April 25th, 2018
Paddington 2 is the biggest release of the week and clearly at least one of the best. However, it isn’t the only film that’s a Pick of the Week contender. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, and others were all in contention for that honor. In the end, the Paddington 2 Blu-ray Combo Pack earned that title.
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March 27th, 2018
It’s a short week for one reason: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is coming out on DVD / Blu-ray / 4K Ultra HD and no one really wants to deal with that competition. That’s not to say there are no other releases worth picking up. Last Men in Aleppo is an Oscar nominated documentary and worth picking up. In the end, The Last Jedi was the clear Pick of the Week winner.
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March 9th, 2018
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A Wrinkle in Time opened with $1.3 million during its previews. This might seem like a low amount; however, it is a live action family film and those tend to struggle during previews, but bounce back during the weekend. For example, Paddington 2 only managed $325,000 during its previews, but it went on to make $11 million during its opening weekend. A Wrinkle in Time won’t have the same legs, because its reviews are mixed. That said, it has a shot at first place with $35 million or more, which is in line with what we predicted.
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February 11th, 2018
Fifty Shades Freed caps the Shades franchise this weekend with a solid $38.805 million debut, according to Universal’s weekend estimate. That’s down from Fifty Shades Darker’s $46.6 million opening, but nowhere near the drop between the first and second movies—Fifty Shades of Grey came out the gate with $85 million back in 2015, although it was helped by Valentine’s Day falling on Saturday.
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January 23rd, 2018
Nearly every film we talked about in our predictions beat expectations over the weekend. This includes Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which earned first place with $19.51 million. All three wide releases did better than expected, with 12 Strong leading the way with $15.82 million. The overall box office still fell 15% from last weekend to $135 million. A 15% drop-off for a post-holiday weekend isn’t bad. Compared to this weekend last year, 2018 was down by 7.0%, which isn’t good, but it could have been much worse. Year-to-date, 2018 still has a small lead of 2.9% or $20 million at $725 million to $704 million. Granted, it is still way too early for this to matter, but an early lead means you won’t need to fight back late in the year like we did last year.
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January 18th, 2018
The post-holiday weekend is rarely a good week to release a movie and none of the three new releases are expected to be box office successes. 12 Strong is the biggest release and it is also earning the best reviews, although its Tomatometer Score is just 50% positive. Den of Thieves isn’t opening as wide, while its reviews are not as good. It also shares its target audience with 12 Strong, which will hurt its box office chances even more. Finally there’s Forever My Girl, which is barely opening semi-wide and will likely miss the top ten. This weekend last year, Split had a shockingly big opening. In fact, the second place film, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, opened with just over $20 million, which is more than any film is expected to earn this weekend. 2018’s mini-winning streak is about to come to a painful end.
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January 16th, 2018
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle continues to surprise analysts earning $35.18 million over the MLK long weekend. At this point, I would be shocked if it didn’t finish with $350 million domestically, while I assume Sony has a planned trilogy in the works. The best “new” release of the week was The Post, which expanded into second place with $23.06 million, while the best truly new release of the week was The Commuter at $15.80 million. Overall, the box office fell 4.7% from last weekend, earning $165 million over the the three-day weekend. This was still 5.9% higher than the same weekend last year, and that’s the more important number. It is still very early in the year, extremely early, but 2018 does have a $27 million / 5.1% lead over 2017 at $553 million to $526 million. 2018 could lose that entire lead next weekend, but I chose to focus on the positive for now.
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January 14th, 2018
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will come out an easy winner at the box office this MLK weekend. Over three days, the family adventure is headed for an estimated $27 million, for $283 million to date. With another $8 million or so on Monday, the film will finish the holiday on the threshold of $300 million domestically. Partly helped by the long weekend, it will record the 10th-best fourth weekend of all time—remarkable strength for a movie that ran the risk of being over-shadowed by The Last Jedi when it came out at Christmas.
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January 13th, 2018
There was a two-horse race on the Friday box office chart. In the end, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle came out on top with $6.13 million, for $262.26 million after 24 days of release. Because it is a holdover, it should have better legs over the rest of the weekend, putting it on pace for just over $30 million over the weekend, matching our prediction perfectly.
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January 12th, 2018
The Post led the way during previews with $775,000. Dramas aimed at a more mature target audience tend to not do as well in previews as most other films, so this is a good sign. Additionally, the film’s reviews are right on the border of award-worthy, so the word of mouth should be strong. This is right in line with our prediction, so I’m happy with this result.
