January 26th, 2016
It is a really slow week on the home market this week. Not only are there very few releases, none of them are top-tier. The biggest release of the week is Goosebumps, but it is only good and not great. There are plenty of films worth picking up (The Assassin, Chi-raq, The Wrong Man, etc.) but none truly rise to Pick of the Week level.
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January 12th, 2016
It is a busy week for first run releases with four of them on this week's list. Of these, The Martian is the biggest and the best. It would have been the Pick of the Week except for two things. One, the screener is late. Two, David Bowie passed away over the weekend. He died after an 18-month battle with cancer and just two days after his last album came out. This is the the most poignant Rock'n'Roll death since Freddie Mercury and it seems fitting to give Blackstar the title of Pick of the Week.
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November 9th, 2015
It was a good weekend at the box office, but not a great weekend. Both Spectre and The Peanuts Movie opened well enough to be considered hits, but didn't quite reach the high marks I had expected. Call it irrational exuberance. Even though Spectre didn't break the record for the Bond franchise, it still did almost as well as all of the box office did last weekend. Additionally, The Peanuts Movie opened with more than $40 million, which is a great start, while its target audience should help its legs. The overall box office was $162 million, which is 115% more than last weekend. It was also 3.0% more than the same weekend last week, so the slump we've been in is officially over. Year-to-date, 2015 is now ahead of 2014 by a 4.9% margin at $8.89 billion to $8.48 billion. A $415 million lead with less than two months to go seems really safe, especially with a few more potential monster hits on the way.
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November 5th, 2015
I've been working at The Numbers for 13 years. The past two weekends were worst back-to-back weekends that I can recall and the numbers back that up. So thank goodness October is over and November has officially begun and with that, the Holiday Box Office season has begun. There are two potential monster hits opening wide this week: Spectre and The Peanuts Movie. Both are the latest installments of long running franchises. Spectre is the 26th Bond movie (not all of which are part of the official Bond franchise). The Peanuts Movie is based on a comic strip that started officially in the 1950s and has been turned into countless TV cartoons and a handful of TV specials over the years, but it hasn't had a theatrical release for decades. These two films should dominate the market and combined they might earn twice as much as all of the films last weekend earned. There should be huge growth compared to last year, when Big Hero 6 and Interstellar earned just over $100 million combined. We've had a really bad couple of weeks, but things should really turn around this weekend.
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November 5th, 2015
Spectre opened in first place with $80.4 million during its seven-day opening weekend. That doesn't seem like a huge amount, especially considering some of the opening weekends we've seen on the international stage this year. However, there is a mitigating factor. It was only playing in six markets. This includes the U.K., where the film broke records with $62.82 million in 651 theaters. This is equivalent to a $300 million opening week here, which would be the record for a seven-day box office here. We shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves, as Bond films have a natural affinity for that market. It does mean Spectre has a real shot at a $100 million opening weekend here.
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November 2nd, 2015
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Most people expected the box office to be really weak this past weekend, but I don't think anyone anticipated this. How bad was this past weekend? All three new releases missed the Mendoza line* and there were no new releases in the top five. The overall box office was just $75 million, which was the lowest for the year and the fourth worst weekend in the past decade. This represents a 28% drop-off from last week and a 21% drop-off from the same weekend last year. 2015's overall lead over 2014 shrunk from 5.2% to 4.7%. The overall lead fell by $40 million at $8.69 billion to $8.31 billion. This is reason to panic, or it would be if Spectre wasn't opening on Friday. The film is breaking records in the U.K. and should be an explosive hit here. Hopefully it will do well enough that we can pretend the past two weeks never happened.
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November 1st, 2015
Halloween is a horror show for new releases, with none of them able to break a $2,000 theater average and The Martian enjoying a fourth weekend at the top of the chart. The sci-fi movie will earn about $11.4 million this weekend, for a total of $182.8 million, per Fox’s Sunday morning projection—down 28% from last weekend. The adult-skewing audience for the film meant it wasn’t badly affected by Halloween on Saturday, with its daily gross up 32% from Friday. In comparison, Goosebumps was up just 9% on Saturday, which leaves it too much to do to steal top spot. Sony projects the family adventure-horror film will end the weekend with $10.25 million over three days and $57.1 million in total. The new wide releases, meanwhile, will barely earn $10 million between them.
