NOTE:  UPDATED THROUGHOUT WITH STUDIO ESTIMATES Black Friday was, as always, a very bright day for movies.  The holiday weekend continues to belong to THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate), which soared 118% from Thursday to a terrific $24.1M.  Even though Mockingjay continues to lag behind the previous Hunger Games installments, that’s a […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

  The phenomenon of It having had its day, weekend box office is starting to look more familiar, which is to say subdued.  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) will take the weekend, but hardly in impressive fashion.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $15.7M, which includes $3.4M from Thursday night.  2 years ago, […]

> Variety has some very early Friday numbers.  As of midafternoon, The Lion King is doing well, with numbers that are being extrapolated to $15M+ for the weekend.  The other newcomers are less impressive:  Drive may get to a possible $10M+ weekend (the film has received exceptional reviews totalling 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’ll […]

>The Hollywood Reporter has preliminary Friday numbers, and while the day’s boxoffice is looking like a close finish between GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (Sony) and THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony), with both at $7-7.5M for the day, the likelihood is that over the course of the weekend–considering that new openings are more frontloaded (especially genre […]

  To the extent one can be disappointed by the boxoffice of a movie that’s cruised to $211.8M in 6 days, Wednesday was an off day for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.  Batman declined a fairly tough 23% yesterday for a $13.8M day.  That was about mid-range in terms of the results for the day’s Top […]

  Tom Cruise’s OBLIVION (Universal) faced no significant competition for its opening this weekend, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a fairly strong $13.8M Friday (including $1.1M from Thursday night screenings), which should put it on track for a $35M+ weekend, a bit higher than Mitch Metcalf’s weekend prediction.  Nonetheless, with a […]