November 9th, 2015
There are a couple of big hits on this week's list of new releases. Terminator: Genisys was a monster hit internationally, but it failed to live up to expectations here. On the other hand, Trainwreck earned $100 million here, but barely made a peep internationally. Of these two films, Trainwreck is the only one worth picking up. In fact, it is a Contender for Pick of the Week. However, I'm still waiting for the screener and I hate to give out this title when a screener is on its way. Because of that, I'm going with Better Call Saul: Season One as the Best of the Best, but it isn't the only other title worth picking up.
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July 20th, 2015
The top of the box office had a small surprise, as Ant-Man earned first place with $57.23 million over the weekend. This is a little lower than predicted, but Minions really collapsed, so Ant-Man easily won the race for the top of the box office race. Meanwhile, Trainwreck had a solid third place opening and could be on its way to $100 million, thanks in part to its target demographic and to its reviews. Overall, the box office pulled in $194 million. This is 9.6% lower than last weekend, but more importantly, it is 30% higher than the same weekend last year. 30%. That's a massive margin of victory. Year-to-date, 2015 has pulled in $6.20 billion, which is 8.1% more than 2014's pace. Summer is winding down, so 2015 is in a great place moving into the slower part of the year. Even if August and September are slower than average, there's almost no chance 2015 will blow through the $460 million lead it has over 2014.
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July 14th, 2015
As expected Minions dominated the box office earning first place with more than a 50% share of the total box office. It became the fourth film to open with more than $100 million this year. Three of those were released by Universal. On the other hand, the less said about The Gallows or Self/Less the better. To be fair, The Gallows earned more during its opening day that it cost to make, but its advertising budget is much bigger than its production budget. Meanwhile, Self/Less barely topped the Mendoza Line (earning only just over $2,000 per theater). The overall box office reached $215 million, which was 59% more than last week and 43% the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2015 has earned $5.92 billion, which is 6.4% higher than last year's pace.
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July 12th, 2015
2015 is becoming a golden year for blockbuster openings, and a platinum year for Universal. The studio is celebrating yet again, with Minions heading to a gigantic $115.2 million projected opening weekend. That’s the second-best debut of all time for an animated film (see all-time opening weekend records), although, incredibly, it’s only the third-best weekend for the studio this year after the debuts of Furious 7 and Jurassic World. The studio, which would usually consider a 12% market share an excellent year, has so far earned a whopping 26% share for 2015—quite literally off the charts.
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July 11th, 2015
The Friday estimates are in and Minions pulled in $46.2 million. On the one hand, this makes my job as a box office analyst easy, because all I have to say is “Wow!” On the other hand, it is hard to compare this film to others to calculate its most likely weekend haul, because there are so few animated films that opened this well.
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July 9th, 2015
Of the three wide releases this week, only Minions is dominating the box office tracking. Unfortunately, its reviews are nowhere near as strong as they were at the beginning of the month. Even worse, they are twice as good as the reviews for Self/Less and The Gallows. The Gallows should earn a spot in the top five during its opening weekend, but the prospects for Self/Less are not as good. This weekend last year, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opened with $72.61 million. Minions should crush that number. Also, last year only three films earned more than $10 million over the weekend, while this year, the top five should do the same. 2015 should earn a solid win in the year-over-year comparison.
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July 1st, 2015
June was a much better month than expected due to two films, Jurassic World and Inside Out. Had those two films merely matched expectations, then 2015 would have likely fallen behind 2014. As for this coming month, there are five weekends in July and each week there is at least one film with the potential to reach $100 million. Most weeks there are two films that at least have a shot at getting to the century mark. The biggest hit of the month will likely be Minions, which has already opened in several international markets and it's ahead of Despicable Me 2 at the same point. That film made more than $300 million and nearly $1 billion worldwide, so any growth would be fantastic. There are also a number of potential $200 million films, led by Ant-man. Ant-man is the latest release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that has averaged $300 million domestically over eleven films and all of the past six films have reached at least $200 million. I'm not saying this one is guaranteed to do the same, but you can't dismiss that possibility. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and Pixels have smaller chances to get to $200 million, but you have to at least entertain the possibility. Additionally, last July was a lot weaker than this July looks to be, so 2015 should win in the year-over-year comparison most weeks. Or I might have let the box office success of June cloud my judgment. We will soon find out.
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