There’s a lot of new product in the market this weekend, which will drive up multiplex totals, but nothing is really breaking through.  The battle at the top looks like it will be close between GOOSEBUMPS (Columbia/Sony) and THE MARTIAN (TSG/20th), both of which should come in at $23-24M.  Goosebumps has the early lead, […]

  The  preliminary numbers at Deadline confirm the expected:  PAN (RatPac-Dune/Warners) is a box office catastrophe in the making.  Its $5.2M opening day (which includes $650K from Thursday night) is less than half the first day of Fantastic Four ($11.3M), and although as a family-oriented movie it may bounce back a bit on Saturday (and […]

  Just a week after a new September mark was set, Ridley Scott’s THE MARTIAN (20th) is going to compete for the highest-ever October opening.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Martian had an opening day that matched or even slightly topped the $17.5M for Gravity, which set the current October record at $55.8M.  ($2.5M […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

  On one of the slowest weekends of the year, it took some holy help to raise the box office from the dead.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, WAR ROOM (Affirm/TriStar/Sony) is edging into Friday’s top slot with $3.8M.  Christian films, when they hit, tend to hold well over the course of the weekend […]

  There were no pleasant surprises for anyone at the Friday box office, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That even included STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (Legendary/Universal), which will easily win the weekend, but which–considering the very mild competition–fell more heavily than expected from last Friday, down 65% to $8.5M.  That drop will moderate over the […]

  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 […]