Amid its very public internal tumult today, Deadline managed to post some preliminary box office numbers, and if they hold up, BAD GRANDPA (Paramount) will take over first place for the weekend.  Its reported $11.5M Friday (including $1.4M from Thursday night) is only about half of the opening day for the last Jackass (which […]

  Early numbers at Deadline and elsewhere make DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (20th) the runaway winner at the Friday box office with $26-27M.  That could give it a weekend as high as $70M, at the high end of expectations and breezing past Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its $54.6M […]

  It wasn’t even a contest, let alone a drag race. FAST & FURIOUS 6 (Universal) had a sensational $36M Thursday night/Friday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s better than the $34.4M opening for Fast Five, and thanks to the holiday weekend, 6 should have a far better 4-day start that Fast Five‘s $92.4M.  […]

  JUSTICE LEAGUE (RatPac/DC/Warners) was supposed to be the jewel in the DC crown, the Avengers that would push its megafranchise to the next box office level.  That’s what justified spending a reported $450M on production (and then more production) and marketing, making it one of the most expensive movies in history.  But tonight it’s […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony), the summer’s great adult-oriented, non-franchise, auteur/movie star hope, had a solid start per preliminary numbers at Deadline with a $16.7M opening day (including $5.8M from Thursday night).  That’s the biggest opening of Quentin Tarantino’s career, higher than the $14.4M for Inglourious Basterds and the $15M for Django […]

  The last time Halloween fell on a Saturday, in 2009, Hollywood mostly stayed away.  (The concert movie This Is It opened the previous Wednesday.)  This year, two studios tried to counterprogram the holiday with problematic star vehicles, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the results weren’t pretty. BURNT (Weinstein) has been conspicuous for […]

  From the start, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (DreamWorks/Reliance/Universal) was perceived as a lower-intensity version of the Gone Girl phenomenon, and that’s holding with the opening of its film version.  Where Gone Girl had a $13.2M Friday start on its way to a $37.5M weekend, preliminary numbers at Deadline give Train $9.3M on Friday, […]

  Although it’s possible for a horror or action movie to make some money over Labor Day weekend, no studio opens a movie it cares about for the holiday that repels moviegoers.  This weekend’s openings won’t change that rule.  THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (DreamWorks/Reliant/Participant/Touchstone/Disney) was probably envisioned as an awards-worthy project when it was originally […]