> The Hogwarts Express has started its journey:  last night’s midnight showings of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) blew past the previous midnight record of $30M (Twilight:  Eclipse) and grossed an incredible $43.5M from those screenings alone.  According to the Hollywood Reporter, this included sold-out houses for every single 3D midnight performance […]

  As holidays go, the 4th of July isn’t a bright one for moviegoing, and when it falls on a Friday, the result is a weekend no better than usual (the days before and after compensate for the holiday itself).  That held true this year as well, especially because the other studios showed more deference […]

  The weekend looks bright for a couple of the new openings.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, WRECK-IT RALPH (Disney) had a $13.5M opening day, on its way to a $50M weekend.  If those numbers hold, the weekend will top the (non-Pixar) Walt Disney Animation record $48.8M opening for Tangled 2 years ago, which […]

  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 […]

  Tossing IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (Village Roadshow/Warners) onto what is historically one of the weakest box office weekends of the year–and this year also just days ahead of the arrival of cinema’s Death Star–was a Hail Mary, and it’s not paying off.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, it earned $4M on […]

  For the fourth consecutive weekend, an animated movie will lead the box office, as Finding Dory‘s mantle is taken by THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS (Illumination/Universal).  With a $38M Friday (including $5.3M from Thursday night) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline, Pets is on track for a $95M weekend, which would make it the […]

  THE UPSIDE (STX/Lantern) survived the wreckage of the Weinstein Company bankruptcy, and found an opening between the end of the holiday movie season and next week’s MLK weekend, poking through with what preliminary numbers at Deadline put at a Friday-winning $7M (including $1.1M from Thursday night).  That should propel it to a weekend win […]

> Deadline has some early Friday boxoffice numbers, and the news was good for CONTAGION and its maybe-I’m-retiring-and-maybe-I’m-not director Steven Soderbergh:  an $8M opening day that should lead to a weekend around $22M, which would overperform Mitch Metcalf’s predictions by a bit.  On the other hand, despite strong reviews, WARRIOR hasn’t yet been able to […]