January 14th, 2008
Not a single DVD sold a million units or more this week, but there were three new releases to reach the top five on this week's sales chart.
This includes Resident Evil: Extinction, which sold 856,000 units to place first with opening week revenue of $16.03 million.
More...
January 14th, 2008
New releases were few and far between on the rental chart this week, but War did top the charts with $11.78 million.
More...
December 31st, 2007
Another irritating week for releases with several movies coming out on Tuesday, January 1st, and others coming out on Wednesday (and I've heard some reports that some of these are already in store). Normally this would cause a lot of confusion, but this week there's barely a dozen releases worth mentioning. Even then there are more than a few that feel like I was just padding the list. The best release in term of extras is War on Blu-Ray, which takes advantage of the technology like no other High Definition release on either format. On the other hand, Shoot 'Em Up is the best movie and the DVD Pick of the Week on either DVD or Blu-Ray.
More...
September 30th, 2007
Ratatouille opening in first place in South Africa this weekend earning $298,000 on 40 screens, which is very close to what The Simpsons Movie made in its opening there a few weeks ago. Its best market of the weekend remains France where it was down a mere 4% to $1.67 million on 655 screens over the weekend for a total of $58.63 million. At this pace, the film will reach $60 million by this time next week while topping Finding Nemo's total of nearly $65 million is increasingly in reach. Overall Ratatouille added $4.66 million on 2535 screens in 27 markets for a total of $216.42 million, which is more than Cars managed, and this film still has openings in Germany, U.K., Italy, and Scandinavia.
More...
September 23rd, 2007
Rush Hour 3 missed spending its fifth week in fifth place by less than $4000 at $5.69 million on 2443 screens in 31 markets for a total of $69.71 million. This weekend the film opened in first place in Russia with $2.28 million on 385 screens while it had to settle for second place in Denmark with $485,000 on 41 screens over the weekend and $517,000 in total.
More...
September 17th, 2007
The weekend was, for the most part, very predictable with The Brave One opening a little softer that expected while D-War opened a little stronger. However, overall there are not many surprises worth talking about. This includes the overall box office, which brought in $79 million over the weekend. This was 1% lower than last weekend, but 1% above the same weekend last year. However, at this pace the box office's winning streak over last year will end next weekend.
More...
September 11th, 2007
The weekend after Labor Day is often the worst weekend of the year. Let's hope that's true this year as the overall box office was down to just $80 million, which was a drop-off of 32% from last weekend. On the other hand, it was up $10 million from the same weekend last year, which is a great sign for 2007's chances at breaking more records.
More...
September 10th, 2007
The first weekend of the Fall season was always going to be a quiet affair, but 3:10 to Yuma managed to pull out a pretty decent opening, making $14.1 million according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
That's the biggest debut by a Western since Hidalgo's $18.8 million first weekend back in 2004.
Action flick Shoot 'Em Up wasn't nearly as strong, earning $5.45 million in 2,108 for 6th place.
That, however, seems like blockbuster territory compared to the $525,000 opening in 700 theaters by The Brothers Solomon.
More...
September 9th, 2007
Another week without any top-notch websites, at least one that hasn't previously won the award. At least there are a few with possibilities and the fall blockbusters should start coming launching their sites shortly so the pace should pickup soon.
More...
September 6th, 2007
The weekend after Labor Day. There are few times in the year where the box office is weaker. Strangely, this year we have not one, but two films coming out that are earning overall positive reviews and both have a shot at the top spot.
More...
September 1st, 2007
As we enter the slowest month of the year, the number and quality of website updates has slowed to a crawl as well. I suspect that within a few weeks we will start getting website launches for films opening during the holidays, and that will again give us plenty of award-worthy sites.
More...
September 1st, 2007
After a record-breaking summer, we come to the worst month of the year. There are a few films that look promising, but for the most part the month is filled with projects that should probably never been given the greenlight to begin with. September is a dumping ground for failed projects, and like most similar times of the year, it is crowded with 20 movies that at least have a shot at opening or expanding wide over a period of just four weeks. Five new releases a week is far too many, even if they were all high quality at least half will fail just due to the competition.
More...
August 31st, 2007
Summer is over. But that doesn't mean our box office prediction contests will slow down. This week we have prizes from The Ex, Tutankhamun, and Seeing Redd. To win one must simply predict the box office opening for Shoot 'Em Up. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a The Ex on DVD as well as a Seeing Redd prize pack (book, comics, stickers, etc.). Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win Tutankhamun on DVD and the second Seeing Redd prize pack. Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
More...
August 25th, 2007
After a few busy weeks in a row, there was a total collapse in the number of sites on this week's list. Not only are there only a couple dozen sites this week, nearly half of them are films that are coming out this week and most of those had no updates to report. This leaves us with no sites that are award-worthy, and precious few that have to potential to make it there in the coming weeks.
More...
August 18th, 2007
Busy week with more than 30 sites featured on the list. However, none really stand our as award-worthy; in fact, most only stand because of a lack of style. Hopefully as the fall season progresses and we near the holidays, we will get bigger and better sites launching.
More...
August 5th, 2007
Another big list of movie sites, but not much in the way of top-notch entries. For a movie site to be an award winner, I expect it to have all of the usual features, extras like clips, something interactive like a game, and background sound and animation. The film that best exemplifies that criteria is Stardust - Official Site, which is the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
More...
July 29th, 2007
Server upgrades went... less smoothly than anticipated, which delayed this column, but at least there are a huge number of sites to check out. Many of these sites are making their first appearance on the list while quite a few are making their last appearance. Unfortunately, while it's a big list, there are not many that are even close to being award worthy at the moment. 30 Days of Night - Official Site comes the closest, but I'm waiting for the missing features to be added before I make that decision.
More...
July 14th, 2007
One of the last summer blockbusters launched its full site this week. This means two things, The Bourne Ultimatum - Official Site is the clear winner of the weekly website award. And secondly, there will likely be a slowdown in top-notch sites as we approach the dog days of summer, and the even worse days of September.
More...
July 7th, 2007
The list returns to its normal busy self, in fact, we have several sites making their first appearance this weekend. In addition, there were a couple of older sites that saw massive updates, including this week's winner, Charlie Bartlett - Official Site.
More...
December 28th, 2006
Currently I am taking a vacation and because of that the release dates update will be irregular at best. Things should be back to normal (weekly updates on Sunday) starting Sunday January 21. If I have some time, like today on a rainy day in Singapore, I will try to make updates.
More...
