The holiday box office has turned out to be AQUAMAN (DC/Warners), and then everything else.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its 3rd Friday at $16.8M, up 15% from Thursday and down 40% from last Friday, for a likely $51M weekend, and $215M by New Year’s Day.  Comparisons to other DC releases at the same […]

  There’s a reason why Christopher Nolan may be, along with James Cameron, the last filmmaker who can truly demand blank checks from Hollywood.  His WWII recreation DUNKIRK (Warners), devoid of name stars (apologies to Harry Styles) but riding a tide of Oscar-level reviews, is already overperforming expectations with a $19.8M opening day (including $5.5M […]

  December 24, along with December 31, will be the lowest box office days of the holiday season, because so many people have non-movie plans those nights.  Nevertheless, INTO THE WOODS (Disney) had a highly promising start with screenings that began at 7PM on Christmas Eve, earning $1.1M.  (That compares with the $325K that Annie […]

  CARS 3 (Pixar/Disney) will have a strong Fathers Day, which in turn will make its weekend multiple look good, but it’s off to a disappointing start.  In preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day is pegged at $19.1M (including $2.8M from Thursday night), down 25% from the first day of 2011’s Cars 2 ($25.7M), […]

  OPENINGS:  The answer to the question of whether the Day 2 drop for SUICIDE SQUAD (RatPac/DC/Warners) would be as bad as the one for Batman v Superman turned out to be no–it was worse.  Suicide plunged 41% on Saturday, compared to BvS‘s 38%.  That’s the kind of drop usually associated with the hugely-frontloaded Twilight series, […]

  All this summer’s box office needed for burial was a shovel, and Hollywood provided that with a Labor Day line-up devoid of any genuinely wide new releases.  The result is going to be ugly, except for a few hardy holdovers. The widest release of the weekend isn’t new at all:  it’s the one-week 901-theatre […]

  After a summer of fizzled franchise movies, audiences were–pardon the expression–hungry for something new, and the unquestionably unique, hard-R existential talking food cartoon SAUSAGE PARTY (Annapurna/Columbia/Sony) is satisfying that appetite.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Sausage is going to win Friday with $13.3M ($3.3M from Thursday night shows), although it’s likely to be […]

  SUICIDE SQUAD (RatPac/DC/Warners) was expected to explode past all August box office records, and so far, that’s what it’s doing.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was as high as $65M (including $20.5M from Thursday night), obliterating the $37.8M for Guardians of the Galaxy, and the weekend will gallop beyond Guardians‘s $94.3M, […]