It’s too soon to tell just how GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (Legendary/Warners) will fare based on its $19.7M opening day (including $6.3M from Thursday), per preliminary numbers at Deadline.  The reason is that the two previous installments of what Warners calls its “Monsterverse” have had strikingly divergent trajectories at the US box office.  […]

  Although some films have opened well against the Super Bowl, both counterprogramming (the Hannah Montana concert movie and Dear John) and playing toward the action genre (Taken and Chronicle), as a rule the studios stay away, and that was the case this year.  The only wide opening was the low-budget horror flick WINCHESTER (CBS/Lionsgate), […]

  THE AVENGERS, having trampled over the opening weekend record, will easily take its second weekend in a row.  According to Deadline, it’s heading for a $29M Friday, the highest 2d Friday ever, and it should easily eclipse the Weekend 2 record currently held by Avatar with $75.6M.  Disney is estimating a $100M weekend, which […]

  SUICIDE SQUAD (RatPac/DC/Warners) was expected to explode past all August box office records, and so far, that’s what it’s doing.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was as high as $65M (including $20.5M from Thursday night), obliterating the $37.8M for Guardians of the Galaxy, and the weekend will gallop beyond Guardians‘s $94.3M, […]

  Preliminary box office numbers at Deadline have THE HEAT (20th) overperforming with a $15M Friday, which could give it a $40M opening weekend, almost as much as the movie cost to produce.  That means the first 3 days for the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy pairing may nearly match the first 4 days of The Hangover […]

  After last weekend’s misfired The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, THE GRINCH (Illumination/Universal) is kicking off the family holiday movie season in a bigger way.  Early numbers at Deadline have opening day at $18.3M (including $2.2M from Thursday night), which should mean a $64M weekend, plus more on Monday, since many schools are closed […]

>Love was in the air Tuesday night, as The Vow grossed $11.6 million on Valentine’s Day, shattering the mid-week Valentine’s Day record of $7.5 million for Hitch in 2005, as reported at the Hollywood Reporter.  The Vow was up from a more typical $3.3 million Monday. Business was also brisk for the more male-oriented action […]

> Deadline has updated early Friday numbers, and it’s looking like another too-close-to-call weekend:  all the movies in the Top 5–MONEYBALL, THE LION KING, DOLPHIN TALE, COURAGEOUS and 50/50–have Friday grosses between $3.2-3.8M.  Courageous is probably the most front-loaded, due to its focused church-based audience (although it’s per-theatre number will be very impressive), and while […]