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October 31st, 2015
Because Halloween is a dead zone for the box office when it lands during the weekend, it has a major effect on the box office. Therefore, it is important for box office analysts to compare weekends where the holiday lands on the same day. This is a problem, because the last time Halloween landed on a Saturday was 2009. The only film to open wide that weekend was Michael Jackson's This is It, which is in no way similar to any of the movies that opened wide this weekend. The previous similar weekend was in 1998, but while Vampires is a closer match to Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, the box office has changed too much to compare the films. We're flying blind this weekend. Fortunately, even flying blind, it is easy to make one declaration: All three wide releases bombed.
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October 29th, 2015
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Halloween is a dead zone for the box office, for the most part, and this year it lands on Saturday. Unless we are dealing with a horror film, it's going to be a bad weekend. There are two truly wide openings this weekend, Burnt and Our Brand is Crisis, neither of which are horror films. There is also one semi-wide release, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, which is a horror movie, but the buzz is so quiet I don't think it will matter. All three movies are earning bad reviews and it looks like the top three this weekend will be the same as they were last weekend. (There's a chance Goosebumps gets a big enough Halloween boost to climb into first place.) This weekend last year, there was only one new release in the top ten, Nightcrawler, which earned second place with just over $10 million. That's better than any one of the new releases will do this year; however, there's better depth this year, so I think 2015 will come out on top on the year-over-year comparison.
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October 27th, 2015
The winners of our On the Hunt contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for The Last Witch Hunter opening weekend were...
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October 26th, 2015
Most of the new releases were not expected to do well at the box office. ... Almost no one saw this coming. We had some near-record bombs this weekend and even the best of the new releases were terrible. This left The Martian in first place; in fact, the top three spots and four of the top five were held by holdovers. The best new release, The Last Witch Hunter, barely cracked the $10 million mark. The overall box office fell 14% from last weekend to $105 million. This was also 9.5% lower than the same weekend last year. Midweek numbers were better this year than last year, so the year-over-year actually improved and 2015 now has a 5.2% lead over 2014 at $8.60 billion to $8.18 billion.
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October 25th, 2015
Dismal is about the politest word that can be applied to the box office performance of new releases this weekend. None of the five films new in wide release managed to make the top three on the chart, and two of them didn’t even crack the top ten. That leaves The Martian and Goosebumps to battle it out for first place, and a fourth-week decline of just 25% for The Martian looks virtually certain to give it the win. Fox projects it will make $15.9 million for a total by the end of the weekend of $166 million or so. Its performance to date falls neatly between that of Interstellar and Gravity, which puts the sci-fi adventure on course for a final domestic box office of $230 million (see full comps here).
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October 24th, 2015
Where to start? There are so many new releases to talk about and none of them did well. Some did so poorly that talking about them seems mean. So, let’s start by saying that Friday’s box office chart was led by The Martian, while Goosebumps has a shot at repeating on top of the chart, with each film earning about $14 million to $15 million. Meanwhile, Bridge of Spies should earn third place over the weekend with between $11 million and $12 million.
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October 22nd, 2015
The box office prediction contests for the past few weeks have had a horror / "horror" theme. That is to say, two people won horror movies and the third won movies that were so bad it is scary they exist. There are four new releases this weekend and they all epitomize the latter. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension has a review embargo, which is never a good sign, while the other three wide releases are all earning less than 20% positive reviews. Does that mean there's nothing worth seeing this week? Nope. Fortunately, Steve Jobs is expanding wide and should earn first place at the box office. It is the only film on this week's list with a shot at $20 million. This weekend last year, Ouija nearly reached $20 million and five other films earned $10 million. I don't think we will match that this year. It could be close and any gain or loss in the year-over-year comparison should be in single digits, so there's no reason to be overly concerned.
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October 21st, 2015
The winners of our Cutis Anserina contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Goosebumps opening weekend were...
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October 20th, 2015
It is hard to get excited about the weekend box office results, as the top four films all missed predictions. (Granted, Bridge of Spies came within a rounding error of expectations.) Goosebumps did well for a live-action family film, but still not great. The Martian fell faster than anticipated, but it was Crimson Peak that was the biggest disappointment. Overall, the box office rose 2.5% from last weekend to $121 million. However, this was 7.6% lower than the same weekend last year. Had every film in the top five matched expectations, then this gap would have been reduced to just a percent or two. Despite this, 2015 is still ahead of 2014 by more than $400 million at $8.46 billion to $8.05 billion. It would take a few more weeks of year-over-year declines before I would be concerned.
