If the preliminary numbers at Deadline hold, there was good news on Friday for Adam Sandler and his studio, as GROWN UPS 2 (Sony) won the day with a strong $16.5M (including $2.3M from Thursday night).  That’s better than the $14.4M that the original Grown Ups had on its opening day in 2010, and might […]

> The Hollywood Reporter has some rough early numbers for Friday’s boxoffice, and the news looks good for CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE FIRST AVENGER.  Including Thursday midnight grosses of $4M, it seems to be around $25M for the day.  This would be right in the neighborhood of its Marvel-mate Thor, which had a $25.5M opening day […]

  ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) will easily take the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $15.1M, slightly below the $15.5M for 2014’s original Annabelle, but Creation is much more frontloaded, with $4M from Thursday night, almost double the $2.1M for Annabelle.  That suggests a lower weekend multiple than Annabelle‘s 2.4, and […]

  Labor Day weekend is always the exhausted last gasp of the summer movie season, but this year the studios didn’t even try.  Partly it’s the effect of August having generally been a disaster in 2015 (last year’s 4-day Labor Day span featured a $22.9M 5th weekend for Guardians of the Galaxy and $15.6M from […]

  Expectations that this would be a dreadful weekend at the boxoffice are already being proved true.  The “big” opening of the week, THE WORDS (CBS) couldn’t even beat last week’s horror cheapie THE POSSESSION (Lionsgate) on its own opening day.  Words, according to early numbers at Deadline, will only make $1.7M on Friday, for a terrible $5M […]

  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 […]

> Deadline‘s preliminary numbers for Friday have JOHN CARTER (Disney) at around $10M for the day, which depending on how much it plays as a family movie on Saturday, should mean a $25-30M weekend.  That’s not a horribly low number–it’s one of the half-dozen highest openings of the year so far–unless you’re trying to earn […]

  JUSTICE LEAGUE (RatPac/DC/Warners) was supposed to be the jewel in the DC crown, the Avengers that would push its megafranchise to the next box office level.  That’s what justified spending a reported $450M on production (and then more production) and marketing, making it one of the most expensive movies in history.  But tonight it’s […]