, Vemon and Halloween were smash hits and are now the first and second biggest October debuts of all time. Furthermore, 2018’s lead over 2017 is, as I’m writing this, just shy of $1 billion and if 2018 can maintain this lead, it will be one of the biggest year-over-year increases of all time. It won’t. The fun times end now. Why is that? Last November was amazing. There were only eight wide releases, but six of them earned more than $100 million. Three of those hit $200 million, including Thor: Ragnarok, which earned over $300 million. This year, there are a lot more movies opening in November, but it is a case of quantity over quality. No movie is expected to come close to $300 million and it would take a bit of luck just to have five $100 million hits. The film I’m looking forward to the most is Ralph Breaks the Internet, while it, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald are all aiming for $200 million this month. Fortunately, even if 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by around $300 million, 2018 has built up such a large lead that it should still go into December with an insurmountable lead at the box office.
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The story of four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica, Alice, Linda and Belle take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
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There are a few Oscar-nominated films on this week’s list. However, it was still hard to come up with a Pick of the Week release. Most of them were like Elle with great reviews and weak extras. The DVD for Drunk History: Season Four has more than two hours of extras, but I admit it is an acquired taste. Fortunately, we do have a clear winner: The Love Witch on Blu-ray.
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Oscar night turned out to be... interesting at the end. “Interesting” as in “May you live in interesting times.” The big winner of the night was chaos, as there was a mistake with the Best Picture category. (On a side note, I really hope this ends the conspiracy theory that Marisa Tomei didn’t earn her Oscar. Some think her name was announced by accident and they didn’t bother to correct the mistake. They would have obviously corrected the mistake.) On a serious note, Moonlight’s win is amazing. It has likely the lowest budget of the nine Best Picture Nominees and at the moment the lowest box office. That could change with its three wins last night. Additionally, all three wins came from high prestige categories, compared to just two for La La Land. However, La La Land won six Oscars overall, two high prestige, both music categories, and two technical awards, so it too could be seen as the big winner of the night.
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Voting in our annual Predict the Academy Awards contest is now closed, and we can reveal the final vote totals in each category, along with the rough probability for which film will win each award. This year’s award nominations have been dominated by La La Land, and it is expected to pick up the most Oscars tonight, with Best Picture among them. It has already equalled the record for most nominations, with 14, but it’s not favored to equal or set the record for most wins, with our poll suggesting it will pick up nine awards. Read on for details of our poll.
It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at the final category: Best Picture. It is not a competitive category with an overwhelming favorite, a long shot with a shot, and then rest have maybe a combined 2% chance of winning.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at the Supporting Roles categories, starting with Best Supporting Actress. In this category, we have one overwhelming favorite, a long shot with a shot, and then everyone else.
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The BAFTA winners were announced on Sunday and there were very few surprises to talk about. La La Land again won the most awards with five, while only two other films, Lion and Manchester by the Sea, earned more than one award. They each won two.
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The Screen Actors Guild were handed out tonight and there were a couple of surprises to talk about. There was no one big winner. Hidden Figures won the most prestigious category, but Fences was the only film with multiple wins.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at 5:18 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, it’s a boring year for nominations with very few surprises worth talking about, especially in the biggest categories. Leading the way was La La Land with 14 nominations, tying the record.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and it should come as no surprise what film lead the way... La La Land with 11 nominations, Nocturnal Animals and Arrival are tied for second with nine nominations a piece.
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The first major awards night was Sunday with the Golden Globes being handed out. La La Land led the way with seven wins, winning in every category it was nominated in. This is great news for its Oscar chances, but there’s already backlash building.
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The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. So far there have been three different films earning the most nominations. This could mean the Oscar race will be a lot closer than in past years. This time around Manchester by the Sea led the way with four nominations.
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The Golden Globes nominations were announced and we are starting to see a few names pop up over and over again. La La Land led the way with seven nominations, but Moonlight was right behind with six and Manchester by the Sea earned five. You will be hearing those three names over and over and over again this Awards Season.
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November was good, but not great. Fortunately, 2016 had a large enough lead going into November that the month only needed to be good. In fact, it could have been mediocre and 2016 would have still had an excellent shot to end the year above 2015. As for December, it’s a race between Star Wars and Star Wars. Almost no one thinks Rogue One is going to match The Force Awakens, but if Rogue One earns just half of what The Force Awakens managed, then 2016 will come out on top in the year-over-year comparison. There are only two other films with a better than 50/50 chance of hitting $100 million, Passengers and Sing. Either one could earn second place for the month, but Passengers will likely start faster. Last December, the only other film to earn more than $100 million was Daddy’s Home, which earned just a hair over $150 million. There’s a chance both Passengers and Sing will earn more than $150 million, which would be a boon to the box office. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was just too strong last year and it would take a miracle for 2016 to have a stronger December. That said, it would take a complete collapse for 2016 not to top 2015 in raw dollars. The growth might not be enough to keep pace with ticket price inflation, on the other hand.
