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New Moon Breaks Midnight Sales Record
Just a few days ago it was announced that advance sales for The Twilight Saga: New Moon had become the highest in history. New Moon can now lay claim to another record this time grossing the most money from midnight showings. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had owned the record with $22.2 million but New Moon grossed $26.3 million.
Half-Blood Prince’s midnight take represented 28.5% of its full weekend gross. That movie had the advantage of opening in the summer though when more people are available to attend late night screenings. Twilight fans are certainly rabid and that will result in it being somewhat front-loaded though more in the sense of having stronger full weekend before dropping off faster in the coming weeks. Conservatively that could put the midnight gross at around 25% and have New Moon on pace to making about $105 for the weekend. Which, incidentally, would then break the record for biggest November opening weekend.
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Chuck Returns in January
There has been a lot of discussion and speculation regarding when the third season of Chuck would premiere. NBC’s original plan was to start it in March after the Olympics were through. However with the cancellation of both Southland and the end of Trauma in sight the network had openings in its schedule to fill. Along with that was the encouraging development that came when word leaked of six more episodes being ordered in addition to the 13 already planned.
Chuck will now officially premiere on Sunday January 10th at 9pm with back-to-back episodes and will slide into the 8pm Monday time slot the following night for the remainder of the season. Currently Heroes airs at time time and will shift to 9pm with the arrival of Chuck. As with all of NBC’s primetime shows they will go off during the Olympics (Feb 12-28) and return soon after.
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Lost Season 6 Gets Premiere Date
ABC has released the information that fans of Lost have been waiting for by announcing details on the premiere and the time slot for the sixth and final season of the series.
Lost will debut on February 2nd with a recap episode at 8pm followed by the two hour premiere from 9pm-11pm. From then on the season will air at 9pm on Tuesday nights.
Originally the season was believed to have a start date on January 20th. The move to 2/2 likely means the show will stay on throughout the Olympics despite rumors otherwise.
This also represents a change from Wednesday nights to Tuesday nights. ABC has built a successful block of comedies on Wednesdays that they were not going to disrupt. Competition wise Tuesdays are relatively light outside of American Idol at 8pm which may now go head-to-head with ABC’s Dancing With the Stars results show. The 10PM slot following Lost may end up being occupied by V when the show returns in March.
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Box Office Predictions 11/20
Of course the big release this weekend is The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The movie is breaking records for advance sales and is accounting for over 90% of tickets sold for the coming weekend. Opening against it are two family targeted films which may not be the ideal counter-programming but should still draw respectably.
The original Twilight opened with $69.6 million which made it the fifth biggest opening ever in November. New Moon is expected to soar past that and could potentially break the record for the month which is currently $102 million held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Industry expectations on the low side are for $85 million with some analysts looking more towards the century mark. The Twilight fans are rabid and it should not be discounted that many may even see the movie multiple times. Poor reviews will not be a factor. New Moon may not end up breaking that November record but it should make a stunning amount regardless right around $96 million this weekend.
The Blind Side is based on the true story of now Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher. The studio has been pushing the film with a large number of early screenings and support from family oriented organizations. The Blind Side comes from Disney in the same mold as some of their previous inspirational sports related stories such as The Rookie and Remember the Titans. The Rookie opened with $16 million in 2002 and went on to make $75 million while Titans opened to $20 million and eventually grossed $115 million. The Blind Side may not have a huge opening weekend but this is the type of movie that could be carried on word-of-mouth and draw decently through the holiday season. Those two previous examples showed that very pattern finishing with over five times their opening weekend when the average movie generally closes about three times the opening weekend. The Blind Side should debut with about $15 million.
The animated Planet 51 features the voices of some big names including Dwayne Johnson and Jessica Biel and the story follows an astronaut who arrives on a planet only to find that he is seen as an alien to the inhabitants. There is little competition right now from movies being targeted directly to kids. A Christmas Carol has already been out a few weeks and it presents a tone and visual style that may have been a deterrent anyway. Planet 51 will not be playing on 3D screens though which audiences have been seeking out and in turn has has been boosting box office takes. Planet 51 could open with $13 million and have a strong holiday weekend to follow.
