September 6th, 2016
It is a big week with a ton of home market releases, including several that were contenders for Pick of the Week. There were two limited releases in that group, Love and Friendship and Tale of Tales. Love and Friendship got better reviews, but Tale of Tales’ Blu-ray is more interesting in my mind. Star Trek 50th Anniversary TV and Movie Collection is a great Blu-ray box set and would make an amazing gift. As for the Pick of the Week, that was an easy choice: The Iron Giant: Signature Edition on Blu-ray. Although if you are a hardcore fan, then the Ultimate Collector’s Edition might be worth the $75.
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August 24th, 2016
There are not many major hits on this week’s list, but there are several releases that are contenders for Pick of the Week. This includes TV on DVD releases like Ash vs The Evil Dead: Season 1 (DVD or Blu-ray), as well as limited releases like Maggie’s Plan (DVD or Blu-ray). However, in the end I went with The Nice Guys on Blu-ray Combo Pack.
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July 21st, 2016
Ice Age: Collision Course rose to first place with $53.5 million in 51 markets for an early international total of $127.0 million. The film’s biggest new market was France, where it earned first place with $7.07 million on 873 screens. That’s a pretty good opening for that market, but the previous film opened with $12.76 million in that market, so that’s a sizable drop-off. The film also earned first place in Russia with $5.85 million on 1,236, compared to $16.97 million the earlier film opened with. That’s really troubling. Meanwhile, the film had to settle for second place in the U.K. with $4.99 million in 570 theaters. (We can’t really compare openings here. The numbers we get for the U.K. are actually for the U.K., Ireland, and Malta. It’s similar to the domestic market being Canada and the States. In almost all cases this doesn’t matter, because films open in all three countries at the same time. However, Continental Drift opened in Ireland first, before expanding into the U.K., so there’s no easy way to compare the two results.) At this pace, it looks like Collision Course isn’t going to match its predecessor at the box office. However, it could fail to earn half as much worldwide and still break even on the home market. This might be the last installment in the franchise, on the other hand.
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July 7th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence remained in first place on the international chart with $40.2 million in 64 markets for totals of $177.0 million internationally and $249.9 million worldwide. Its biggest new market was Spain, where it earned $1.7 million. Meanwhile, its biggest holdovers were China ($11.64 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $66.67 million) and the U.K. ($2.69 million in 603 theaters for a two-week total of $12.16 million). Overall, the movie is doing fine, but the film set up an obvious sequel, so the studio was obviously hoping for more than just fine.
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June 30th, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence started its international run in first place with $102.1 million in 57 markets. That's the good news. That bad news is that its biggest market was China, where it only managed second place with $36.09 million, including previews. In most of the rest of the world, the film did no better than it did here, relative to the size of the market. South Korea helped it out with a first place, $5.45 million opening on 926 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $7.49 million. It opened in second place in the U.K. with $6.91 million in 610 theaters, which is no better than its opening here. The film cost a lot to make, so it needs to do better than this to be seen as a financial hit.
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June 22nd, 2016
Finding Dory started its international run in first place with $50.0 million in 29 markets. Its biggest market was China, where it earned second place with 18.15 million over the weekend and $18.18 million including previews. This is not a lot of money compared to last week's winner; however, China is not a market that is kind to animated films. Before this year, no animated movie had earned more than $100 million in China and the current record is held by Zootopia at $235.77 million. Zootopia only made $23.99 million during its opening weekend in China, so this isn't a bad start for Finding Dory. Additionally, Finding Dory doubled Zootopia's opening in Australia with $7.63 million on 524 screens. It also performed very well in Argentina ($3.5 million) and in Russia ($3.25 million on 1,220 screens). It is still too early to tell if Finding Dory will top $1 billion worldwide, but this start gives box office watchers a reason to be optimistic.
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June 21st, 2016
In our prediction column, I said I wanted the top two films to earn a combined total of $150 million to $170 million. Finding Dory's and Central Intelligence's combined opening weekend was $170.60 million. The overall box office was 53% higher than last weekend at $233 million. However, this was still 6.3% lower than the same weekend last year. Finding Dory did do better than either Jurassic World or Inside Out individually, but couldn't compete with their combined totals. 2016 is still ahead of 2015, but its lead was cut by a third at $150 million or 3.1%. That said, 2016 hit $5 billion a week faster than 2015 did and its lead of $5.06 billion to $4.91 billion is still substantial.
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June 18th, 2016
Finding Dory led the way on Friday with $54.95 million. This is the best opening day for a Pixar film and the best opening day for an animated film. Simply, a fantastic start. Our prediction of $129 million seems woefully inadequate. It is a family-friendly film with 95% positive reviews and a CinemaScore of A, so it should have good legs, meaning a $140 million is the new target. This would also be a record for an animated film and put it in the top twenty opening weekends. If this calculation holds true, then getting to $400 million domestically will be an easy feat. Hitting $500 million isn’t out of the question.
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June 16th, 2016
This weekend should be the best weekend in June, led by Finding Dory. Finding Dory should easily be the biggest hit of the month, one of the biggest hits of the year, and the fastest opening film in Pixar's history. On the other hand, Central Intelligence is just hoping for a solid second place opening in its role as counter-programming. If it hits $30 million, then the studio will be very happy. This weekend last year, Jurassic World led the way with $106.59 million, while Inside Out opened in second place with $90.44 million. 2016 is going to lose more ground to 2015. I just hope they keep it close. I will be happy if Finding Dory and Central Intelligence earned a combined $150 million to $170 million.
