March 15th, 2013
It is a pretty busy week for limited releases with a number of them that could do well. Blancanieves should do well in art house cinemas, but it is too out there for mainstream success. Likewise, From Up on Poppy Hill should draw in fans of Anime, but there are not enough of them to allow the film to expand significantly. Ginger and Rosa has more appeal to mainstream audiences and strong buzz, but its reviews are only good and not great. Spring Breakers is also earning reviews that are good, but not great. However, it has a planned wide opening next week, so unless that falls apart, it will be the biggest hit on this week's list.
More...
February 1st, 2013
For the most part, January was a really good month and 2013 got off to a really good start. I'm not so sure about February, on the other hand. There's only one film that has a statistically significant shot at $100 million, A Good Day to Die Hard, but I'm a little concerned that it won't live up to expectations. The franchise has been around a long time and it is possible that the target audience has either moved on or are too young to remember when these films were huge at the box office. The film I'm most looking forward to seeing is Warm Bodies, which is earning amazing early reviews (the keyword there is "early"), but it is too high-concept to be a major hit. Last February, there were a couple of films that topped $100 million, plus a few other midlevel hits. I would like to think that would also be the case this year, but I have to be more cautious than that. The evidence points to a weak month ahead, for the most part.
More...