/2017/02/10/batman-movie-set-sales-impressions-and-spoilers-below-the-fold/ on this server. Your technical support key is: 36ff-4a18-1756-6707The four The LEGO Batman Movie sets that are currently available are on sale over on Amazon. Mr. Freeze Ice Attack (70901) – $16.82 – 16% off The Batmobile (70905) – $49.99 – 17% off The Joker Notorious Lowrider (70906) – $44.73 – 11% off Batcave Break-In (70909) – $88.00 – 12% off It’s a little surprising to see these new sets on sale this early but it is still the holiday shopping season so it’s good for consumers. As usual, please use the links to make your purchases as it does help support the site.Valentine’s Day and President’s Day should pack a sizable punch at the weekend box office, though East Coast blizzards could cut into the holiday fun. Sony-Screen Gems’ “,” which is tracking in the mid-to-high $20 millions in four days, should top the weekend’s four new wide entries.
Still, Warner Bros.’ hit holdover “” is expected to win the weekend, with a potential $50 million four-day gross. Among the pics looking to attract couples on Valentine’s day, a pair of PG-13-rated entries — Warner’s “Winter’s Tale” and Universal’s “” — join R-rated “About Last Night,” with the former two each expected to gross in the mid-teens through Monday. Comedian Kevin Hart will end up competing with himself, appearing in both “About Last Night” and Universal’s $100 million-plus grosser “Ride Along” in its fifth frame. Sony’s other wide release, “,” which bowed with $2.8 million on Wednesday receiving a solid ‘B+’ CinemaScore, should land somewhere in the mid-to-high $30 millions in six days. The action remake of the 1987 original already has grossed approximately $40 million from 27 international markets. Pic expands this weekend to countries including Mexico, Russia, South Korea and Spain. FILM REVIEW: “RoboCop” Is Smarter Than You Think
Elsewhere internationally, Warner’s “Lego Movie” broadens to the U.K., after grossing $18.7 million last weekend in 34 day-and-date territories, of which the biggest contributors were in Latin America. Stateside, “Lego Movie” is likely to drop between 35% and 40%, putting it in the $40 million range Friday-Sunday. The toon should see a hearty President’s Day gross, adding around $10 million from kids out of school. “Lego Movie” has grossed just shy of $78 million in its first six days domestically. The film is expected to cross $100 million by Friday. The weekend’s diverse lineup should keep totals ahead of this time last year, when Fox’s “A Good Day to Die Hard” topped the long holiday weekend with $28.6 million. Theater traffic on Valentine’s day should account for roughly 35% of the weekend gross for pics like “Endless Love” and “Winter’s Tale,” especially since the harsh winter weather on the East Coast should have dissipated by Friday.
“Endless Love,” which cost around $20 million to produce, stars Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde as the opposite-side-of-the-tracks lovers from the original film from 1981. “Winter’s Tale,” meanwhile, which toplines Colin Farrell and “Downton Abbey’s” Jessica Brown Findlay, tells a time-skipping story of reincarnated lovers from different centuries. The film, from writer-director Akiva Goldsman, carries a more hefty price tag, costing just less than $60 million to produce. And with a little more than two weeks left until the Oscars, the Weinstein Co. is expanding best picture nominee “Philomena” to 1,225 domestic locations, up from 504. In about three months, the film has cumed nearly $30 million Stateside.Lego A/S expanded revenue in the first half, bridging the gap with toy industry market leader Mattel Inc. as consumers flocked to pick up play sets from box office hit “The Lego Movie.” Sales rose 11 percent in kroner to the equivalent of $2 billion at the Billund, Denmark-based maker of plastic bricks, matching those of Barbie-maker Mattel, which reported a 7 percent decline in the same period.
The results pit the two largest toy companies against each other going into the all-important holiday shopping season, when El Segundo, California-based Mattel makes a greater proportion of annual sales. Lego is pushing out Star Wars-branded sets and its own Movie, City and Creator products to gain revenue, while Mattel saw declining demand for lines ranging from Barbie to Fisher-Price. “Surely the shot in the arm has come from the phenomenal success of The Lego Movie,” said Robert Porter, an analyst at researcher Euromonitor. “Not only did the movie gross around $500 million worldwide, it has also been pivotal in promoting new and existing product lines.” Lego, which gets 60 percent of total sales from new products annually, said “The Lego Movie,” which opened in theaters earlier this year, was a significant contributor to revenue growth. Products including the toymaker’s Star Wars building sets and its traditional City line, which features firefighters and police, also continued to contribute to very strong growth globally, Lego said.
Net income rose 14 percent to 2.7 billion kroner ($477 million). “Our geographic growth was very evenly spread,” Chief Financial Officer John Goodwin said in a telephone interview. “We had double-digit growth across all three regions: America, Europe and Asia.” The Danish company controls about 65 percent of the construction toy market, according to Euromonitor, which estimates the market will grow to about $12.8 billion by 2018 from $8.3 billion last year. Mega Brands, which was bought this year by Mattel, is number two with a 5.3 percent stake. Lego last year overtook Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based Hasbro Inc. to become the world’s No. 2 toymaker in terms of sales. Revenue in the first half of 2014 more than tripled compared with six years ago, Chief Executive Officer Joergen Vig Knudstorp said in the statement. The Danish toymaker, which gets most of its sales in the last two months of the year, is now gearing up for Christmas. “Meeting the demand of our retailers and our consumers is very important for us,” Goodwin said on the phone.