The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes will pull off a surprise second win at the box office over Thanksgiving weekend, besting Disney’s latest animated feature and the historical grandeur of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon to pull off the win. Songbirds will make $28.82 million this weekend, according to Lionsgate’s Sunday-morning prediction. That’s a drop of 35% from its opening weekend.
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Napoleon Bonaparte’s relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine, showcasing his visionary military and political tactics.
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The absolutely spectacular performance of The Super Mario Bros. Movie at the box office, plus new announcements from Apple, among others, gives our 2023 market prediction a substantial power-up this month. Our overall market prediction currently stands at slightly over $10 billion, up a massive $800 million from last month.
Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, three new wide releases catapult into theaters with Wednesday arrivals. The largest of the three is Encanto. Directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush, and with original songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Encanto opens in 3,980 locations. Coming in next is the biographical crime drama, House of Gucci, directed by Ridley Scott and starring an ensemble cast of top level Hollywood actors, including Jared Leto, Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Lady Gaga, and Al Pacino. House of Gucci is set to release in 3,441 theaters. Lastly, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in 2,803 cinemas. The $25 million action horror reboot stars Kaya Scodelario and is directed by 47 Meters Down and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged helmer, Johannes Roberts.
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When Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel the family legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately… murder.
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In 1386, Marguerite de Carrouges claims she has been raped by her husband’s best friend and squire, Jacques Le Gris. Her husband, knight Jean de Carrouges, challenges Le Gris to trial by combat—the last legally sanctioned duel in France’s history.
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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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September destroyed the previous September monthly record for total box office take, with $800 million or so (we won’t know the exact figure until after the weekend), which tops 2016’s record of $616 million. Granted, this is almost entirely due to It’s record breaking run, and the rest of the month was merely average. Kingsman: The Golden Circle was the only other film to come close to $100 million. October doesn’t look any better, as far as depth is concerned. Blade Runner 2049 is widely expected to be the biggest hit of the month, but it is the only film expected to reach $100 million domestically. Boo 2 should be the second biggest hit of the month, while there are only a couple of other films that have a shot at $50 million. Part of the problem is the level of competition, as there are 16 films opening during the four October weekends. (Needless to say, some of the predictions below will be a little short, as there’s not much to say about a film that will barely open in the top ten and disappear two weeks later.) That’s way too many and most will be buried by the competition. Last October was a flop, as no film earned more than $100 million at the box office. There were a few films that came close, including the original Boo! movie. As long as Blade Runner 2049 matches expectations, 2017 should win the year-over-year comparison by a small margin. If we get one surprise hit, then 2017 has a real shot at closing the gap with 2016 by a significant margin. I choose to be cautiously optimistic.
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April is over and thank god for that. The Fate of the Furious is currently the only film that was better than a midlevel hit, while Going in Style might end up being the second-biggest release of the month. On the low end, there were seven films on last month’s list that didn’t even manage to open in truly wide release (2,000 or more theaters). Fortunately, May looks a lot brighter. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should dominate the chart and get the month off to a fast start. Furthermore, every week there’s at least one film with a reasonable chance of earning $100 million domestically. Additionally, last May wasn’t particularly strong, so that should help 2017 overall. Granted, Captain America: Civil War earned more than $400 million, so the month got off to a fast start, but films struggled the rest of the way. The second-biggest film was X-Men: Apocalypse at just $155 million, while only one other movie, The Angry Birds Movie, earned more than $100 million. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 should at least be competitive with Captain America: Civil War, allowing 2017 to win thanks to its superior depth.
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I previously reviewedThe Martian when it first came out on the home market all of five months ago… Let’s just state for the record that five months is far too short of a time between a release and a special edition. Anything less than a year feels more like a cash grab than something special. That said, is the Extended Edition of this film worth checking out? Is it worth picking up? Is it worth a double-dip?
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The Martian opened in early October and became a huge box office and critical success. The film became the biggest hit in Ridley Scott's career and recently picked up seven Oscar nominations. Will I love it as much as the average critic did? Or will I be in the minority here?
