June 3rd, 2008
This was a bad week for big movies, with not a single first run release is even worth rating a solid purchase, never mind being a contender for DVD Pick of the Week. There were a few other contenders for the title, including Dirty Harry Collection on DVD or Blu-ray. However, I found it impossible to decide which format was the better deal. Had the Blu-ray provided anything more than High Definition, or been a more reasonable price compared to the DVD, it would have been an easier choice. One of them is the DVD Pick of the Week, I just don't know which one. On a side note, there is an immense flood of Blu-ray releases, including a few I thought were coming out previously.
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November 19th, 2006
Cars led a group of
new releases that dominated the sales charts this week, however, it had to settle for a very close second place on the rental charts. Leading the way was
Mission: Impossible: III with $9.31 million while
Cars took in $9.24 million.
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November 11th, 2006
New releases were nearly shut out of the charts this week, however, one new release that did make the charts was
Mission: Impossible: III, which earned top spot with $9.08 million.
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November 4th, 2006
It was a great week for
new releases with three new film in the top five, including a first place finish for
Nacho Libre. During the film's first week of release on DVD, it earned $7.16 million in total rentals, which put it just ahead of the second place film,
The Break-Up, and its $6.93 million.
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October 23rd, 2006
It's a disastrous week for DVD releases with more than half a dozen of them that I rated as must have. I just don't know how I'm going to afford to buy them all, but I will. As for the DVD Pick of the Week, I was able to narrow that list down to three, but I wasn't able to decide on just one. They are, in no particular order: Slither - Buy from Amazon, Greg the Bunny- The Best of the Film Parodies - Buy from Amazon, and Degrassi The Next Generation - Season 4 - Buy from Amazon. And in the better late than never category, we have Her Best Move, which can be purchased directly from the official website. (If I've missed any other releases, don't hesitate to e-mail me and I'll try to correct that oversight as soon as possible.)
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September 24th, 2006
Little Man shot up the charts into sixth place with $5.97 million on 1597 screens in 23 markets for a total of $22.63 million internationally. The film had million dollar debuts in both Spain, ($2.06 million on 250 screens), and Mexico, ($1.04 million on 352), while came reasonably close in Russia, ($960,000 on 217 screens, including midweek numbers). In all three markets, the film placed second on the charts. More amazingly is the film's performance in the U.K. as it dipped just 17% to $1.05 million on 315 screens over the weekend and a three-week total of $5.75 million.
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September 3rd, 2006
A first place opening in the U.K. helped You, Me & Dupree shoot up the charts nearly reaching the top five. While it did have to settle for sixth place, its $4.32 million on 914 screens in 8 markets was enough to push its still early international total to $13.01 million. Over in the U.K., the film picked up $3.10 million on 409 screens and that was more than double its nearest competitor. The film opened in Iceland over the weekend earning second place to Garfield's A Tail of Two Kitties with $42,000 in three theatres.
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August 28th, 2006
Monster House climbed one spot to sixth with $4.48 million on 1498 screens in 14 markets for total of $20.33 million at the international box office. The film added two more midlevel markets but bombed in both. In the Netherlands the film missed the top ten with $89,000 on 65 screens over the weekend and $100,000 in total while it was only slightly better in Poland earning sixth place with $71,000 on 48 screens. Holdovers, on the other hand, were better than expected with the film down a mere 16% during its second weekend in the U.K. with $1.61 million on 425 screens for a total of $5.83 million.
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July 30th, 2006
A first place debut in China lifted
Mission: Impossible 3 into sixth place overall with $5.74 million on 838 screens in 21 markets for a total of $239.82 million. In China it earned $2.8 million on 394 screens while in Japan it managed $2.50 million on 540 for a total of $29.92 million after three weeks of release.
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July 5th, 2006
While we had one film missing expectations, and another beating them by nearly the same amount, for the most part, the weekend played out exactly as expected. Compared to last weekend, the $154 million made at the box office from Friday to Sunday was up 9.4%.
More importantly, it was up 7.9% from the same weekend last year.
(Comparing the 5-day weekend to last year is pointless since the holiday fell on a Monday last year.)
Year-to-date, 2006 is 3% higher than 2005 while the summer pace is ahead by a smaller 1% margin.
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June 28th, 2006
With this being the July 4th long weekend, several films are getting a jump on weekend rush, including what could become the biggest hit of the year. But there seems to be some signs of weakness in the man of steel. Will some cinematic kryptonite spoil Superman's return to theaters?
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June 26th, 2006
Overall, there were little in the way of surprises this weekend with no film beating or missing expectations by more than a few million dollars.
But with no breakout hit, the overall box office slumped by 7.8% from last weekend to $140 million.
This did represent an increase of 9.8% over the same weekend last year.
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June 22nd, 2006
The two releases coming out this week are almost exact opposites of each other. One is a mainstream, proto-blockbuster comedy / fantasy opening in nearly 4,000 theatres. The other is a gritty, violent film aimed at a more targeted audience and is barely opening in more than 1,000 theatres. The only this they really have in common is the critics' reaction, and that's not a good thing.