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June 16th, 2016
Warcraft roared into first place with $185.8 million in 52 markets for totals of $261.7 million internationally and 285.9 million worldwide. There are some amazing news to report from over the weekend, but also some bad news. First the positive news. The film broke records in China earning $156.17 million during its five-day opening. That topped the previous record held by Furious 7. Unfortunately, outside of China, its box office run was much closer to its North American debut. For example, it earned second place in South Korea with $4.26 million on 736 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $5.09 million. Because of how much money the film is earning in China and how little of that the studio sees, the film could make $600 million internationally and still struggle to break even.
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June 14th, 2016
As anticipated, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist led the weekend box office with ease pulling in $40.41 million. The second place film, Warcraft, earned 40% less. Now You See Me 2 only managed third place and it will need a lot of help to break even. The overall box office was $152 million, which is 13% more than last weekend. However, it was also more than $100 million less than this weekend last year. Normally a 44% collapse like this only happens when there is a misalignment in holidays. In this case, it's because of Jurassic World. 2016 is still ahead of 2015 by a substantial margin at $4.76 billion to $4.54 billion. 2016's lead is now 4.8%, more than a full percentage point lower than it was this time last week, but hopefully Finding Dory will help prevent a similar descent this week.
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June 12th, 2016
This weekend’s box office is a tale of two continents. In North America, The Conjuring 2 is off to a great start, easily winning the weekend with $40.35 million, and averaging over $10,000 per theater. In Asia—China to be specific—Warcraft has made a record-breaking debut. Its domestic prospects look horrible though, with just $24.36 million expected for the weekend.
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June 11th, 2016
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist is the only bit of good news to come out of Friday, and even then it was muted. The film earned $16.4 million on Friday, which is enough for first place, but it is also about 3.3% lower than the original’s opening day and sequels really need to open faster than the original. Its outlook for the rest of the weekend is mixed when compared to the first film. Both films earned identical A- CinemaScores, but the sequel’s reviews are weaker and sequels tend to be more front-loaded. Look for an opening weekend of about $38 million. This is a little better than predicted and almost as much as it cost to make. Hopefully it is enough to get to $100 million domestically, because we could use some good news at the box office. Even if it doesn’t quite get to the century mark, as long as it doesn’t completely collapse, it will break even sooner rather than later.
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June 10th, 2016
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist had the best run during Midnight showings earning $3.4 million on Thursday. By comparison, The Conjuring earned $3.3 million during its previews. The Enfield Poltergeist does have a good Tomatometer Score (74% positive), but the Sequel Effect will still be in play and that will limit the film's weekend box office. Look for $35 million, or close to it. This will make it the biggest horror release of 2016 by Sunday, perhaps as early as Saturday.
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June 9th, 2016
If this weekend is as bad as some fear it will be, it could begin to cause a panic among some studio executives. Two of the three wide releases are sequels and there are some who expect both to fail to match their predecessors by significant margins. If this happens, we will have six sequels failing to match expectations during a four-week stretch. Worse still, there are more than six additional sequels left to open before the end of summer. (Finding Dory seems safe, but the rest could flop as well.) The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist should come out on top at the box office, but with less than the original made. Now You See Me 2 will likely continue Lionsgate's losing streak. Meanwhile, Warcraft could do well enough in China to justify a sequel, which is great news, because it will likely bomb here. This weekend last year, Jurassic World opened with $208 million. There's no way the entire box office will make that much this year. 2016 is going to get pummeled in the year-over-year comparison.
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June 3rd, 2016
There are three wide releases coming out next week. The Conjuring 2: The Enfeild Poltergeist is expected to top Now You See Me 2 for top spot. (Warcraft is just hoping to not embarrass itself at this point.) While there is a chance of an upset, The Enfeild Poltergeist has a large enough advantage that I'm confident in making it the target film in this week's Box Office Prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for The Conjuring 2: The Enfeild Poltergeist.
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 of previously reviews DVD and / or Blu-rays. I grabbed a few more boxes from storage, so we can do winner's choice again. The choices are, two movies, one TV on DVD release, three single-disc kids DVDs, or two items from the mystery box.
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 Frankenprize, as described above.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win the final Frankenprize.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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June 1st, 2016
May was great, as long as you don't compare it to last May. Captain America: Civil War was a monster hit and is closing in on $400 million, while both X-Men: Apocalypse and The Angry Birds Movie will earn over $100 million. Looking ahead, every week in June, there is one movie that should top $100 million; however, only Finding Dory is expected to make more than $200 million. In fact, that film is expected to make close to $400 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Last June, there were two monster hits, Inside Out and Jurassic World, plus one $100 million hit, Spy. I don't see how 2016 will top that. Even if every film with a shot at $100 million gets to that milestone, 2016 still might not top last year's pace. Fortunately, 2016 does have a large lead and that could be enough to keep 2016 ahead of 2015's pace in the year-over-year competition. It could be really close at the end of the month, on the other hand.
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