Sam Raimi sure knows how to make a successful crowd pleaser, his prequel to the most famous movie ever came out with the first blockbuster opening weekend of 2013. Raking in over $80 Million in its debut frame, Oz: The Great and Powerful is well on the way to becoming the first mega hit of the year.

The film didn’t quite reach Alice in Wonderland numbers, but considering the advantages that film had, and the disadvantages Oz faced, the $80 Million haul is a massive win. Expect to see a sequel get rolling very soon as Disney will try to avoid the pitfalls of franchising Alice and put the pedal to the metal on their shiny new franchise-to-be.

Coming in second place on the weekend was last weeks bomb, Jack the Giant Slayer. Jack continues to defy odds by doing  even worse than John Carter at just about every turn. Dropping over 63% from an already weak opening debut and bringing in barely over $10 Million Jack is going to struggle to make $60 Million at the end of its run. Good thing Bryan Singer  has X-Men: Days of Future Past to fall back on, because normally a flop like this is death to a big budget director.

The internet business is a pretty tricky thing to keep one’s thumb on. Especially when you are in charge of hundreds of thousands consumers ready for their on-demand entertainment. That’s why it was especially puzzling when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings decided to belly up to the DVD/VOD war and claim Qwikster would be his champion.

That’s when things got tricky, as Netflix subscribers were fleeing the scene, hoping this meant they wouldn’t have to spend double the amount they were spending to get the same DVD and streaming service. Now that Qwikster is dead and gone, it seems that the original company is still suffering from its mistake. From Variety:

While investors were disappointed with the reported decline of 810,000 streaming subscribers in the second quarter, some equally depressing projections for the final months of 2011 also contributed to a 27% drop in after-hours trading, sending the stock to $85. It had opened the day at $119.37.

On the heels of Netflix announcing they are raising prices by up to sixty percent, Blockbuster is trying to provoke  a mass exodus to their service. Blockbuster began rescuing upset Netflix customers by launching a limited time, nationwide promotion for all Netflix customers who switch to Blockbuster Total Access.

“Blockbuster quickly responded to the cries of Netflix customers,” said Michael Kelly, president of Blockbuster. “Blockbuster Total Access is Netflix ‘without the wait.’ The combination of DVDs by mail and unlimited in-store exchanges provides more than 100 million people living near Blockbuster stores immediate convenience and unparalleled choice.”

There are many additional benefits that Blockbuster Total Access provides over Netflix, including things like sooner availability of many new releases, unlimited in-store exchanges, game rentals included in their plans, and no additional charge for Blu-ray movies. The only thing this plan is missing will be the same thing missing from the new Netflix plan, unlimited streaming. Blockbuster is looking to keep it’s current on demand/pay-per-view streaming model.

In order to woo Netflix customers, those who “switch” to one of Blockbuster’s two most popular Total Access plans will receive a 30-day free trial. Once the free trial ends, customers can choose between the $9.99 per month, “1 Disc” at a time option, or $14.99 per month for “2 Discs” at a time. In other words, for the same price as Netflix’s by mail service,Blockbuster will offer much more.

You can put this in the “Why?” file but it seems somebody at least wanted to buy the Blockbuster video rental chain even as that business is going in the toilet. That somebody is Dish Network who, pending approval at a hearing on Thursday, will acquire Blockbuster Inc. following an auction that took place this week.

Dish Network’s winning bid was approximately $320 Million but the acquisition is expected to end up costing more like $228 Million in cash, taking into account Blockbuster’s inventory, available cash and other adjustments. Blockbuster was put up for sale at auction on Monday following its recent bankruptcy filing, and several companies competed for control of Blockbuster’s business and assets.

Dish’s winning bid topped several other bidders including Cobalt Video, a group of hedge funds lead by Monarch Alternative Capital and billionaire investor Carl Icahn. Also, I considered bidding as well but then the feeling passed after I turned on Netflix, started streaming a movie and realized having a video store these days is a pretty dumb idea.

However, Dish Network doesn’t seem to agree. “Blockbuster will complement our existing video offerings while presenting cross-marketing and service extension opportunities for Dish Network,” said Dish Network’s EVP of sales, marketing and programing, Tom Cullen. Okay, if you say so.

Click through for the full press release from Dish Network. And no, it doesn’t really explain the ‘Why?” either. Really, I can’t remember the last time I went to a Blockbuster and rented a movie. Can you?

With Instant Netflix making itself readily available on both the Playstation 3 and Wii without the use of a disc this week, there have already been some major leaps made in the world of streaming. Netflix has already projected that the last quarter of their yer will see more streaming customers than disc users.

With projections like that, action is required.

Until now, Netflix users who want to stream have been tethered to a disc-subscription plan, which means that the only way to get Instant Netflix is by subscribing to at least their lowest disc-subscription plan of one disc at a time, for a limited time. The company plans to change that by the end of the year. From the LA Times.

The company last month started offering a streaming-only service in Canada for $7.99 per month. Hastings said success there has led Netflix to test an identical offering in the U.S. If the test fares well, all consumers will be able to sign up for streaming-only service. Chief Executive Reed Hastings did not identify a price, but it is likely to be the same as it is in Canada.

It’s also noted that this won’t effect their current subscription plans, only annex a new plan at the bottom of the scale to accommodate those users who only plan to watch movies and TV shows via their computer or streaming device.