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June 19th, 2006
Every film in the top five missed our Friday predictions this weekend and this led to a small 1.4% drop off from last weekend.
Overall, box office was in $152 million.
On the other hand, this was up by 11.6% from the same weekend last year.
Strangely, even though the weekend numbers were better this year, the 2006 summer season still slipped behind last year's pace $1.19 billion to $1.34 billion.
This was in part due to Batman Begins strong midweek opening.
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June 16th, 2006
This is actually a pretty busy week with more than two-dozen site on the list. That makes it the busiest week in a month. However, it was one of the site that had no real updates this week that won the Weekly Website Award this week and it was,
Nacho Libre -
Official Site.
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June 15th, 2006
There are enough new movies opening this weekend to cause a traffic jam, and none of them jump out as obvious box office smashes.
Then again, they all have a legitimate shot at $20 million, and along with last week's winner, Cars we could see 5 films top $20 million over the weekend.
The last time that happened was the weekend of June 11th, 2004 when the original Garfield opened.
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June 9th, 2006
It was a slow week it terms of major updates and that allowed the
Fanboy in me to grant
The Transformers -
Official Site the gloriously premature Weekly Website Award. Let's hope the full site lives up to this title.
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June 2nd, 2006
There were a few major updates for a few major movie sites this week, and it was one such site that walked away with the Weekly Website Award -
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -
Official Site.
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June 1st, 2006
May might have gotten off to a slow start, but it sure made up for it in the end. June looks to keep up the fast pace, but out of the dozen or so movies opening wide this month, only two look like they have to potential to be monster hits and after that there is a huge drop-off in box office potential. There are a few others that should earn their keep, and maybe one or two that will surprise, but most look average at best.
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May 19th, 2006
It was a good week for movie sites, although it's hard to tell looking just at the number of sites featured here. However, while the numbers of sites is low, the quality is very high with three sites in the running for the Weekly Website Award, (four if you include
Casino Royale -
Official Site, which I preemptively gave the award to when the placeholder site went live). Both
The Break-Up -
Official Site and
Pulse -
Official Site were also in the running, but in the end I went with
See No Evil -
Official Site. However, I expect the other two sites to win the award in later weeks.
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May 12th, 2006
There's a better than average selection on this week's list, but for the vast majority of the sites, there are only minor changes. The best of the bunch is
Click -
Official Site but there are a several other sites on this week's list that are just a update or two away from being an award winning site.
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May 5th, 2006
It was not a great week when it comes to new websites with most of the really interesting updates coming in the form of new trailers. However, it was one of those sites,
Casino Royale -
Official Site, that was awarded the Weekly Website Award. I just hope when the site goes live in two weeks by Fanboy enthusiasm is rewarded.
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April 28th, 2006
The first of the new Friday edition Weekly Website Review column is here, but not without a hitch. We had a bit of a power outage early in the day so I did what any modern man would do when faced with the prospects of going without the Internet for an undetermined amount of time, I took a nap. Fortunately, I was mostly done before the power went out so there was no real affect on this week's list, but I am starting to this that this column is cursed. As for the list, its pretty average with the best of the bunch being
A Scanner Darkly -
Official Site.
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April 20th, 2006
Another slow week and either I've lost my mojo for finding new and updated sites, or this is the calm before the storm that is the summer box office season. And speaking of
Storm, the best of the bunch this week is
X-Men: The Last Stand -
Official Site.
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April 13th, 2006
Back to normal levels of traffic on this list, but like last week there's not an over abundance of huge sites on this week's list. I hope that changes soon as the summer box office season is just around the corner. The best of the bunch this week is
Hard Candy -
Official Site, which has been slowly growing for months.
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April 6th, 2006
It's a much busier week this week including several sites that I found through e-mails. Thanks for the tips. (On a side note, if you sent me an e-mail regarding a movie site and I forgot it, please send it again. It was a big list this week and I'm almost positive one or two sites slipped between the cracks.) Unfortunately, while there are plenty of sites on this week's list, there's not a lot of top notch ones. The movie on this list that made me the most excited was
The Simpsons Movie, and that one doesn't even have an official movie site, just the
teaser trailer.
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March 30th, 2006
Another week with less sites than I would have liked. (On a side note, it seems every time something weird happens it happens on a Thursday. This time its slight internet connection problems / memory leak. I think. Whatever it is, it's causing my computer to act really slowly.) This shorter list doesn't mean there isn't an award-worthy site and the best of the best is
Over the Hedge -
Official Site.
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March 23rd, 2006
This week's list is shorter than expected, but at least there's a site that clearly deserves to be the winner of the Weekly Website award:
The Inside Man -
Official Site.
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February 9th, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. It was the busiest week in more than a month, but there weren't many big launches or massive updates, so it is the slow-growing
V For Vendetta -
Official Site that earns the Weekly Website Award.
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