Even bigger than Gaston after five dozen eggs, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Disney) is coming in at the highest level of projections, and may be poised for the largest pre-May weekend in history.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $65.3M (including $16.3M from Thursday night), and while that’s below the $81.6M first day […]

  MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (20th) had a surprising amount of marketing muscle behind it, and at least in the short term it seems to be paying off.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $10.6M (including $1.6M from Thursday night), and considering that Murder is aimed at an older audience that […]

  THE MEG (Gravity/Warners) appears to be having the opposite box office experience from what we’ve come to associate with US/China action movies.  In the US, it’s overperforming, perhaps helped by a calendar slot a week after Discovery’s yearly Shark Week:  preliminary numbers at Deadline estimate opening day at $16.5M ($4M from Thursday night), which […]

  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.  […]

> 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 […]

> Boxoffice numbers have been bouncing around all day (Per-theatre averages as of 3PM Pacific time!  Number of left-handed, red-haired patrons sitting through the entire end credits!), and they’re still not final or official, but a preliminary picture is starting to come together of THE HUNGER GAMES’ first day in theatres.  Both Deadline and The […]

  This weekend’s boxoffice is looking stronger than last week’s–but that’s not saying very much.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION (Screen Gems/Sony) owned Friday with $8.8M.  That’s lower than the opening days for the last several Resident Evil installments ($10.7M/$9.6M/$9.2M for the last 3), and should mean a $22M opening weekend […]

  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.  […]