June 19th, 2005
Just when the International Details column was getting back to normal we have another film dominating the international scene. Mr. and Mrs. Smith led in nearly every major / midlevel market and those it didn't were mostly owned by Revenge of the Sith. Because of that there isn't as much news to tell as usual, and with Batman Begins opening worldwide this weekend and in two weeks, War of the Worlds doing the same, this trend will last until mid-July at the earliest.
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June 12th, 2005
The Longest Yard opened in second place in Australia with $2.5 million. On the other hand, the film could only manage $750,000 on 260 screens in Mexico, not surprising since
Adam Sandler has never been a big draw internationally, especially outside English speaking markets.
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June 5th, 2005
It was a slightly busier weekend as several studios were brave enough, or foolhardy enough to try and sandwich their film between the worldwide release of
Revenge of the Sith and
Batman Begins, which debuts in just 10 days. With
War of the Worlds' worldwide release just two weeks after that, there's very little room for smaller films to survive.
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May 22nd, 2005
It was another slow weekend for international details as few studios were brave enough, or foolish enough to try and squeeze in a release between
Kingdom of Heaven and
Revenge of the Sith. It was hard to find many films that earned more than $1 million over the weekend and most of the activity came from smaller releases in midlevel markets. Next weekend there could be even fewer details as
Revenge of the Sith should dominate every market, but after that the summer blockbuster season should be in full swing and things should pick up.
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May 8th, 2005
Golden Week helped
Shall We Dance? climb 19% to $2,250,195 for the weekend and $7,270,348 during its run. The film now has $90.3 million internationally and could break $100 million if it continues to show strong legs in Japan.
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May 1st, 2005
It was a good news, bad news kind of weekend for
Constantine. The film remained in top spot in Japan with $2,330,027 on 349 screens for a $9,011,671 running tally in the market. Bad news, it dropped 37% during its second weekend in the market, which is really steep for Japan. Overall the film brought in $3 million on 1,200 screens in 40 markets for a international box office of $136.4 million.
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April 17th, 2005
The Pacifier finally debut across Australia after playing in Queensland and Victoria for the past two weeks; the massive expansion allowed the film to climb to first place with $1.125 million on 267 screens. That lifted its total in the market to $3.41 million so far and the film should have strong legs. Add to that its $1.75 million opening in Spain and $590,000 in Belgium and the film managed $4.1 million over the weekend, which doubled its early total to $8.1 million.
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April 10th, 2005
It was a slow week at the international box office, the slowest of the year, and without much activity at the box office hit there were little in the way of details published by the studios. Therefore this week's column is much shorter than usual. Leading the best of the rest was
Be Cool with an estimated $5 million for a disappointing $12.7 million international tally. Its best single market was the U.K. where the film finished second with $2.2 million on 336 screens after an exclusive engagement last weekend. The film also did well in the Netherlands with $190,000 on 43 screens but really struggles in Germany opening in fifth place with just $930,000 on 321 screens, a result mirrored in Austria, (fifth place, $165,948.)
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February 26th, 2005
Sideways swept the 20th annual
Independent Spirit Awards winning all six categories it was nominated for.
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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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December 27th, 2004
Every week films get a second chance at success from the home market; or, in some cases, a first chance at success. The week after Christmas is usually a real letdown when it comes to quality for two reasons, firstly, it's the week after the biggest gift giving season of the year and if the studio had any real confidence in the film they would have released it last week. And secondly, its just over four months after the worst time and just over four months is the average time between theatrical release and DVD release. So it comes as a real surprise that
Garden State -
Buy from Amazon, one of the biggest pleasant surprises of the year is being released this week.
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December 22nd, 2004
For the first time in many weeks there was a real race for top spot on the international charts, also, for the first time in many weeks
The Incredibles didn't win that race. Boosted by debuts in 22 additional markets,
Ocean's Twelve took top spot with $28.9 million on 3900 screens in 27 markets for a early total of $35.2 million. Compared to the
original the results are mixed. IN many places it is a lot lower when compared in local currency, but thanks to the Dollar's extended losing streak, it's much higher in American funds. For instance, the film opened in first place in France with 5.7 million Euros, down 16% from its predecessor, however, that's $7.5 million in American funds, a increase of 28%. Other highlights include $5.3 million in Germany, $3.5 million in Spain, $2.2 million in Italy and $1.4 million in both Holland and Switzerland and just shy of $1 million in Sweden. The film remained in first place in Australia despite dropping 50% at the box office to just $1.8 million.
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December 15th, 2004
Several films made their international debuts this weekend, but that didn't stop
The Incredibles from taking top spot on the international box office, again. This weekend the film brought in an addition $32.1 million on 6,343 screens in 37 markets to lift its international tally to $152.1 million so far. The films busiest weekend in terms of raw dollars was the $5.7 million it earned in Germany, but with a theatre count of more than 1000, that wasn't as strong as the
studio would have liked. The film did break the record for biggest opening for an
animated movie with $1.7 million in Brazil. The film also opened first in Switzerland with $1.2 million, Austria with $931,000 and South Africa with $310,000.