Opening Predictions
New Moon: 96 million
The Blind Side: 15 million
Planet 51: 13 million
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Top DVD Sales and Rentals for Week Ending November 15, 2009
It should come as no surprise to anyone that another animated movie was the highest selling DVD last week. Disney’s Up, knocked G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra from the top spot. Katherine Heigl’s romantic comedy, The Ugly Truth, was the most rented DVD last week. Below is the list of DVD sales and rentals for the week ending November 15, 2009:
Rentrak Top 10 Selling DVDs:
1 Up ( Disney)
2 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount)
3 The Ugly Truth (Sony)
4 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount)
5 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (FOX)
6 Tinker Bell And The Lost Treasure (Disney)
7 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Sony)
8 The Proposal (Touchstone)
9 Twilight (Summit)
10 Peanuts Holiday Collection (Warner)Rentrak Top 10 Renting DVDs:
1 The Ugly Truth (Sony)
2 The Taking Of Pelham 123 (Sony)
3 G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (Paramount)
4 Up (Walt Disney)
5 The Proposal (Touchstone)
6 Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (Paramount)
7 Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (FOX)
8 Orphan (Warner)
9 Aliens In The Attic (FOX)
10 Land Of The Lost (Universal) -
Rachel McAdams Will Not Be In Spider-Man 4
A little over a week ago, Mania.com reported from “a source” that Rachel McAdams would be cast in Spiderman 4. Today we find out this is not the case, as it was all a rumor. Entertainment Weekly recently spoke with McAdams, who denied the rumors that she was in Spider-Man 4.
That’s a total rumor, I have to say,” the actress, who will next be seen in the Dec. 25 action-adventure tentpole Sherlock Holmes, tells EW. “I was hanging out in Toronto the other day and someone came up to me and said, ‘I just heard you’re doing Spider-Man 4.‘ And I said, ‘Really? No one told me!’ It’s not true.” A rep for Sony Pictures concurs: “It’s an Internet rumor, as so many things are these days.
This is not surprising at all. As I mentioned when this news originally leaked, none of the info was coming from Raimi himself. Not to mention it differed quite a bit from what he actually said just a month ago. I know quite a few people were excited at the thought of her being in the film. Will the Black Cat still be a villain? Does not having McAdams in Spider-man 4 change your opinion of the movie?
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New Moon Breaks Advance Sales Record
Audience anticipation has been building for quite some time towards the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon on Friday. The first Twilight movie opened last year on the same weekend to 69.6 million and its sequel is expected to easily surpass that.
Earlier today online ticket sales website Fandango announced that New Moon has now broken the record for advance sales. In doing so it passed by such hits as Star Wars Episode III and franchises including Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Over 90% of all tickets being sold for the coming weekend are for New Moon. Right now analysis is pointing towards an opening weekend that could exceed 100 million.
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Lost Season 6 Poster
ABC has released the official poster for the sixth and final season of Lost. Click the image above for the full version of the poster. This is about the only thing that will be available to analyze as the network is not going to show a single second of footage or have any discussion on details relating to the season before it begins on January 20th.
Certainly with a show like Lost images such as this carry some symbolism and could provide some hints as to the fate of the characters. Locke, with his back turned, is the most obvious example of it relating the story given the events that happened at the end of season five. While one or two of the characters from the history of the show are not expected to appear this season most will be involved even if they have been gone from the show for some time.
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WB Offering DVD2Blu Upgrade Program
A while back Warner Bros. offered an opportunity to essentially trade in HD DVD versions of their movies for Blu-ray copies. In that case they were charging $5 per movie and it was meant as a nice gesture to those who had invested in the now dead format.
Now WB is doing something similar with DVD2Blu which will allow for people to send in their regular DVDs and for $7.95-9.95 can receive the Blu-ray version instead. There are currently 55 eligible titles with more likely to be added over time and orders of over $25 receive free shipping. In this case WB is hoping to make the idea of shifting from DVD to Blu-ray more attractive with an option to start converting libraries without having to buy every movie over again.
This makes for a nice option for those who have upgraded to Blu-ray. There are more than a few movies I would rather have on Blu-ray but don’t have the desire to spend the $20+ on. The majority of people though likely prefer their DVD collection. Until Blu-ray players see higher saturation in the market DVDs remain more convenient and accessible to own.
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New on DVD: Week of November 17
There are a handful of good movies hitting stores this week. Christmas has come early for Trekkies with the release of Star Trek. J.J. Abrams rendition of the Sci-Fi classic was well received and scored high in reviews. Fans of Sacha Baron Cohen can look forward to Bruno releasing this week. But the movie I’m most looking forward to is the Blu-ray release of Fight Club. It’s hard to believe it’s already been ten years since the movie first released in theaters. There are some movies that should be transferred over to high-def and Fight Club is definitely one of them.
Here is the full release schedule broken up by standard DVD and Blu-ray:
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