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The Oscar nominations were announced at 5:30 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, this was a terrible year for snubs, especially when it comes to diversity of the nominees. The voters for the Oscars are 94% white and 77% male... but that's still more diverse than the list of nominees. The Revenant led the way with 12 nominations and it is expected to win a few of those, while it is a serious contender in most of the categories it was nominated in.
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The Directors Guild of America spread out the nominations, which I always felt hurt the buzz. There are ten categories of awards, but only three of which pertain to theatrical releases. There are very few surprises across these three categories, so the Oscar nominations today shouldn't be full of surprises either.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and you can read them on their site... in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order is very useful in most circumstances, but not here. On the other hand, the nominees within each category are not presented in alphabetical order. ... Are the BAFTAs trolling us? As for the actual nominees, the big winners here are Bridge of Spies and Carol, both of which earned nine nominations. For Carol, this is just another impressive score, but this was a pleasant surprise for Bridge of Spies.
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The Golden Globes nominations were announced this morning and we are already beginning to see a trend for this year's Awards Season. For the most part, the same films are coming up over and over again. Carol led the way with five awards, while there was a three-way tie for second place with The Big Short, The Revenant and Steve Jobs each picking up four.
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The Martian opened in first place with $45.2 million on 9,299 screens in 50 markets. This includes a first place, 10.01 million opening on 582 theaters in the U.K. This was the biggest opening for both the director and the star. The film had a similarly strong opening in Australia earning first place with $4.28 million on 582 screens. It also earned first place in Hong Kong ($2.26 million on 70 screens) and Taiwan ($1.68 million on 137 screens). It only managed second place in Italy with $2.53 million on 464 screens and in Mexico with $2.9 million on 1,757, while it debuted in third place in Brazil with $1.82 million on 507. Overall, the film it doing about as well internationally as it did here, which is good news for Fox.
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September ended on a record note with the debut of Hotel Transylvania 2. Additionally, there was great depth and 2015's lead over 2014 grew to nearly $500 million. How do things look going forward? The month starts out with The Martian, which should have no trouble becoming the biggest hit of the month and might even top $200 million. On the other hand, no other film is expected to get to $100 million. There's only one or two that will even come close. Fortunately, last October was very similar with one $100 million hit, Gone Girl, while two other films came close, Annabelle and Fury. It looks like it will be up to the depth films from both years to determine which year comes out on top.
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November is over and there are not a lot of positive things to say about what happened during the month. There were a couple of films that matched expectations, but there were no breakout hits and a few that missed expectations by wide margins. Granted, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 will top $300 million with relative ease, but that's still nearly $100 million lower than some people were predicting. The month ends with 2014 about $300 million behind 2013's pace and there's really no chance to catch up in December. That doesn't mean there are no films that will be worth watching in December. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies should at least earn $200 million, while $300 million is not out of the question. Additionally, there are several films that at least have a shot at $100 million at the box office, but not all will get there. At least this December and last December are on par with each other. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug topped $250 million while there were three others that topped $100 million. I think we will get the same result this month. Last year there were a lot more wide releases, but many of them bombed. I think this year the lack of competition will help more films reach their potential.
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October is an awkward month. It sits between the dumping ground that is September and November, the unofficial start of Awards Season / holiday blockbuster season. For the most part, September was stronger than average for the month and there's reason to be optimistic going forward. After all, box office success tends to feed on itself, as does box office struggles. That said, there are not a lot of sure hits over the coming four weeks. Of the nine or ten films opening wide this month, only Gravity has a better than 50/50 chance at $100 million. Captain Phillips could have a shot at the century mark, but only if it becomes a serious Awards Season player. Its early reviews suggest that could be a possibility. Last October, there were two films to reach the $100 million mark, Taken 2 and Argo. On the other hand, pretty much everything else that opened that month crashed and burned. While this October doesn't have as strong a top end, it will hopefully have much better depth.
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