> It seems like only yesterday that we were reviewing the records for midnight openings (actually, it was March 23, when The Hunger Games opened with a 7th-highest $19.7M Thursday midnight–the highest ever for a non-sequel).  Now we’re just a few hours away from the US arrival of THE AVENGERS, which… is it a sequel?  […]

  FAST & FURIOUS 6 (Universal) is off to a quick start with $6.5M from Thursday night shows, considerably above the $3.8M that Fast Five made (only in midnight shows) in its Thursday start 2 years ago.  That bodes very well for 6, considering that Fast Five had a huge $86.2M opening over a non-holiday 3-day weekend.  […]

  It’s not as though expectations for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney) were low–at the projected $70-75M level, it would have outgrossed the opening weekends of the original Captain America, Thor and Amazing Spider-Man.  But the movie blasted past those predictions with the force of an Infinity Stone, boasting a Friday reported at Deadline and […]

  In an appropriately biblical development for this Easter weekend, it appears from preliminary numbers at Deadline that David will defeat Goliath, and the $12M-budgeted HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony) will handily outgross the $100M+ TRANSCENDENCE (Warners).  On Friday, Heaven pulled in a reported $8M (on top of $7M from Wednesday and Thursday), and although […]

  Hollywood bounced back swiftly from last weekend’s Halloween doldrums, thanks to a pair of A-level openings.  INTERSTELLAR (Par/Warners) is in line for a win on Friday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, with up to $18M.  The Interstellar numbers are a bit tangled, because for the first part of Thursday, it showed in 249 […]

  Hollywood offered slim competition to the second weekend of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 (Marvel/Disney) and the latest comic book spectacular will easily win the weekend with what Deadline currently estimates will be $60M.  That’s a 59% drop from last weekend, steeper than the 55% for the first Guardians, even though Vol 2 […]

  STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (Legendary/Universal) had a smashing start, with preliminary numbers at Deadline giving it $22.8M on Friday (that includes $5M from Thursday night).  With a production budget under $30M and a moderate marketing campaign, Compton will be well on the road to profit by the end of the weekend, providing a finishing touch […]

  It’s impossible to know at this point how the unspeakable events in Newtown on Friday will affect family behavior over the weekend, and even though this tragedy, unlike the Aurora massacre in July, has no direct connection to movies or theaters, the crowds that might have attended matinees of a four-quadrant event like THE […]