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October 18th, 2015
A slightly-softer-than-expected (but still good) opening for Goosebumps will be enough to take the film to the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio projections released on Sunday morning. Sony expects the family horror adventure to come in with $23.5 million on opening weekend, which is a solid enough start, and sets the film up for a good run, helped by strong reviews and Halloween coming up in a couple of weeks. The Martian will land in second with a projected $21.5 million as of this morning, a slightly steeper-than-expected 42% decline from last weekend, and a total to date around $144 million. In general, we’re looking at quite a few steep drops from last weekend thanks to an unfavorable comparison with the Columbus Day long weekend and a batch of new releases.
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October 17th, 2015
It looks like it will be a very interesting weekend, as Goosebumps and The Martian appear to be in a close race for first place. Goosebumps led the way on Friday with $7.35 million. This is 40% more than Pan’s opening day last weekend. Add in the film’s better reviews and its family-friendly target audience and it should have a solid internal multiplier, perhaps in the vacinity of Alexander and the Blah, Blah, Blah. That puts Goosebumps on track for a $25 million opening. That’s a little lower than I would have liked and the film will need solid legs and a reasonable international run to break even. I wouldn’t bet against it breaking even, but I don't think it will be turned into a franchise.
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October 16th, 2015
Two scary films started their box office runs last night with Crimson Peak earning $855,000, putting it ahead of Goosebumps, which pulled in $600,000. By comparison, Sinister 2 earned $800,000 during its midnight showings on its way to a $10.54 million opening weekend. Sinister 2 had ... issues with its reviews, unlike Crimson Peak, which is earning 68% positive reviews. Perhaps Ouija, which opened this time last year, would be a better comparison. It earned $911,000 during its midnight shows on its way to a $19.88 million opening weekend. It too struggled with critics, but I think the release date makes it a better comparison. Crimson Peak could reach $20 million over the weekend.
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October 15th, 2015
We are getting closer to Halloween and there are two scary movies opening wide this weekend. Goosebumps is a live-action family film and as we saw with Pan, those are rarely big hits. On the other hand, this film is earning great reviews and cost about 60% less to make, so even if it just matches Pan's opening, it will still have a shot at profitability. Crimson Peak is an old-fashioned Haunted House horror film, similar to The Woman in Black, but with a $55 million production budget. That might be too much to recoup. Finally there's Bridge of Spies, a Cold War era Spy Thriller. Its reviews are the best for this week, but its target audience isn't known for rushing out to see a movie opening weekend. This weekend last year, there were five films with more than $10 million, but only one with more than $20 million. This year, we should have the same number of $10 million movies, but at least two $20 million movies and perhaps even a $30 million movie. I think 2015 has the edge in the year-over-year comparison, but unless the new releases are bigger hits than most anticipate, it could be close.
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October 14th, 2015
The winners of our Out of the Frying Pan contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Pan opening weekend were...
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October 9th, 2015
There are three wide releases coming out next weekend. None are expected to become $100 million hits, but none are expected to bomb either. There are two horror films coming out, which fits the theme of the prizes. Goosebumps is the bigger of these two films and is earning surprisingly strong early reviews. As such, it is the best choice for the target film for this week's Box Office Prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Goosebumps.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a Frankenprize consisting of two previously reviewed DVDs or Blu-rays.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a Frankenprize consisting of two previously reviewed DVDs or Blu-rays.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will also win a Frankenprize consisting of two previously reviewed DVDs or Blu-rays.
There is a difference this time. Two people will earn Frankenprizes consisting of two horror movies. The other winner will earn a Frankprize consisting of two "horror" movies, that is to say movies so bad that it will fill you with horror.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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October 1st, 2015
September ended on a record note with the debut of Hotel Transylvania 2. Additionally, there was great depth and 2015's lead over 2014 grew to nearly $500 million. How do things look going forward? The month starts out with The Martian, which should have no trouble becoming the biggest hit of the month and might even top $200 million. On the other hand, no other film is expected to get to $100 million. There's only one or two that will even come close. Fortunately, last October was very similar with one $100 million hit, Gone Girl, while two other films came close, Annabelle and Fury. It looks like it will be up to the depth films from both years to determine which year comes out on top.
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