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 […]

> UPDATE:  The Deadline numbers have shifted quite a bit from their earlier incarnation:  HUNGER GAMES is now estimated at $19.5M for Friday (a 71% drop from opening day) and a $55M weekend (down 64%).  If that number holds, GAMES would have the 11th highest 2d weekend ever, although only $200K away from the Top […]

> Despite all Universal‘s efforts to imprint audiences with the idea that THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT is some kind of quasi-sequel to Bridesmaids (it’s not), preliminary numbers at Deadline show the movie to be underperforming badly.  Its $3.7M Friday was only in 3rd place for the day, well below the $6M opening day the same creative […]

  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 […]

> The new PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is off to a good start:  its $8M boxoffice from midnight shows last night was 30% higher than Paranormal 2‘s midnight performance, and in a league with Hangover 2‘s $10.4M, which is the highest ever for an R-rated title. Sequels, of course, tend to be increasingly more front-loaded, so […]

  WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Wanda/Ten Cent/DC/Warners) is proving to be exactly what its studio–and the summer box office in general–needed.  For Warners, it’s giving the embattled DC mega-franchise its first taste of critical praise since the days of The Dark Knight, which is important in itself, and that’s paying off in ticket sales.  Preliminary numbers at […]

  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 […]

  How big is big enough?  It’s a question that comes up on giant franchise installments, and the latest is THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal), the 8th in its series.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day earned $45.5M (including $10.4M from Thursday night), a huge number, but down 33% from Furious […]