March 21st, 2016
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This week, there are not many releases to talk about and one of them, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, is dominating the list so much that I could ignore the rest of the list and very little of substance would be lost. I'm not going to do that, but I could. The Box Set is a contender for Pick of the Week, but I'm still waiting for the screener. City Lights is another contender for Pick of the Week, but in the end, I went with the Canadian movie, Mountain Men on DVD, which is Puck of the Week.
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December 15th, 2015
We have a new champion on top of the per theater chart this week, as The Big Short earned one of the best limited release openings of the year. Its average of $88,191 was behind only Steve Jobs for the year and Steve Jobs opened in half as many theaters as The Big Short, 8 to 4. Carol remained strong in second place with an average of $21,105 in 16 theaters. Thankfully it is expanding, but I'm worried the studio waited too long and it won't reach its potential. Yellow Day opened with an average of $13,130 in two theaters. The Danish Girl rounded out the $10,000 club with an average of $10,964 in 24 theaters. By this time next week, it could be over $1 million in total.
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December 8th, 2015
For the third weekend in a row, Carol earned first place on the per theater chart, this time with an average of $36,281. It is still playing in only four theaters, which is a huge mistake in my mind. It really should have expanded by now. The Danish Girl remained in second place with an average of $26,089, also in four theaters. It too should expand. The best new release was Youth, which opened with an average of $19,521, again in four theaters. Macbeth was playing in five theaters and earned an average of $13,967. Hitchcock/Truffaut opened with an average of $9,393 in three theaters over the weekend, but it was a Wednesday release. Its five-day average was $11,927.
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December 6th, 2015
Krampus is providing the industry with some surprise post-Thanksgiving, pre-Holiday cheer this weekend, with an opening well ahead of expectations amongst a crowd of slightly disappointing results. Mockingjay, Part 2 will top the chart with $18.6 million, which is off a surprisingly steep 64%. With the film expected to hit $20 million or so this weekend, that’s a disappointment, and makes a final total of $300 million look just out of reach. The Good Dinosaur was expected to have the legs of a Pixar movie, and is instead looking more like a run-of-the-mill high-budget animated film, so instead of topping $20 million, it is down 60% to $15.5 million for the weekend. That left an opening for Krampus, which will take second spot overall with a $16-million debut.
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December 5th, 2015
2015 has had some record highs, but plenty of record lows as well. The weekend after Thanksgiving is historically one of the low points of the year. However, this year it is doing rather well thanks to a surprisingly fast start by Krampus. Don't get me wrong. This isn’t going to be a monster hit, and probably not even a midlevel one. However, it earned $6.01 million on Friday, which is enough for first place and excellent for this time of year. With a start like this and overall positive reviews, it might top $15 million during its opening weekend, which is more that it is estimated to have cost.
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December 3rd, 2015
The weekend after Thanksgiving is historically a really bad time of the year at the box office. This year there is only one wide release risking it, Krampus. However, this is one more wide release than we had this week last year. There is also a semi-wide release coming out, The Letter, but its reviews are terrible and its box office chances might be even worse. This should give The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 an easy path to first place. In fact, the top three will likely remain the same as last weekend. Fortunately, the holdovers this year are stronger than the holdovers last year, so 2015 should win in the year-over-year comparison.
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