The marketing department did its job, and BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (DC/RatPac/Warners) had its massive opening day, currently estimated by Deadline at $81.3M (including $27.7M from Thursday night).  If that number holds till morning, it will be the #5 opening day ever, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Harry Potter & […]

Question #1 on this weekend’s boxoffice:  if The Dark Knight Rises is a blockbuster but everything else Warners releases this summer is a bomb, is the studio having a good summer?  Based on preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline, ROCK OF AGES joins Dark Shadows (and Chernobyl Diaries, too) as a Warner Bros summer flop.  Rock […]

  CARS 3 (Pixar/Disney) will have a strong Fathers Day, which in turn will make its weekend multiple look good, but it’s off to a disappointing start.  In preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day is pegged at $19.1M (including $2.8M from Thursday night), down 25% from the first day of 2011’s Cars 2 ($25.7M), […]

The softness of MEN IN BLACK 3‘s (Sony) appeal noted in Mitch Metcalf’s predictions for this weekend seems to be very real.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, and contrary to much more bullish forecasts elsewhere, MIB3 is heading for a mediocre $18M at the Friday boxoffice.  (By way of comparison, last year The Hangover […]

> UPDATE: Deadline has a clearer picture of the day’s boxoffice, and THE HELP is already having a superb weekend, leading the day with $5.7M, down a tiny 25% from last week.  If this number holds, its full weekend could reach $19-20M, which would give it a total of $70M+ and a clear path to […]

  Seth MacFarlane’s moment, it seems, has passed.  The three years that followed the triumphant opening of the original Ted included his missteps as Oscars host and as live action star of A Million Ways to Die In the West, and it seems to have taken its toll on TED 2 (MRC/Universal), which according to […]

  A weekend of sequels is dancing to the beat of MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (Perfect World/Universal), which had a $15.1M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up an impressive 53% from the first day of the original Mamma Mia, although some of the gap is due to the fact […]

  Preliminary box office numbers at Deadline give Friday, as expected, to CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (Sony), and it will easily win the weekend as well.  Its $10M opening day is above the original Cloudy in 2009 ($8.1M) but below last year’s Hotel Transylvania ($11M), and with a sequel’s usual frontloading, it’s […]