This graph shows Gary Oldman’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
September turned out to be a solid month. The Nun beat expectations to become a $100 million hit, while there were also several midlevel hits in the mix. Granted, it lost ground when compared to last September, but last September broke records, and this September held on better than expected. Hopefully this means October will be able to continue 2018’s winning ways. There are several potential $100 million hits, starting with Venom and A Star is Born, which open the first weekend. Meanwhile, both First Man and Halloween could break the century mark later in the month. By comparison, last October, no movie topped $100 million, with Blade Runner 2049 coming the closest. 2018 should extend its lead over 2017 during the full month, potentially by a significant margin.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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Voting is now closed in our 21st Annual Predict the Academy Awards Competition, and we’re ready to announce the predicted winners in each category.
We have overwhelming favorites in virtually all of the major categories this year, with one glaring exception: Best Picture. That race is a virtual tie between Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Shape of Water. Three Billboards has a very slight edge, with 44% of the vote, while Shape of Water has 43%. Get Out is a long shot, at 6%, and Dunkirk and Lady Bird are the only other films to get a look in, with about 3% each.
With the top two films both getting less than 50% of the votes, it’s fair to say there isn’t a favorite in this race, and any of these five films seems like a conceivable winner. The winner of our contest will likely be someone who makes the right call in this category.
Things are much more clear cut in other categories…
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I will be happy no matter who wins Best Supporting Actress. One last note: The contest is still going and the leading for Best Picture Switched from The Shape of Water to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to tied over the time I was writing this story. This is the closest I’ve ever seen it. Guessing the best picture correctly will go a long way to winning.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and who should just feel honored to be nominated. This week we look at the four acting categories, continuing with Best Lead Actor. As with every other acting category, there is an overwhelming favorite.
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The BAFTAs were handed out on Sunday night, with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri winning the most awards at five. This is not too surprising, as it was technically a British film, despite its setting, and that gave it a leg up on the competition.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year and no one has been able to adequately explain why to me. At least there were some interesting results this year. The Shape of Water led the way with 13 nominations, which is one below the current record and nearly as many as the next two films combined. Overall, there were seventeen films that earned two or more nominations.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and this time The Shape of Water led the way with 12 nominations. The same films appear on many of the lists of nominees, but so far no one film has come to dominate the list. This makes it interesting, to say the least. There’s a good chance no one film will win the majority of prestige awards and that multiple films will have lots of reason to celebrate on February 18th when the awards are handed out.
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The Golden Globes winners were announced on Sunday and there were a few surprises worth talking about, starting at the top. I was not expecting Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to be the big winner of the night, but it was with four wins. Only two other movies, The Shape of Water and Lady Bird, won more than one award during the night.
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The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. So far there have been three different films earning the most nominations. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri picked up four nominations, which is extra impressive, as there are only six theatrical categories.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. Sort of. (WGA announced the nominations for TV, radio, etc., but not their theatrical nods.) It is still very early in the year, so it is hard to say if there are any real snubs, or if there are any real favorites. The Shape of Water led the way with seven nominations, while The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were right behind with six a piece.
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Coco remains the number one movie at the box office this weekend by a considerable margin, mainly due to a lack of serious competition from new releases. Disney’s animated adventure will gross about $18.3 million this weekend, for a domestic total of $135.5 million. The film will also pile up another $55.3 million internationally, taking its worldwide cume to $389.5 million. It still has some big openings to come, including Brazil, Korea, the UK, and Japan in January, so it has some way to go, although its progress will be eclipsed by The Last Jedi for the next few weeks.
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The weekend after Thanksgiving is usually when the studios take a breather before the big Christmas season, and this year is no different, with no new wide releases, and relatively minor shuffles on screen use at the theaters. It’s therefore little surprise that Coco holds on at the top of the chart, and its strong reviews and season-friendly nature help it to extend its lead over Justice League. Coco is headed towards $26.114 million this weekend, according to Disney, for $109 million or so to date. That’s down 49% from last weekend. Justice League, meanwhile, drops a more troubling 60% to $16.58 million, for $197 million after three weekends.
More exciting action lies among the limited and expanding releases, however…
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It is Thanksgiving weekend, but while that’s a great week for wide releases, it’s a terrible one for limited releases. Normally, we only mention films that have ten or more reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. However, this week there are only seven films in total, so we might as well talk about them all. To be fair, just because it is a slow week, doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth checking out. In fact, there are several films worth checking out. The Man Who Invented Christmas is the widest release, opening in over 600 theaters. Call Me by Your Name is clearly the best and it is already making waves during Awards Seasons. Finally, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is the one I’m most interested in seeing.
