This may be a good time to pause the stories about Disney’s infalliability, and the unstoppable dominance of the Star Wars franchise. SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) is underperforming in a big way, with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting its opening day at $36.5M, extremely frontloaded with $14.1M of that total from Thursday night. That’s the lowest […]
For the fourth consecutive weekend, an animated movie will lead the box office, as Finding Dory‘s mantle is taken by THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS (Illumination/Universal). With a $38M Friday (including $5.3M from Thursday night) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline, Pets is on track for a $95M weekend, which would make it the […]
The $17.1M opening day (including $3.4M from Thursday night) for GHOSTBUSTERS (Columbia/Sony) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline would be fine if the movie were at the same budget level as previous Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy collaborations The Heat or Spy. But Ghostbusters cost 2-3x as much, $275M+ including production and global marketing, and a […]
JASON BOURNE (Universal) is performing in line with expectations. Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $22M (including $4.3M from Thursday night), down just 10% from the $24.7M start (with no Thursday screenings) for 2007’s Bourne Ultimatum, the last Matt Damon/Paul Greenglass title in the franchise. Great word of mouth gave Ultimatum […]
After its history-making $120.5M opening day, there were two pre-existing Saturday models that STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney) could have followed. The final Harry Potter was so front-loaded that it crashed by 53% from Friday to Saturday. On the other hand, Jurassic World gently declined by 15%, similar to the 14% drop for […]
Most films will rise this weekend compared to last week, simply because New Year’s Eve is a bigger moviegoing occasion than Christmas Eve. Generally, box office should rise 20% or so on Saturday, drop around 30% on Sunday, then jump 30-40% on New Year’s Day. The first two weekends of 2018 should feature relatively […]
WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Wanda/Ten Cent/DC/Warners) is proving to be exactly what its studio–and the summer box office in general–needed. For Warners, it’s giving the embattled DC mega-franchise its first taste of critical praise since the days of The Dark Knight, which is important in itself, and that’s paying off in ticket sales. Preliminary numbers at […]
THE MAZE RUNNER: DEATH CURE (20th) will win the weekend, although not in particularly impressive fashion. According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was $8.4M (including $1.5M from Thursday night), down from the $11.3M start for the first Maze Runner, and the $11M for Scorch Trials. It should have $23.5M by Sunday, […]