The most interesting box office story of the weekend is WARCRAFT (Legendary/Universal).  It’s a dud in the US, with $11M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which with its frontloaded fan audience probably means a $25M or so weekend and a domestic total that may not reach $75M.  That’s not much on […]

  BLACK PANTHER (Marvel/Disney) is now in competition only with the loftiest movie hits.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its 2nd Friday was $28.4M (down 63% from last week), behind just The Avengers‘ $29.2M in the Marvel universe (down 64% from its own opening day), as well as The Force Awakens ($49.3M, down 58%) […]

  FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (Warners) wasn’t expected to touch the $60-90M opening day territory of the latter Harry Potter movies, since Fantastic is a spin-off that doesn’t include any of the major Potter characters.  But preliminary numbers at Deadline have it at $29.4M, lower than any of the Potters, and even […]

  ANT-MAN & THE WASP (Marvel/Disney) will be Marvel’s lowest-grossing 2018 release, but it was designed to have relatively minor stakes, and while it’s not in a league with Black Panther or Avengers: Infinity War, on its own terms it’s performing impressively.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $34M (including $11.5M from […]

  HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 (Columbia/Sony) is giving its beleaguered studio some good news, with a strong $12.8M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s better than the $11M start for the first Hotel, and although Transylvania 2 may be more frontloaded as a sequel and not match the original’s 73% Saturday bump, it […]

  THE MAIN EVENT:  As the roof caved in on BATMAN V SUPERMAN:  DAWN OF JUSTICE (DC/RatPac/Warners), the studio had two last-ditch goals:  to avoid a Weekend 2 result that dropped 70% from last week or dipped below $50M in the US.  Pending tomorrow’s final numbers, it appears to have managed that, with a 68% […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]

  None of the weekend’s openings were expected to come near last week’s blockbuster opening, and none will.  The target Christian audience is turning out for RISEN (Affirm/Columbia/Sony), with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting it at $4.25M for Friday.  Given its demographics, Risen should hold well through the weekend, particularly on Sunday, which could give […]