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The Hitman’s Bodyguard held onto first place for three weeks in a row, and earned just over $75 million domestically on a $30 million budget. Granted, it opened in the middle of the worst box office slump we’ve seen in years, so there was no competition to deal with. Is that the only reason the film did well at the box office? Or is it worth checking out?
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March was a really good month, for the most part. There were a few bombs, but the two biggest films, Zootopia and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, both beat expectations by significant margins, so overall the box office was better than expected. Unfortunately, April is a mess, which makes prognosticating really tough. Every single week has at least one film that either moved, switched from wide to limited release, or disappeared entirely. The Jungle Book appears to be the biggest film of the year, but The Huntsman: Winter's War could also be a $100 million hit. Sadly, last April was led by Furious 7, which earned more than $350 million at the box office. That's very likely more than both The Jungle Book and The Huntsman: Winter's War will make combined. Worse still, there were only four weekends in April last year, meaning the month ends by going head-to-head with The Avengers: Age of Ultron. By the time the month ends, 2016's lead over 2015 might be gone. Let's hope it is not that bad.
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Overall, June was not good. Most films matched expectations, or came close enough that there weren't major disappointments. However, it looks like How to Train Your Dragon 2 will miss expectations by more than $100 million. This was such a massive amount that 2014 lost its lead over 2013 and not even Transformers: Age of Extinction's $100 million opening was able to turn things around. Looking forward to July, there's not a lot of good news. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes might be the only film coming out during July that will reach the $100 million milestone, but on the high end, it might reach the $200 million mark. There are a few others that have a shot, but are not favored to reach the century mark. On the other hand, there are more films that may or may not open / expand wide and even if they do, they will likely have no real impact at the box office. By comparison, last July, Despicable Me 2 was the top draw and finished with more than $350 million. There were also four other films that surpassed $100 million at the box office. It seems practically impossible for 2014 to match those numbers and will likely finish the month behind last year's pace. Overall, 2014 isn't doing poorly, but the summer has been much weaker than the spring was, so we've gone from potential record breaking year to merely average.
When the RoboCop remake was announced, a lot of people thought it would be a disaster. The original RoboCop is widely considered a classic that not only offers a lot of action, but is also a smart satire. Some where expecting the film to be a complete train wreck. That wasn't the case, at least not with critics. Granted, 49% positive isn't a good score, but it is better than expected. Will I like it more than I thought I would? Or will I recommend skipping this movie and sticking with the original?
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After a weak start, January rebounded and a couple of films on last month's preview cracked $100 million at the box office. Granted, Lone Survivor is technically a December release, but Ride Along will become one of the rare January releases to reach the century mark. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be too many February releases that have a real shot at $100 million. It is very likely that The Lego Movie will reach that milestone, but most of the rest of the movies will be lucky if they reach $50 million. Last February was very similar. We had one surprise $100 million hit, Identity Thief, plus a couple of solid midlevel hits, Warm Bodies, for instance. However, for the most part, the month was one miss after another. This means 2014 could continue its winning ways, or at the very least, shouldn't fall behind 2013's pace.
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Top-grossing actors and actresses in leading roles
Over the past two or so years, we've been working on one of the biggest projects we've ever undertaken: building out our database of acting and technical credits to include complete information on every acting role and significant technical credit for movies for which we have box office information. While work on this vast task continues (and will, of course, continue as long as films are being made), we have enough coverage of the industry now to start doing some serious analysis. Over the next month or two, I'll be looking at some of the things we've found and we'll be rolling out new features at The Numbers that take advantage of the dataset. This week, I'll look into how we are categorizing acting roles, and discuss the first charts in our new People Records section.
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July was hit and miss at the box office, mostly miss. In fact, only two films really topped expectations, Despicable Me 2 and The Conjuring. That said, 2013 has nearly closed the gap with 2012 and it won't take much to pull ahead. Looking forward to August, we find that it is a very busy month with 16 or so films opening wide over five weeks. Of course, the closer you get to September, the more likely these films will struggle to find an audience, and more often than not, there are simply too many films opening wide to suspect they will all find an audience. On the high end, 2 Guns could be the biggest hit of the month with just over $100 million. The Smurfs 2 and Elysium could pull in $100 million. All three of those films are opening in the first two weeks of the month. After that, most of the new releases will be lucky if they reach $50 million during their theatrical runs. By comparison, last August was not as busy with 14 wide releases. Of those, only one film, The Bourne Legacy, topped $100 million, although a couple came reasonably close. Hopefully we will have more $100 million hits this time around and 2013 will be able to complete the comeback.
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