December 5th, 2017
The week is deceptively strong. At first glance, Despicable Me 3 appears to have scared off all of the competition, but when you look deeper, there are a lot of contenders for Pick of the Week. These include Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series, Better Watch Out, Princess Cyd, and others. In the end, I went with Long Time Running, which came out on DVD and Blu-ray last Friday.
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September 26th, 2017
The weekend box office was good, for a September weekend, but disappointing compared to expectations. Kingsman: The Golden Circle did earn first place, but with only $39.02 million. Granted, this is great for September, but $10 million less than our prediction, and our prediction wasn’t even on the high end of expectations. The Lego Ninjago Movie struggled in third place with $20.43 million. The shine has come off the Lego franchise. Fortunately, It continues to be strong and that helped the overall box office. We saw 5.6% growth from last weekend reaching $117 million. This is also 13% higher than the same weekend last year, so there’s clearly reason to celebrate. 2017 is still behind 2016 in the year-to-date comparison, but it closed the gap to 4.7% or $390 million at $7.94 billion to $8.33 billion.
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September 21st, 2017
There are three wide releases coming out this week, which is one more than anticipated. Kingsman: The Golden Circle is widely expected to earn first place during the weekend, but The Lego Ninjago Movie is widely expected to have longer legs and that could give it the win overall. Meanwhile, Friend Request is just hoping to earn a spot in the top five. It’s not a sure bet that it will. Meanwhile, It will relinquish first spot and fall to third place, but still earn a ton of money. This weekend last year, the one-two punch of The Magnificent Seven and Storks helped the overall box office pull in $104 million. The top three films this year should earn more than that, to give 2017 another win. It will still take a lot to recover, but this result at least makes that possible.
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September 21st, 2017
War for the Planet of the Apes returned to the top of the chart earning $62.9 million in 21 markets for totals of $287.9 million internationally and $433.8 worldwide. The film debuted in first place in China with $59.66 million over the weekend for a total opening of $61.07 million.
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September 20th, 2017
The winners of our Assassinate the Competition contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for American Assassin’s opening weekend were...
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September 19th, 2017
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It beat expectations again, earning $60.10 million over the weekend, which would have been an amazing opening weekend for a film that cost $35 million to make. American Assassin did okay, given its budget, while mother! struggled. Overall, the box office fell from last weekend, which is not surprising, given It’s monster opening last weekend. A decline of 32% is stark, but a weekend haul of $111 million is still great for this time of year. Compared to this weekend last year, 2017 won by a 24%, which is fantastic. Year-to-date, 2017 is still way behind by $410 million or 5.0% at $7.79 billion to $8.20 billion. However, 2017 has cut into 2016’s lead by $90 million in just two weeks, so you can’t complain about that.
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September 17th, 2017
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It continues to be a powerhouse at the box office this weekend with a second-weekend $60 million expected by Warner Bros., off a very respectable 51% from its opening. Remarkably, that would comfortably have been the best weekend in September, were it not for the film’s $123 million opening last weekend. It’s already the highest-grossing film ever released in September, and should make it easily to $300 domestically.
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September 16th, 2017
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As expected, It dominated Friday with $19.2 million. Its running tally is $177.91 million after just 8 days of release, putting it in top spot on the all-time September chart. It looks to be on pace for $57 million over the full weekend, which is even better than expected, giving it a running tally of over $210 million. A 55% decline is excellent in this day and age, especially for a horror film, as the genre tends to have shorter legs. This will make it the 8th film released in 2017 to get to $200 million. It will also become only the fourth horror film to get to $200 million and just the 16th R-Rated film to reach that milestone. Furthermore, while next week’s competition is stronger, it is currently on pace to reach $300 million domestically, which is more than most people originally predicted it would earn worldwide. Perhaps this means we will be getting a big-budget At the Mountains of Madness adaptation after all. Previously, no studios wanted to make a big-budget R-rated horror movie, but this film proves they can be profitable.
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September 15th, 2017
American Assassin earned $915,000 during its previews, which isn’t a lot, but it is also not unexpected. To put this into perspective, this is actually a little ahead of John Wick, which earned $870,000 before earning $14.42 million during its opening weekend. If American Assassin had the same legs, it would earn just over $15 million during its opening weekend. I think that’s a little too optimistic, as its reviews are mixed, while John Wick wowed critics. We predicted a $12 million opening weekend for this film and I remain confident in that number.
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September 15th, 2017
There are two wide releases debuting this week: American Assassin and mother! Neither is expected to match It at the box office. In fact, both combined won’t match It’s sophomore stint. Neither will earn as much in total as It does over just this weekend. This weekend last year, Sully led the way with $21.65 million, while the three new releases earned about $26 million combined. It should earn more than those four films earned combined, giving 2017 its second massive win in a row.
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September 13th, 2017
The winners of our Do You Have It? contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for It’s opening weekend were...
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September 8th, 2017
American Assassin and mother! are both expected to come close to $50 million during their domestic box office run. However, while neither film has a real advantage over the long term, American Assassin is expected to open faster and because of that, it is the target film in this week’s box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening three-day weekend box office number for American Assassin.
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 their choice of either one TV on DVD release, two movies, or a kids package (could be a theatrical release, a couple of single-disc TV on DVD releases, or a full season TV on DVD release).
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, as described above.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don’t delay!
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September 1st, 2017
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As bad as July was, August actually managed to be worse. 2017 was over $300 million behind 2016’s pace during August alone. That’s worse than the rest of the summer combined. The only film that was an unqualified hit was Annabelle: Creation, although there were a couple of other films that are doing well enough to be considered financial hits. There’s some good news and some bad news for this September. The month gets off to a slow start with no wide releases the first weekend, but there are three films opening during the rest of the month that are expected to top $100 million and all three should be better than the best August had to offer. It is expected to be the biggest hit of the month and is tracking to break the record for the biggest September weekend. Both Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Lego Ninjago Movie are expected to cross $100 million, although they are opening the same weekend, so that could hurt both of their chances. Meanwhile last September, Sully was the biggest release of the month earning $125.07 million. It should top that, while Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Lego Ninjago Movie won’t be too far behind. 2017 should cut the gap with 2016, but sadly only by a little bit.
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April 19th, 2017
Thriller starring Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, and Sanaa Lathan, directed by Michael Cuesta, opens September 15 ... Full Movie Details.
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