June 21st, 2010
We have reached the slowest time of the year on the home market. The biggest first-run release coming out this week is Green Zone, which was a box office disappointment. The second biggest first-run release is She's Out of My League, which was also a box office disappointment, as was Remember Me. Worst still, there are very few limited releases, TV on DVD releases, or classics to make up the difference. However, many releases are worth picking up for certain target demographics, although very few that will likely sell a lot of units. For instance, Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Complete Book 1: Collector's Edition is a must have if you don't own the series on DVD yet, but there's not enough new material to make the upgrade. Cinematic Titanic: Danger on Tiki Island continues the tradition started with MST3K, but either you love you show or you're simply not interested in the DVD. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs makes its 3D Blu-ray debut, but the number of people who have made the leap to 3D is so small that it can't really be pick of the week material. To find the Pick of the Week, I'm instead going with two films that couldn't be more dissimilar if it were a contest. Death Race 2000 and The Last Station. Both are worth owning, but in both cases the Blu-ray release is not the obvious better deal.
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June 19th, 2010
The Last Station was one of the final Awards Season contenders to come out this past year. On fact, after a short Oscar qualifying run, it didn't earn a full release till January. Despite earning two Oscar nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, two SAG nominations, and five Independent Spirit Award nominations, its reviews were not exactly award-worthy, while its final box office run was not exactly extraordinary. Now it is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. Is it an Award-worthy film? Or did it rightly get shut out at the major awards?
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March 16th, 2010
Just like last week, there were only two films to top $10,000 on the per theater chart. In fact, these were the same two films that managed the same feat last week. However, they finished in the opposite order with Alice in Wonderland taking the top spot with an average of $16,822 per theater while The Secret of Kells earned $12,537 in one theater.
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March 9th, 2010
There were only two films to top $10,000 on the per theater chart, but they both did amazingly well. The Secret of Kells led the way with $39,826 in one theater, including a sellout of all seven shows on Saturday. Second place went to the overall number one film, Alice in Wonderland, which earned an average of $31,143.
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March 5th, 2010
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Actress in a Lead Role, which, unlike many others, I don't think is a slam dunk.
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March 5th, 2010
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Supporting Actor, which might be even less competitive than the Best Supporting Actress.
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March 2nd, 2010
Ghost Writer remained in first place on the per theater chart with an average of $18,350, which is a strong hold from its opening last week despite expanding its theater count from 4 to 43. Just a hair behind was A Prophet, which opened in second place with an average of $18,197 in 9 theaters. The only other film in the $10,000 club was Art of the Steal with an average of $13,006 in 3 theaters.
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February 28th, 2010
A decent 46% second weekend drop was good enough to keep Shutter Island at the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
With $22.2 million, the movie beat out good debuts by Cop Out and The Crazies, which picked up $18.6 million and $16.5 million respectively.
Overall business for the weekend looks as though it will be up about 20% compared to this weekend last year.
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February 24th, 2010
Showing once again that there's no such thing as bad publicity, Ghost Writer topped the per theater chart with an average of $45,752 in four theaters during its opening weekend. It will be interesting to see if it can maintain this momentum going forward. Shutter Island was the only other film in the $10,000 club, earning an average of $13,729 in nearly 3,000 theaters on its way to the number one spot on the overall chart.
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February 17th, 2010
My Name is Khan beat expectations by a large margin with an average of $16,200 in 120 theaters over the three-day weekend and $18,875 million over four. The overall box office champ, Valentine's Day, placed second with an average of $15,351 over the three-day weekend. The Red Riding Trilogy held on strong with averages of $13,374 / $17,056. The re-release of Ran took in $10,128 from Friday to Sunday and $13,470 including Monday in its lone theater.
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February 2nd, 2010
Oscar nominations were announced at 5:38 this morning, continuing a tradition that have never been adequately explained to me. (Why so early in the morning? Does earning an Oscar nomination become sweeter if people have to wake you up to congratulate you?) Leading the way in nominations were Avatar and The Hurt Locker, both of which pick up nine nods each, many of them in the same categories.
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January 26th, 2010
Crazy Heart climbed to first place on the per theater chart with an average of $14,551 in 93 theaters. I think you could officially say it is earning some measure of mainstream success, while further wins during Awards Season will only help it grow. The Last Station slipped to second with an average of $12,409, but it also more than doubled its theater count, which is a good sign moving forward. Avatar was the only other film to top $10,000 on the per theater chart, earning an average of $11,125 in more than 3,000 theaters.
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January 20th, 2010
The Last Station started its run on top of the per theater chart with an average of $24,574 in three theaters, which was nearly double its nearest competitor. That film was Crazy Heart, which remained in second place with an average of $13,776. That was a decline of just 1.6% from last weekend despite some significant expansion. With a couple of Golden Globe wins, there's little doubt it will remain in theaters for some time to come.
Fish Tank was in a virtual tie with an average of $13,750 in two theaters; in fact, since that is still an estimate, it might climb into second place.
On the other hand, since Avatar was right behind with $13,025, it could slip a spot.
The final film in the $10,000 club was The Book of Eli with an average of $10,540, which was better than expected.
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January 17th, 2010
Avatar was pushed from top spot for a day, but came back to comfortably win its fifth straight weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
With another $41.3 million in the bank, Avatar was down just 18% from last weekend (helped somewhat by the MLK long weekend), and will pass $500 million on Monday after just 32 days in release, easily beating the record held by The Dark Knight (see chart).
It also tops Titanic's record for the biggest fifth weekend at the box office (see chart).
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December 17th, 2009
The SAG nominations were announced this week, and the trend of the year continues with Up in the Air leading the way, but no one film dominating. This time around Up in the Air was in a three-way tie with Inglourious Basterds and Precious, which makes the race even more interesting.
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December 16th, 2009
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations this week, but looking over the list of films chosen, it is hard to declare any one film as the big winner. Up in the Air did pick up six Golden Globe nominations, including several of the most prestigious nominations, but it is far from the only major player.
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December 2nd, 2009
As always, the Independent Spirit Awards represent the unofficial start of Awards Season with the announcement of their nominations.
This year The Last Station and Precious topped the list of nominees with five each.
For the former, it should help build buzz for its 2010 release.
For the latter, it is the first step towards possible Awards Season glory and further enhances its already lofty box office potential.
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April 4th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for The Informant, The Surrogates, War, Inc., and more!
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March 20th, 2008
This week's round of new casting information contains updates for The Grand, The Proposal, The Legend of Secret Pass, and more!
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March 18th, 2008
This week another number of upcoming movies, new stars and directors have been added to our archive!
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