All four of this weekend’s wide releases began with Thursday night screenings last night, but only KICK-ASS 2 (Universal) reported the results.  Kick Ass 2 started with a $1.3M Thursday (screenings started at 8PM), below last week’s Elysium ($1.7M) but in the same range as White House Down ($1.35M) and 2 Guns ($1.2M).  Both […]

  ELYSIUM (Sony) got off to a very moderate start with $1.7M from 10PM Thursday night shows.  That’s better than the Thursday nights for 2 Guns ($1.2M) and White House Down ($1.35M), but nowhere near the $3.6M for Pacific Rim, suggesting that Elysium may skew older than the usual sci-fi epic–or that there’s limited audience […]

  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, 2 GUNS (Universal/Emmett-Furla) claimed Friday with $9.8M (including $1.3M from Thursday night).  If that number holds, it’ll be considerably below Denzel Washington’s last action opening for Safe House, which started with $13.6M, despite the presence this time of Mark Wahlberg, although it would be higher than Unstoppable ($8M) and […]

  2 GUNS (Universal), with a 10PM Thursday start, had an unexceptional $1.2M launch, on the low end of the summer.  But while it was below White House Down‘s $1.35M, and that action movie went on to just a $24.9M weekend, it’s in the same neighborhood as Now You See Me ($1.5M) and The Heat […]

  There haven’t been a lot of Wednesday openings this summer, and even fewer that are relevant to the start of THE SMURFS 2 (Sony), which began with $5.2M yesterday.  This Is The End ($7.8M) was aimed at a completely different audience, while the colossal $35M start for Despicable Me 2 was part of a […]

  THE WOLVERINE (20th) is the weekend’s only big newcomer at the box office, and it got off to a healthy $4M start last night.  That number is particularly strong since Wolverine held off till 10PM to start its launch–unlike other summer openings that have begun their “Fridays” at 6-7PM on Thursday–and it was was […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE CONJURING (Warners) might be headed for the biggest horror opening of the year.  It reportedly pulled in $16.5M on Thursday night/Friday, neck-and-neck with the $16.8M that The Purge made on its opening day.  But Conjuring has the kind of strong reviews and exit polls that suggest it might […]

  The weekend looks highly promising for THE CONJURING (Warners), which haunted up $3.3M in screenings that began 7PM on Thursday night.  Although other summer openings have had similar mid-$3M starts (including The Great Gatsby and World War Z), the closest analogue here is probably the $3.4M earned by low-budget The Purge in its Thursday […]