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After Superman Returns struggled at the box office and The Dark Knight became a surprise $1 billion hit, the folks at Warner Bros. decided to reboot the D.C. movies as D.C. Extended Universe using the dark and gritty style of the Dark Knight Trilogy. That hasn’t worked out so far. Man of Steel barely broke even and the mixed reviews made a few people worried about the franchise’s future. The dour interpretation of Superman didn’t work and the editing and pacing was a mess, but at least it had an interesting villain. Batman v Superman was terrible and had one of the worst villains of any comic book movie I’ve seen. When that film was eviscerated by the critics, Warner Bros. stepped in and made last minute changes to Suicide Squad. Did it work? Nope. But is it better than BvS?
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July did reasonably well, thanks mostly to The Secret Life of Pets, which will top $300 million shortly and could earn double its nearest competitor when all is said and done. That said, there were also a quartet of $100 million hits as well, so the month had good depth as well. August isn’t as lucky. There is one film that is expected to earn $100 million during its opening weekend, Suicide Squad, and one more that is expected to reach $100 million in total, Pete’s Dragon. There could be a surprise hit among the rest of the releases, (my long shot with a shot is Sausage Party) but for the most part, the rest of the wide releases would be happy with just $50 million at the box office. Last August was a disaster and Straight Outta Compton was the only hit of the month. Unless Suicide Squad bombs compared to expectations, 2016 will come out ahead in the year-over-year comparison.
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For a summer week, there's a surprising strength on top of the home market releases. Insurgent will very likely be the top selling DVD or Blu-ray on this week's list, but it isn't even close to the best. There were five contenders for Pick of the Week, three of which were in the TV on DVD category. This includes the eventual winner, Orphan Black: Season Three.
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There are very few films on this week's list that have a real shot at earning mainstream success. I would like to think Court or A Hard Day could do so, but they are both foreign-language films and that's usually too big of an obstacle to overcome. Mr. Holmes has both the cast and the reviews to thrive, but it is playing in more than 300 theaters. That might be too many to thrive. Let's hope I'm being too pessimistic.
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2014 is over and for the most part, December was a soft ending to a weak year. This is bad news for two reasons. Firstly, it means the overall box office is still soft and it is unlikely that January will start strong. Secondly, last January was a great month, thanks in part to Frozen and other holdovers. The slump can't last forever and Taken 3 should help 2015 get off to a reasonably fast start and it even has a shot at $100 million. American Sniper got off to a really fast start in limited release, so it too could be a hit when it expands wide. By comparison, last January was led by Ride Along, but there were only two other films that didn't completely bomb. I want to say 2015 will start out on a winning note, but given the box office losing streak, it will likely pay to be pessimistic.
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July was... well... let's just pretend it didn't happen. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes did well, but week after week 2014 fell further behind 2013 in the year-to-date comparison. At the moment, we are roughly $400 million behind last year's pace and while I don't think August will continue the losing streak, there's really no chance August will put a dent in that number. It looks more and more likely that Guardians of the Galaxy will be a hit, especially given its early reviews, but it could be the last $100 million hit till October, if the bad buzz surrounding Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turns into bad ticket sales. Last August there were two films that reached $100 million, plus two others that came close. This August might match that, while the biggest film this year should top the biggest film from last year. I think the slump 2014 is suffering through will end the first weekend and overall I think it will cut the deficit a little bit. That said, summer 2014 will still end as one of the worst recent summers at the box office.
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October ended on a winning note, but it was the only time the entire month that 2013 topped 2012 in the year-over-year comparison. This is quite shocking, as Gravity crushed expectations with more than $200 million and counting. Even with that surprise monster hit, the month still couldn't keep pace with last year. Compared to October, November looks a lot better with three films that could be monster hits: Frozen, Thor: The Dark World, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. On the other hand, those are the only three movies with a 50/50 chance or better to top $100 million compared, while there were seven films that reached that milestone last November. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire should make more than last year's number one film, Skyfall, but the depth last year could prove too much to deal with. 2013 might dip below last year's pace sometime during the month, but hopefully it won't stay there too long.
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There might be a close race at the box office this weekend. The buzz surrounding Prisoners is growing enough that it should earn first place, but Insidious Chapter 2 might hold on well enough to challenge the newcomer for top spot. The other new release for the week is Battle of the Year, which is opening in fewer theaters than I thought it would and with much worse reviews. It likely won't be a factor. In fact, there's a slim chance that the 3-D re-release of The Wizard of Oz will earn more this weekend than Battle of the Year will. The best new releases from this week last year was End of Watch, which only managed $13.15 million. This is close to what it cost to make, but it is low for a number one film. On the other hand, last year had much better depth than this year will have, so 2013's winning streak might come to an end.
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