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 8th, 2006
Failure to Launch wasn't the only new DVD release to chart this week, but it was far and away the best. The film took first place with $10.42 million, which was nearly double its nearest competition.
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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 19th, 2006
It may seem like a really slow week for DVD releases, but this is because several releases were grouped together. I have one section for the five
Alfred Hitchcock releases instead of spreading them out and padding the word count. Taking that into account, the week is about average in terms of quantity, and quality. There were a handful of contenders this week, and a few that looked good in advance but the special feature were a let down. In the end I went with
NewsRadio -
The Complete Fourth Season as the best of the best while
Married With Children -
The Complete Fifth Season earns and honorable mention. ... "Go with him." (If you get that reference, you probably already have the latter release pre-ordered.)
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April 9th, 2006
With
Ice Age: The Meltdown dominating the international box office, the rest of the charts were weaker than usual with several films in the top 30 this week that would not have charted last week.
Failure to Launch had its best weekend haul on the international scene taking in $4.17 million on 1300 screens in 14 markets for a running tally of $13.61 million. Much of that came from the film's opening in two major markets, the U.K. and Italy. In the former is finished second with $1.88 million on 352 screens while in the latter it managed just fourth with $686,000 on 220 screens. It's best market in total is Germany, despite the fact that it fell out of the top five there; so far the film has pulled in $4.10 million after three weeks there, including $841,000 on 354 screens this weekend.
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April 2nd, 2006
Two openings in two major markets helped
Hostel climb into sixth place with $4.03 million on 1120 screens in 27 markets for a running tally of $15.42 million. Its best opening was in the U.K. where it debuted in second place with $2.12 million on 304 screens while it struggled in Spain with just $1.01 million on 250. The film has already earned enough to show a profit even after taking into account P&A budget, exhibitor's share, etc. and should be able to double its current international total before its run is over.
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March 26th, 2006
The only opening of note for
Syriana over the weekend was Turkey where the film placed third with $211,000 on 62 screens. Without a major opening, the film fell 35% to $3.68 million on 1992 screens in 43 markets and now has $27.35 million, which is still a disappointing total.
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March 15th, 2006
A trio of openings in major markets helped
The Pink Panther climb into first place on the international charts with $10.29 million on 3351 screens in 34 markets for a running tally of $31.89 million. That helped the film become only the second film of 2006 to cross $100 million on the worldwide scene. It opened in second place in Germany with $2.05 million on 540 screens while it finished first in Australia with $979,000 on 244 and in Switzerland with $446,000 on 66. The film debuted with $1.4 million on 504 screens in France, while it made $1.16 million on 349 screens during its third weekend in Spain for a total of $6.73 million so far.
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March 14th, 2006
Famed Oscar Bounce failed to materialize this year partially because the
awards were spread out over many difference films and partially because many winners were well into their releases.
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March 8th, 2006
Narnia jumped back into first place with $9.76 million on 1887 screens in 35 markets for an international total of $388.34 million. It was able to top the charts thanks to a first place, $8.92 million debut on 780 screens in Japan, including $2.26 million in previews. The film is now 19th on the all time international charts and 23rd on the
worldwide charts with China left to go.
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March 5th, 2006
The
Oscars were handed out tonight and while there were a handful of multiple winners, no single movie stood out.
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March 1st, 2006
The
French film, Les Bronzes Amis Pour la Vie, again topped the international box office charts this time taking in $7.45 million on 1006 screens in 3 markets for a running tally of $72.66 million. Again, the vast majority of that came in France where the film entered the all-time top ten with $68.4 million, which is enough to pay for its entire $42 million production budget.
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February 15th, 2006
With the
Oscars less than a month away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Supporting Roles for both Actor and Actress.
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January 31st, 2006
Brokeback Mountain again led the list of nominees as with 8 Oscar nods. There were three films with six nominations a piece,
Crash,
Good Night and Good Luck, and
Memoirs of a Geisha, (although for that last one, they were all the less prestigious technical awards.
