December 15th, 2013
Before The Lone Ranger even hit theaters, there was a lot of bad buzz preceding it. Part of the reason was the film's budget. With a combined production and P&A budget of around $400 million, the film would need to make more than $600 million worldwide to have a hope of breaking even sometime during its home market run. However, previous to this film's release, the biggest western was Dances with Wolves, which barely cracked $400 million. On the other hand, Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski helped revitalize the Pirate genre, so perhaps lightning can strike twice. Nope. The film bombed. But is it as bad as its box office numbers? Or was it unfairly overlooked by moviegoers?
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October 8th, 2013
There are a couple first-run releases on this week's list: After Earth and The Hangover: Part III. However, neither film won over critics and both bombed in theaters, when compared to their production budgets. That said, The Hangover: Part III will likely be the best selling release of the week. As for the best new release, including a number where I'm still waiting for the screener. Ignoring those, the two best are Robot Chicken: Season Six on DVD or Blu-ray and Much Ado About Nothing on DVD or Blu-ray. Both are must haves, but I'm going with the latter over the former for Pick of the Week.
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June 10th, 2013
We have a good news / bad news situation. The good news is The Purge crushed expectations and dominated the box office over the weekend. Additionally, nearly every film in the top ten held on better than expected. The bad new is... it still wasn't enough. The overall box office fell 9% from last weekend to $149 million. Worse still, this was 18% lower than the same weekend last year. This is terrible, but fortunately things should turn around next weekend.
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June 6th, 2013
The first weekend in June is also the slowest weekend in June as far as wide releases go. Neither The Internship nor The Purge are likely to become more than midlevel hits. Even so, one of them should finish in first place, ending Fast and Furious 6's two-week run on top. Last year there were two major releases, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and Prometheus earned more than $50 million during their opening weekend. Neither new release will match that figure. They won't make that much combined over the weekend.
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June 5th, 2013
The winners of our Scarred for Life contest were determined and they are...
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June 4th, 2013
As per usual, the post-holiday weekend suffers a slump, but it was worse than expected with nearly every film failing to live up to predictions. Fast and Furious 6 fell very far, but it still came out on top. Meanwhile, Now You See Me topped expectations and topped After Earth over the weekend. Now You See Me was the one lone bright spot on an otherwise soft weekend, and the overall box office fell 35% to $164 million. On the other hand, this was still 15% higher than the same weekend last year. 2013 was able to pull out the win thanks to a much deeper box office. Six films earned more than $10 million this weekend compared to just three earning more than $10 million last year.
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May 31st, 2013
Post-holiday weekends tend to feature weak releases and this time is no exception. After Earth is a film that should be a massive summer blockbuster, given its genre and its star, but the buzz is terrible. Now You See Me is the counter-programming release, but it should have a better opening than After Earth, relative to expectations and production budget. That said, Fast and Furious 6 will very likely remain on top of the box office chart. This weekend last year was the weekend Snow White and the Huntsman debuted and it earned $56 million. There's pretty much no chance any film will earn that much during this weekend. In fact, the two wide releases might not make that much combined.
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May 24th, 2013
The weekend after Memorial Day tends to be rather weak, but there are two films hoping to buck that trend: After Earth and Now You See Me. Neither are likely to be monster hits, but After Earth has a better chance than Now You See Me does and it is the choice for the target movie for this weeks' box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for After Earth.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Visible Scars on DVD.
Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of Visible Scars on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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May 1st, 2013
As April ends and summer begins, we see the 2013 box office on a losing streak. There is some good news, as May should be much, much, much better than April was. Much better. During the five weekends in May, there are nine films opening wide. Of those film, there are seven that at least have a shot at $100 million. And of those seven films, four at least have a shot at $200 million, two have a shot at $300 million, and we might even have a $400 million hit this month. Iron Man 3 should turn out to be the biggest hit of the month, while there are some who think Star Trek: Into Darkness could be a close competitor for that honor. There's also some bad news. The Avengers opened last May and earned more than $600 million. No film opening this month will come close to that figure. There's a chance the top two films opening this month won't match that combined. On the other hand, last year there was a huge drop-off from the biggest hit of the month to the second biggest hit of the month. There were so many high-profile failures last year, that 2013 might actually start winning some weekends in the year-over-year comparison.
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