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January 11th, 2018
It is the first long weekend of 2018 and we have four films trying to take advantage of the MLK holiday. However, only Paddington 2 and The Post have a real shot at box office success. The Commuter’s buzz is so quiet that its box office chances have taken a real hit. Worse still, Sony’s treatment of Proud Mary is almost bizarre. I’ve seen limited releases with more marketing push than Proud Mary is getting. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’s legs will likely remain really long, helping it repeat as box office champion. More importantly, it should help the 2018 box office get a sizable win in the year-over-year comparison. This weekend last year, there were seven films that earned more than $10 million over the long weekend, but only one film, Hidden Figures, earned more than $20 million. This year, not only will we match that number of $10 million films, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle should top $30 million, while Paddington 2 and The Post should top $20 million.
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January 11th, 2018
The BAFTA nominations were announced and this time The Shape of Water led the way with 12 nominations. The same films appear on many of the lists of nominees, but so far no one film has come to dominate the list. This makes it interesting, to say the least. There’s a good chance no one film will win the majority of prestige awards and that multiple films will have lots of reason to celebrate on February 18th when the awards are handed out.
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January 1st, 2018
2017 wasn’t a good year. It started out well and ended on a high note, but the summer was a disaster and that proved to be too much for the rest of the year to overcome. Fortunately, The Last Jedi and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle are still doing very well and will help January get off to a fast start. Unfortunately, the biggest new release of January is Paddington 2 and it isn’t expected to match its predecessor at the box office; it certainly won’t top $100 million domestically. It is unlikely any of the Oscar contenders will hit the century mark in January either. This is really bad news, as last January, we had a new release, Split and an Oscar contender, Hidden Figures, which both topped that milestone with ease. 2018 should get off to a faster start in the first two weeks, but overall, this month will end with a loss.
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December 13th, 2017
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Coco earned first place for the second time with $55.3 million in 35 markets for totals of $254.0 million internationally and $389.7 million worldwide. Even if we pretended Christmas wasn’t right around the corner and that the film didn’t still have several major markets left to open in, it would still be on track to earn over $500 million worldwide, which is more than enough to cover its entire production budget and likely a sizable chunk of its advertising budget. With Christmas less than two weeks away and international openings in Australia, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, the U.K., and Japan still ahead, there’s a chance this film will finish with $750 million worldwide. That would be more than enough to pay for its combined production budget, meaning it will break even before it reaches the home market. As for this past weekend, the film continued to top the chart in China with $34.80 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $127.98 million.
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November 27th, 2017
Family adventure starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Grant, and Brendan Gleeson, with the voice of Ben Whishaw, opens January 12 ... Full Movie Details.
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November 22nd, 2017
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Justice League easily won the weekend race on the international chart with a total opening of $184.95 million on 47,000 screens in 65 markets. Its biggest market was China, where it opened with $50.58 million over the weekend for a total opening of $51.89 million. Its best market was Brazil, where it earned $14.2 million on 1,580 screens, which is the biggest all-time opening in that market. In most major markets, the film opened above Wonder Woman and Thor: Ragnarok. For example, the film earned $9.6 million in Mexico, compared to $8.22 million for Wonder Woman and $7.34 million for Thor: Ragnarok. It wasn’t as impressive in every market. For example, it only managed $9.67 million during its first place opening in the U.K., which is equivalent to a little more than $50 million here. The film opens in Japan this weekend, but it will need good legs to pay for its $300 million production budget.
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November 15th, 2017
For the third weekend in a row, Thor: Ragnarok dominated the international chart, earning $75.9 million in 56 markets for totals of $438.5 internationally and $650.6 million worldwide. The film fell 59% during its second weekend in China, but this is actually much better than average for the market. It added $21.71 million this past weekend, pushing its running tally to $95.51 million after just two weeks of release in that market. The film held up even better in the U.K., where it dipped just 33% to $4.05 million in 569 theaters for a three-week total of $34.07 million. Its next biggest international market was South Korea, where it has earned $31.07 million, including $3.53 million on 856 screens this past weekend. The film already has more worldwide than either of the previous Thor films earned in total. It has entered the top ten in the MCU and it is on pace to enter the top five on that chart before its done.
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