November 18th, 2008
It's a weird week for the DVD release report. According to Amazon, seven of the top ten releases come from two movies: WALL-E and Tropic Thunder. Add in the Spanish language edition and there are five versions of the former movie coming out this week, including the 3-Disc DVD and the 3-Disc Blu-ray, either one of which is worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week. The overall group of releases feels weaker than last week, but it is more than enough that it had to be split into two parts. Part two can be found here.
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October 22nd, 2006
The
German soccer film, Deutschland. Ein Sommermarchen, remained in first place in Germany and sixth overall this weekend. It managed this feat by falling just 25% to $5.41 million on 671 screens for a two-week total of $14.67 million.
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October 10th, 2006
The Thanksgiving long weekend signifies the start of the holiday shopping season... Of course, that's the American Thanksgiving, which occurs sometime in November. The
Canadian Thanksgiving, which occurred this weekend, is most closely associated with the start of
Hockey season. (Have I mentioned how much I hate the
New York Rangers? I have. Good.) However, just because shopping season has officially started, doesn't mean it's a slow week.
Far from it.
This week there was a bumper crop of contenders for the DVD Pick of the Week.
I narrowed the list to two TV on DVD releases (
Scrubs - The Complete Fourth Season -
Buy from Amazon and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law - Volume 2 -
Buy from Amazon) and two limited releases, (
Twelve and Holding -
Buy from Amazon and
A Prairie Home Companion -
Buy from Amazon).
If I was forced at gunpoint to choose just one, it would be
Scrubs - The Complete Fourth Season -
Buy from Amazon, but I can all but guarantee all four, and a few others, will end up in my DVD collection.
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July 1st, 2006
As I suggested when it
came out, people rented
Syriana to the amount of $7.93 million during its first week of release. That was enough to put it in first place during a close three-way race.
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June 24th, 2006
16 Blocks shared the top of the charts with
The Pink Panther.
16 Blocks led on the rental charts $6.85 million to $6.55 million, but the two films finished in opposite order on the sales charts.
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June 12th, 2006
It's another busy week both in terms of quantity and especially quality with half-a-dozen films in contention for DVD Pick of the Week. In the end I narrowed it down to The Dead Zone - The Complete Fourth Season, although I will probably end up buying all of them.
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May 14th, 2006
With
Mission: Impossible 3 dominating the international charts, most films saw a serious drop-off and those that didn't were able to climb the charts, or at least remain stable. For instance,
Eight Below fell 27% to $3.67 million on 1951 screens in 27 markets, but despite there being two new releases in the top five, it was able to remain in sixth place on the overall charts. The film was not able to crack $1 million in any single market, but did perform well in Spain with $587,000 on 225 screens and that lifted its total box office to $2.15 million in the market, $30.35 million internationally, and $111.42 million worldwide.
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May 7th, 2006
A pair of openings in major markets helped
Eight Below climb a spot to sixth with $5.05 million on 2129 screens in 24 markets for a total of $24.26 million so far. The film opened in France but could only manage sixth place with $1.85 million on 473 screens while in Spain it opened in first place, but only managed $981,000 on 224 screens. In the meantime, the film dipped just 4% during its second weekend in Australia adding $769,000 on 258 screens to its total of $2.29 million there.
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April 30th, 2006
The Wild added a few more markets but still fell out of the top five down 54% to $4.37 million on 2868 screens in 27 markets for a two week total of $17.77 million. Its best market was Spain where the film was down just 43% to $875,000 on 382 screens over the weekend and $3.49 million in total. It had a hard time in family friendly Mexico where it was down 59% to $702,000 on 501 screens over the weekend and $3.60 million in total while in Italy it plummeted an unheard of 84% to just $216,000 on 343 screen for a two-week total of $2.75 million.
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April 23rd, 2006
The latest Asterix & Obelix movie, Asterix and the Vikings, opened in second place in native
France with $3.64 million on 606 screens. The film also made $167,000 during its second weekend in Belgium for a $454,000 two week total. These films are very popular in France and other parts of Europe, but have never made the transition here.
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April 16th, 2006
Several films made they international debut this past weekend with even more returning to the charts, but because of the power of
Ice Age: The Meltdown, none of them were able to reach the top five, but a few came close. Leading that list is Jean-Philippe; the
French film debuted in third place in its native home with $3.34 million on 550 screens. It also opened in two other French-speaking markets but was much weaker earning seventh in Switzerland with $62,000 on 12 screens over the weekend and $68,000 in total while in Belgium it managed just ninth with $131,000 on 29 screens over the weekend and $144,000 in total. Add it up and the film pulled in $3.53 million on 591 screens in 3 markets during its first weekend of release.
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March 13th, 2006
Only one of the four new films beat expectations over the weekend, and that left the box office hurting.
Overall, the total for the weekend was $110 million, which was 6.8% higher than last weekend, but since last weekend was Oscar weekend, this is hardly an impressive result.
More importantly, it was 4.7% lower than the same weekend last year.
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March 10th, 2006
There are three and a half new films opening wide this weekend, and the best of them is earning merely mediocre reviews. (The half film refers to
The Libertine, which is opening in only 815 theatres.) Even so, there should be a huge jump from last weekend, perhaps even enough to push 2006 ahead of 2005 again.
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March 6th, 2006
It was another bad week as practically ever film in the top five missed expectations, some by wide margins. The overall box office was down to $103 million for the weekend, which is 14.2% lower than last weekend and 16.3% lower than the same weekend last year. However, a lot of that has to do with the
Oscars. Year-to-date, 2006 has brought in $1.39 billion in box office revenue, which is just behind last's years pace of $1.40 billion.
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March 3rd, 2006
It's Oscar weekend and while people will be celebrating the best movies have to offer, they won't be doing it in a movie theatre. There's usually a huge drop-off in ticket sales over Oscar weekend, especially on Sunday. The only groups that are mostly unaffected are teens and young men and that explains why all four movies opening wide this weekend are aimed at one of those two groups.
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March 2nd, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. There was a three way race for top spot this week with
Slither -
Official Site taking home the award. However, it won based on equal parts what it is and what it should become once all the content marked coming soon is added to the site.
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March 1st, 2006
This is a not as busy a month as it initially looks. Granted, there are 18 movies on this month's list, but there are five weekends, or at least five Fridays. Also, every week there's at least one film that may or may not be getting a truly wide release. Considering the level of competition, I'm leaning against any of five such films opening in more than 2000 theatres. On the plus side, we should see the
first $100 million movie of 2006 open this month, and perhaps even see
two movies reach that milestone.
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February 23rd, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Just when I thought the slump was over, we have the shortest list in a few weeks. The best site of the week was
Brick -
Official Site, which helped sell the movie well and that is the most important job of a movie site.
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February 9th, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. It was the busiest week in more than a month, but there weren't many big launches or massive updates, so it is the slow-growing
V For Vendetta -
Official Site that earns the Weekly Website Award.
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January 26th, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. The winner this week was
Curious George -
Official Site, which was extremely well done, although it is aimed at a very young audience.
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January 19th, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. It's busier on this week's list than it has in a while, but there was only one site that was in contention to win the award,
Underworld: Evolution -
Official Site.
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