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January 24th, 2006
The weekend after the Golden Globe Awards proved to profitable for several of the winners.
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January 16th, 2006
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today at the Golden Globes taking home four of the seven statuettes it was up for. The film is still expanding into more and more theatres, so these awards couldn't have come at a better time.
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January 6th, 2006
The
Writers Guild of America announced its nominations this week, and while there are plenty of awards, only three are for theatrical releases.
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January 6th, 2006
Of the 13 awards the Screen Actors Guild will hand out on January 29th, 2006, five will be awarded to theatrical releases. And like past awards nominations,
Brokeback Mountain again led the way, with four in total.
However, this time there were two films close behind as
Crash and
Capote each received three nominations.
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December 27th, 2005
Christmas wishes went unanswered this year as almost every film missed expectations, some by large margins.
This led to a 14.4% drop-off from last weekend, but more importantly, a 18.0% drop-off from last year.
Granted, the fact that Christmas fell on a Saturday helps explain some of that, but not all. Year-to-date, 2005 is still down 6% from last year and with less than one week left, that's roughly where it will end up.
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December 19th, 2005
It was a good news/bad news weekend.
Bad news, King Kong didn't meet original expectations.
Good news, the weekend box office was still up 4.5% from last weekend, and more impressively and more importantly, it was up 20.2% from the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2005 is still down by 5% at the box office, and there's just no time to recover.
However, the deficit is not nearly as bad as it looked earlier in the year.
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December 16th, 2005
What should have been a weekend the movie industry would celebrate is now one filled with dread and foreboding. Saying King Kong didn't get off to the start the studio was hoping for could be the understatement of the year, but even so, a lot of analysts are cautiously optimistic that the film can rebound. Right now it's just a case of wait and see, but by the time Thursday's numbers are in, we should be in a much better position to know what the future holds.
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December 13th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today as Golden Globe nominations were announced. With seven nods, it led all films, which is an important Oscar indicator.
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December 12th, 2005
As expected,
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was easily able to win the weekend race but it was able to do so in such a fashion that it lifted the entire box office. Week-to-week the overall box office saw a mind-blowing 42.2% increase, while more importantly, it was up 15.2% from the same weekend last year. That helped cut the year-to-date deficit to 5%, which is still a significant drop-off, but not the disaster that it was earlier in the year.
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December 9th, 2005
The 2005 box office enters its final sprint to the finish line with two potential monster hits opening within 5 days of each other, the first tonight. Looking at the pure mathematics of it, there's almost no chance of 2005 catching up to 2004, or even 2003 or 2002. However, if Narnia and Kong both out perform, they can help cut the gap to something respectable.
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December 6th, 2005
The post-holiday weekend and a nearly doubling of its theatre count didn't hurt Syriana's per theatre average much as it earned more than $500,000 in just 9 theatres for an average of $57,936. That was more than twice the second place film, Transamerica, which earned just shy of $47,000 in two theatres for a per theater average of $23,454.
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December 1st, 2005
After Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire saved last month, we have two potential monster hits leading the way this month. However, both will be compared to Lord of the Rings, and neither will be able to live up to that high standard.
Even so, it should be a better month than December last year, but will it be too little, too late to save 2005's box office?
Since this is the heart of award season, there are plenty of films that are first opening in limited release.
Some will get a wide release later in the month, while others, like Munich, The New World and Match Point, don't open wide untill after the new year, and will appear in January's preview.
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November 29th, 2005
Syriana made an unbelievable start over the Thanksgiving weekend, earning just shy of $375,000 in 5 theatres for a per theatre average of $74,900 — easily the best over the weekend.
Last week's winner, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was pushed into second place with an average of $14,185 in 3858 theatres, which would have been an impressive opening for most blockbusters.
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November 25th, 2005
Thanksgivings gives us a cornucopia of new limited releases, some of which opened on Wednesday and some of which open tonight.
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November 24th, 2005
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 this week's winner,
The Producers -
Official Site.
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October 27th, 2005
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 this week's winner,
Jarhead -
Official Site.
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