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December 2nd, 2004
That's right, it's officially award season as the IFP Independent Spirit Awards announced their nominees. This year the leader of the pack was
Sideways, which was nominated 6 times. Topping the list of studios was
Fox Searchlight with 14 nominations.
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December 1st, 2004
With a nearly 3-1 lead over its nearest competitor,
The Incredibles took top spot on the International Box Office charts this week with $44.3 million on 4,362 screens in 22 markets for a running tally of $59.1 million. The film opened number one in all twelve markets and in a few of the markets the film debuted in this week it was able to break the record for biggest debut by an
animated films. However, in others it fell short to either
Finding Nemo, (France) or
Shrek 2 (the U.K. and Spain.) Its biggest single market was the U.K., where the brought in $18.1 million, including sneak peaks, which was a
Disney record. Other highlights include $9.2 million in France, $5.6 million in Spain, $5.4 million in Italy, and $1.3 million in Belgium. Considering the results so far it should challenge for supremacy among the elite
animated films and $400 million to $500 million isn't out of the question.
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October 19th, 2004
Vera Drake, which opened last Sunday, topped the Per Theatre Charts this week with $20,435. It's Sunday to Sunday performance was very flat, which bodes well for its legs.
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September 22nd, 2004
Only one film could even come close to hitting $10,000 and it blew right past it. A Dirty Shame earned $29,384 in its lone theatre in Baltimore. Obviously it helps that Baltimore is the home city of the film's director, John Waters.
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September 10th, 2004
Historically speaking, the weekend after the Labor Day long weekend tends to be the slowest weekend of the year. But this year looks to buck the odds, as we should see a slight bounce from last weekend. And this increase should be thanks entirely to
one movie, while this week's other
new release will have to settle for a distant second place. The rest of the top five, and indeed the top ten, will finish way back but within a couple million of each other.
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September 9th, 2004
There were one or two films that managed to cross the $10,000 per theatre milestone, depending on if you counted Labor Day's box office. Taking into account the whole long weekend, Red Lights took top spot with an average of $17,802 in four theatres. While Tae Guik Gi: The Brotherhood of War missed $10,000 over the 3-day weekend, it managed $12,532 per theatre once Monday was taken into account.
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September 1st, 2004
Only one film managed to break the $10,000 per theatre barrier this week, and it was the controversial
The Brown Bunny, which earned $50,601 in just 3 theatres for an average of $16,867.
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August 27th, 2004
The transition from Summer Blockbuster Season to September Dumping Ground underway, there's an awkward mix of movies hitting arthouse theatres tonight. It's a little late in the summer for effective counter programming and its too early for award show hopefuls to come out. On the plus side, several other limited releases expand this weekend including
Mean Creek,
Garden State and
Napoleon Dynamite
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August 25th, 2004
Just two films topped $10,000 per theatre this weekend, led by
Ramones: End of the Century, which earned $18,422 in its lone theatre. Next was
Bright Young Things with an average of $15,642 in just three theatres.
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August 18th, 2004
Just a week ahead of expanding into more than 2000 theatre, Open Water repeated on top of the per theatre charts. However, it's average of $16,268 was 30% lower that last weekend, which makes repeating The Blair Witch Project's success unlikely, as that film saw its per theatre figure grow during its second weekend. The only other films to top $10,000 per theatre was We Don't Live Here Anymore with $14,471 and overall box office leader Alien Vs. Predator with $11,279 per theatre.
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August 11th, 2004
Open Water had the kind of opening most limited release film can only dream of. $1.1 million dollars is just 47 theatres for an average of $23,424. How well it can hold up as the film expands is the real test for this film. Coming in second place was
Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism with $15,611 average in 5 theatres. This is even more impressive when you realize the film has already been released on DVD. Last week's winner,
Garden State, dropped to third place with an average of $14,617, which is a drop of just 35% despite nearly quadrupling its theatre count. Big things are in store for this film.
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August 4th, 2004
It was Zach Braff's directorial debut, Garden State, taking the top spot on the per theatre chart with an impressive $22,346 average in 9 theatres. Well behind was the overall box office champ, The Village with an average of $13,605 and Intimate Strangers with $11,167.
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July 30th, 2004
Limited releases are usually darlings of movie critics, but not this week as we have two that are really being beaten up. Fortunately, we also have two that are in the aforementioned critical darling category.
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July 29th, 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,
The Manchurian Candidate -
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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July 22nd, 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,
Aliens vs. Predator -
Offical 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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July 15th, 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,
Garden State -
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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June 24th, 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,
Suspect Zero -
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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April 8th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. This week saw a deceptively poor crop of site as there were a lot of movie site launched / updated / released, more than 30 in fact. However, very few of them even came close to the being considered for this week's award. It's so bad I've spent the last 3 hours looking for a gem of movie site that I may have missed in previous weeks. In the end it was
Kill Bill: Volume 2 -
Official Site that won the award with only one or two other that were even briefly considered. 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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March 5th, 2004
This week's round of new movie release information includes the announcement of a big screen
adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and new dates for Surviving Christmas and
The Polar Express
among many, many others.
If you hear of a change in date, please email us at releases@the-numbers.com.
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