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Contest: Ultimate Hunger: Winning Announcement

November 24th, 2015

The winners of our Ultimate Hunger contest contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 opening weekend were...

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Home Market Releases for November 24th, 2015

November 24th, 2015

This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, which means Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While the sales usually mean a massive increase in units sold, the sales also tend to scare away new releases. This is certainly the case here and this week's list is very short as a result. That's not to say there are no releases worth picking up. In fact, there are several Pick of the Week contenders, led by Shaun the Sheep on Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray Combo Pack. Meanwhile, for the second week in a row, we have a Puck of the Week, for best Canadian release, Guidance on DVD.

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Featured Blu-ray / DVD Review: American Ultra

November 23rd, 2015

American Ultra was released in late August, which is a terrible time of the year to release a movie. Additionally, American Ultra is a Black Comedy, which is one of the hardest genres to pull off. It is very hard to balance the darker elements and the comedy and the tonal shifts that are not perfect will irritate critics. Even black comedies that do earn good reviews rarely connect with moviegoers, because it is a niche market. This film earned mixed reviews and bombed at the box office. Did it deserve better? Will it at least satisfy fans of the genre?

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Contest: Ultimate Hunger

November 11th, 2015

Next week, there are three wide releases, but only one of them matters: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2. It is legitimately the only choice for the target film for this week's Box Office Prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of American Ultra on DVD.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of American Ultra on DVD.

Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win the final copy of American Ultra on DVD.

Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!

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Home Market Releases for November 10th, 2015

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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Weekend Wrap-Up: Compton Wins the War over the New Releases

August 31st, 2015

August is over and the number one film over the full month remained in first place for the third weekend in a row. Only one of the three new releases did well, War Room, as it topped the high end of exceptions. The other two wide releases bombed, in the case of No Escape, and bombed hard, in the case of We Are Your Friends. The overall box office plummeted 17% to just $88 million over the weekend. That's so low that I double-checked the numbers. Granted, there are likely a few limited releases that we don't have weekend numbers for yet, so this number isn't final. However, even the final number won't be that much higher than this, certainly not high enough to make a real difference. This was also 21% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2015 is still ahead of 2014 by nearly $400 million at $7.39 billion to 7.00 billion, so this slump isn't terrible news. However, I would really like it to end sooner rather than later.

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Weekend Wrap-Up: Box Office Assassinated

August 25th, 2015

It was an ugly weekend, for the most part. Straight Outta Compton fell about as fast as expected, but that was more than enough to dominate the new releases and push it past an important milestone. On the other hand, the biggest new release, Sinister 2, only managed third place, while the less said about Hitman: Agent 47 and American Ultra, the better. Overall, the box office fell 27% to $107 million. Like I said on Friday, summer is most definitely over. Worse still, this figure is 7.3% lower than the same weekend last year. Had all three new releases matched expectations, the box office would have practically matched last year's pace. Year-to-date, 2015 has pulled in $7.26 billion, which is 5.3% head of 2014's running tally of $6.90 billion.

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Weekend Estimates: Compton Brushes Off Newcomers

August 23rd, 2015

As expected, Straight Outta Compton is continuing to dominate at the box office this weekend, with a second weekend of $26.76 million and a total of $111.5 million projected by Universal on Sunday morning. In fact, Compton is so dominant that the music biopic will earn more than the combined grosses of all three debutants. Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation’s fourth-weekend $11.7 million will be enough for second place.
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Friday Estimates: Sinister Starts Strong, but Can't Save Summer

August 22nd, 2015

As expected, Sinister 2 was the best of the new releases, earning $4.7 million on Friday. This is “strong” in the loosest sense of the word. The horror sequel had an opening day that was 37% lower than the first film’s and it is only going to get worse. Sequels tend to be more front-loaded than original films and the reviews will scare away moviegoers for the rest of the weekend. Worst case scenario has the film earning less than $10 million this weekend and even the best case scenario is just $12 million. The lower end seems more likely, so look for between $10 million and $11 million over the full weekend. This is more than it cost to make, on the other hand, so the studio might still recoup its total budget sometime on the home market.

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Weekend Predictions: Summer's Over. Oh boy, is Summer Over!

August 21st, 2015

After last week's reprieve, summer truly ends this week. There are three wide releases coming out, none of which are expected to become even midlevel hits. Also, none of them are earning overall positive reviews. The biggest movie is Sinister 2, which is expected to do well enough to earn a profit, mostly thanks to its very low production budget. American Ultra is the best in terms of Tomatometer Score—by a huge margin. However, it is still earning less than 50% positive reviews by a large margin. The biggest movie in terms of production budget is Hitman: Agent 47, which is bad news for the studio, because it is not expected to do well. In fact, there's almost no chance any of the three new releases will top Straight Outta Compton this weekend. There's a small chance that their combined openings won't top Straight Outta Compton. There is some good news. This weekend last year, there were no movies that earned more than $20 million, which is the absolute low end of Straight Outta Compton's range. On the other hand, If I Stay was the best new release with $15.68 million. That's more than any of the wide releases this year will earn and it only managed third place last year. I think 2015 will win with ease at the top of the chart, but 2014 might have better depth, keeping it ahead in the year-over-year comparison.

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2015 Preview: August

August 1st, 2015

It is still a little too soon to tell how July will finish, as we don't have any numbers for the final weekend at the time of writing. We know Minions was a monster hit and that Ant-man will be a financial success. However, until we see how Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation does, it will be impossible to call the month a true success. If Rogue Nation bombed this weekend, then the month is only a partial success. It would also mean the summer of 2015 could be coming to an abrupt end. As for August, only Fantastic Four has a better than 50/50 chance of reaching $100 million; although some people think Straight Outta Compton also has a shot at that milestone. Besides those two, only a couple of other films even have a realistic shot at becoming midlevel hits. Worse still, last August was amazing with Guardians of the Galaxy breaking records. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also did better than expected with a domestic haul of nearly $200 million. No release this August is going to match that figure. There's a good chance the top two releases combined won't do so. Fortunately, 2015 has a sizable lead over 2014, so even a soft month will keep 2015 ahead in the year-over-year comparison.

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