Just this weekend, Saturday Night Live returned with its 36th season to a 15 percent ratings bump from last season’s premiere. Amy Pohler and Katy Perry were the guests, along with a whole slew of former cast members dropping by throughout the show.

The premiere had its funny moments. But one of the main things the episode also accomplished was to make the audience look back and fondly remember the classic episodes of the series over its rich 35 year lifespan. Fortunetely, we don’t have to scrounge YouTube or Hulu for old episodes as Netflix and NBC have signed a deal to get every episode of SNL available on Netflix’s streaming service.

But that’s not all as according to the press releasing announcing the deal, along with SNL, we’ll also be treated to tons of other NBC Universal properties coming to the service.

Episodes from every season of NBC’s signature comedy franchise “Saturday Night Live,” including day-after broadcast of the upcoming 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons plus hundreds of episodes from the first 35 years of “SNL.”

Every episode from the last season of the multiple Emmy® Award-winning series “30 Rock,” “The Office” and “Law & Order: SVU,” as well as earlier seasons of those shows renewed for streaming from Netflix under the current deal.

All prior seasons – and eventually next year’s final season – of “Friday Night Lights,” the small-town drama surrounding high-school football in Dillon, Tex.

Just six years after making its debut, redbox has rented its one billionth movie.  On Sunday, September 5th, a kiosk in Tampa, Florida dispensed Clash of the Titans, which officially became the company’s billionth rental.

To celebrate the milestone, redbox is having a “Thanks a Billion” celebration. Redbox renters will receive a free rental, and can enter a contest for prizes. Here are the details:

“Throughout the month of September, eligible redbox renters can enter the unique DVD code found on their redbox rental at redbox.com/thanks to receive a promotional code good for a free, one-night rental. Renters also will be entered to win the “Thanks a Billion” grand prize – a choice between a trip to the People’s Choice Awards^®or a Sony^® Home Entertainment Theatre System. The nationwide “Thanks a Billion” celebration runs from Sept. 1 to Sept. 30, 2010. Log on to redbox.com/thanks for complete rules and details*, as well as complete odds of winning and prize descriptions.”

Redbox started out with a locations in Denver, Colorado, and have now expanded to over 24,000 locataions nationwide.  The company rents over 9.5 million DVDs and Blu-rays a week, and recently added an iPhone app so renters can reserve a movie online.

1987’s Full Metal Jacket is Stanley Kubrick’s riveting classic about U.S. Marines who survive the brutality of basic training only to be caught up in the horrific 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film is based on Gustav Hasford’s novel The Short-Timers, and screen writer Michael Herr (Apocalypse Now), lend their literary talents to the production of the film.

Matthew Modine (“Joker”), Adam Baldwin (Sgt. “Animal Mother”), Vincent D’ Onofrio (Pvt. “Gomer Pyle”) Arliss Howard (“Cowboy”), and R. Lee Ermey (Gunnery Sgt. Hartman) make up the cast of this amazing Vietnam war movie. Like Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Kubrick’s incredibly underrated eighteenth century military period piece Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket is shot for shot, and line for line Kubrick at his finest.

The film is most notable for Ermey’s improvisation in many of the scenes. During the production Ermey was made the military technical adviser for the film and he so desperately wanted to try out for the role of Sgt. Hartman. Kubrick had seen and admired Ermey’s portrayal of SSgt. Loyce in The Boys in Company C and felt that he wasn’t tough enough for the role.

This was a big week for news, especially of the comic book movie variety. Surprisingly, even with all that coming out we still have even more items worth talking about on the radar. Batman beats Superman…again, a Star Wars character makes a bid for a mascot job, MGM is still looking for money, Brian De Palma may get paranormal and what cities will Michael Bay reign destruction upon next?

Batman trumps Superman on the auction block

Looks like Batman wasn’t content with beating Superman at the box office, he had to do it at an auction as well. The 1939 first appearance of The Dark Knight sold for a whopping $1,075,500. This beats Superman’s first appearance in comics which sold for 1 million. Sorry, Supes…but, hey, you did land an awesome writer for your upcoming reboot.

Blockbuster struggles to remain relevant in the digital age

Video rental store Blockbuster continues an uphill battle to compete against digital alternatives.  The brick-and-mortar business reported a “$435 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $360 million in red ink in the year-ago frame. Revenue dropped 18% to $1.1 billion.” As companies like Netflix and Redbox continue to steal market share some believe Blockbuster has some merit left:

“The drying up of retail competition from the ongoing closures of most Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores; major studios aren’t making their new releases immediately available to Redbox; and Warner Bros. will begin a 28-delay before giving Netflix access to new-release DVDs.”

Personally, I don’t see a rebound at this point and beyond the legit competition Blockbuster still has piracy to content with. Is this the end? We’ll see.

Even though some people may think the video rental giant is on it last legs due to competition from companies like Netflix, they still rent a heck of a lot of movies. So many, in fact, they make a list of the top rentals and we’ve got that list from last week to share with you today, direct from the official press release. Check it out.

Topping the Hit List of “Top 10 Rented DVD Titles” for the week ending Jan. 3 is Paranormal Activity. This release media includes an alternative ending not seen in theatrical version.

BLOCKBUSTER Hit List

Top 10 Renting DVD Titles at U.S. BLOCKBUSTER stores for the week ending Jan. 3, 2009:
1. Paranormal Activity
2. The Hangover
3. District 9
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. All About Steve
6. A Perfect Getaway
7. Jennifer’s Body
8. Public Enemies
9. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
10. 500 Days of Summer