A weak slate of newcomers is almost always good news for the holdovers in the market, and that will be the case this holiday weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (Warners Animation) declined a mild 45% from last week’s opening day to $8M, and should take in at least […]

This is a well-designed weekend for Hollywood, with a trio of sensibly-budgeted franchise titles all drawing audiences from their mostly separate target demos.  The Friday winner, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, was FIFTY SHADES DARKER (Universal), with $20M ($5.7M of it from Thursday night).  That’s about 2/3 of the $30.3M opening day for Fifty […]

  Hollywood generally has little interest in opening films against the Super Bowl, and to the extent it participates, it tries to counterprogram the game by aiming at the young female demographic.  Thus we have a PG-13 horror movie and a YA fantasy-romance this weekend, but neither is finding much of an audience. RINGS (Paramount) […]

  After years in the wilderness, M. Night Shyamalan returned to profitability with last year’s The Visit, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, SPLIT (Blumhouse/Universal) will build on that success.  Opening day was $13.5M (including $2M from Thursday night), far ahead of Visit‘s $9.2M, and the weekend could be as high as $35M, a […]

  Half a dozen films entered wide release over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, and none of them is likely to chart higher than 5th place, most ranging from major disappointments to outright disasters. The most unpleasant surprise may be PATRIOTS DAY (CBS/Lionsgate), a piece of populist history with Mark Wahlberg in the lead […]

  It’s shaping up to be a close race at the box office this weekend, and with the result likely to come down to performance on Sunday, we may not know the winner for sure until final numbers are issued on Monday.  HIDDEN FIGURES (20th) was the clear winner on Friday, with preliminary numbers at […]

  There were no new openings for New Year’s weekend, and not much in the way of surprises among the returning titles.  ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney) continued its ride through the holidays with $18.1M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up about 8% from Thursday, and business should go down on New Year’s […]

  We’re now officially in the Christmas-to-New-Year’s holiday box office period, and the general form is going to follow 2015 fairly closely, with a Star Wars installment clearly in the lead (albeit much less lucratively than last year’s), a family vehicle in 2d place, and an assortment of also-rans behind them. Comparisons between ROGUE ONE […]