October 7th, 2008
It's not a good week for first-run releases, as there's not a single one from that group that would get serious contention for DVD Pick of the Week. However there are a number of other contenders, including classic releases Sleeping Beauty - Two-Disc Platinum Edition - on Blu-ray and Ray Harryhausen - Ultimate Collector's Giftset on DVD or Blu-ray. There as also a couple of TV on DVD picks to look at like 30 Rock - Season Two and Robot Chicken - Season Three. The final release this week that I would like to give a shout out to is Jack Brooks - Monster Slayer on DVD. (Finally, there are a couple of late spotlight reviews that are worth picking up: NCIS - Season Five and Ghost Whisperer - Season Three.) One last note. While first run releases were weak, the overall list was long and the second part of my run-down can be found here.
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November 14th, 2006
With Thanksgivings just around the corner, there are a lot of releases coming out this week.
You see, every time this year there's a media report that the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year.
However, this is not true.
Christmas Eve is actually the biggest shopping day of the year (talk about last minute gifts).
Even so, Thanksgiving is still a massively important time of the year and there's no surprise that studios are trying to get out as many gift ideas as possible just in time for the holiday rush.
With that in mind, there are several full series sets coming out this week, including DVD Pick of the Week contender Get Smart - The Complete Series - Buy Direct.
However, when it comes to the winner, there's really only one choice and that is Looney Tunes - Golden Collection - Volume Four - Buy from Amazon.
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October 28th, 2006
Despite a glut of
new releases Click was able to remain on the top of the rental charts. This week it dipped just 20% to $9.03 million over the week and $20.54 million after two.
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October 16th, 2006
It's a rather slow week for DVD releases with fewer than normal instantly jumping out as must haves. There were some contenders for DVD Pick of the Week with the top two being Masters of Horror: Larry Cohen - Pick Me Up - Buy from Amazon and Over the Hedge - Buy from Amazon. If I were to give the edge to one of them, it would be Over the Hedge.
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July 9th, 2006
Last minute updates in weekend numbers showed that it was
The Da Vinci Code and not
Poseidon grabbing the final spot in the top five. It was an exceedingly close race with the former film topping the latter by less than $3000 both with $5.68 million.
The Da Vinci Code earned its box office on 4352 screens in 57 markets while
Poseidon needed just 3584 in 48. On the other hand, their running tallies are worlds apart with
The Da Vinci Code leading $507.68 million to $94.72 million. That film became just the 12th film to cross $500 million internationally and is less than $20 million from overtaking
Finding Nemo for 10th place on the international charts.
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July 2nd, 2006
Scary Movie 4 opened in first place in both France and Spain, helping the film into sixth place overall with $4.89 million on 1512 screens in 22 markets for a total of $74.72 million internationally. In Spain the film made $1.76 million on 400 screens over the weekend and $1.83 million in total, while in France it brought in $3.47 million on 571 screens, but that was for the full week.
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June 21st, 2006
Openings in South Korea and Taiwan helped
X-Men: The Last Stand climb into first place on the international charts with $14.64 million on 6271 screens in 57 markets for an international total of $180.81 million. (Which, like last week's international total, is another palindrome. What are the odds of that?) The film earned $5.9 million on 353 in South Korea and $1.4 million on 166 screens in Taiwan, finishing first in both markets. However, they were not the only results of note this week as the film dipped just 16% to $1.37 million on 459 screens over the weekend for a total of $32.16 million in total. At this point, even if the film didn't have any additional openings left, it would still cross the $200 million mark before its run was over. As it is, it has yet to open in both China and Japan and could earn more internationally than it did stateside.
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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 14th, 2006
The world's attention is focused on the World Cup, except for in the United States, which only has three days left till they are eliminated. This caused a huge drop in box office revenue in most markets, but
The Da Vinci Code still led with a strong $22.05 million on 9889 screens in 65 markets for a total of $453.40 million on the international stage. That ranks it 16th internationally while its $640.28 million worldwide puts it ahead of
The Passion of the Christ, among others, and into 27th place on the
All Time Charts. The film is still leading in a few major markets including Germany at $1.29 million on 905 screens over the weekend and $41.69 million in total and Italy at $1.50 million on 645 screens for a total of $32.90 million. However, both those markets are also
football-crazed, which led to drop-offs of 72% and 79% respectively. Its best market over the weekend and overall is Japan where it was down just 25% to $4.45 million on 767 screens for a total of $55.53 million after four weeks of release.
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June 12th, 2006
The weekend went more or less according to plan.
Cars won the box office crown with ease, but it just didn't quite earn as much as most had expected.
This didn't hurt the overall box office too much as it reached $154 million, up 13.3% from last weekend and more importantly up 6.8% from the same weekend last year.
This puts the summer box office even with last year while year-to-date 2006 is up by 3%.
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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 8th, 2006
Movie analysts are holding their breath to see if Cars will be the first misstep from Pixar. It is true that the film is earning much weaker reviews than the company has averaged, but it still should be a massive box office hit.
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June 6th, 2006
We have a very rare Tuesday opening this week as
The Omen debuts in more than 2600 theatres tonight. The strategy is simple, take advantage of the 6/6/6 date, but will this work or has the studio made a terrible miscalculation?
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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 26th, 2006
Not much this week in terms of new sites or updates and all the ones that are award-worthy have already won the weekly website award. The best of the rest is
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift -
Official Site, but it certainly doesn't deserve to win the awards.
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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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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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February 2nd, 2006
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. It was another slow week with nothing really grabbing my attention and nothing award-winning, (although there are a couple of sites that show promise). Hopefully some of the summer blockbusters will start launching flash sites so this slump can end.
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