January 16th, 2012

It's a slow week on the home market; there are four first run wide releases on this week's list, which is not bad, but only one of those, The Ides of March, earned reviews that were even remotely good. Unfortunately, there are only a few smaller releases that are worth checking out, so it's a pretty shallow week as well. As far as Pick of the Week is concerned, The Ides of March on DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack win that honor, practically by default. More...



September 19th, 2011

There were three new wide releases this past weekend, but it was a re-release, The Lion King, that dominated at the box office. This success is really good news, because all three new wide releases, Drive, I Don't Know How She Does It, and Straw Dogs, missed expectations. The overall movie industry generated just over $101 million this weekend, compared to $82 million last weekend, which is a 24% increase. This weekend last year, the overall box office was just under $101 million, so yes, 2011 squeezed out a win this week, even if it was by less than 1%. Year-to-date, 2011 has earned $7.70 billion, compared to $8.01 billion it earned last year. We are going to need to see some big wins over the coming weeks if 2011 is going to have a shot at closing that gap by the end of December. More...



September 12th, 2011

The weekend after the Labor Day long weekend is often the worst weekend of the year, and that appears to be the case this time around. No film matched Thursday's predictions, although a couple came relatively close, like Contagion. Unfortunately, the rest of the new releases really bombed and most of the holdovers fell significantly more than expected. This led to the box office falling 24% from last weekend to just $82 million. This is the lowest it's been all year, and lower than last year, but by less than 1%. Unless next weekend will be even worse, and it is almost hard to imagine that as a possibility, this will be the lowest point for the year. On the other hand, there's a chance that we don't dip below this level for a long, long time, if ever. Given population growth and inflation, hitting these low points are less likely each year. More...



September 8th, 2011

The weekend after the Labor Day long weekend tends to be one of the worst, if not the worst weekend of the year, but that probably won't be the case this year. This weekend we have four wide releases, one of which is a bit of a surprise wide release. One of them, Contagion, could wind up being a real hit. The other three, well, they are not opening truly wide. Maybe The Warrior will be a sleeper hit, but the other two could struggle to reach the top ten. By comparison, this weekend last year Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D was a surprise hit with $26.65 million. It's not terribly likely any film will match that opening, but 2011 has better depth and hopefully that will be the key to victory. More...



September 1st, 2011

After a strong start, August ended on a really low note, and that's bad news for September, as it means the positive momentum we had is gone. Looking at the upcoming month, there are 18 films opening wide over five weekends (including one re-release) but only four or five of them have a real shot at being midlevel hits, and it is unlikely that all of them will get there. Worse still, there are no films opening this month that look like they will match The Town, which made more than $90 million last September. In fact, the selection of releases is so weak that the film I'm most looking forward to is a limited release that has already come out on Video on Demand, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. (It has seventeen reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and still not a negative one among them.) More...

