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 […]

  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 […]

  ALIEN: COVENANT (TSG/20th) was supposed to refresh the franchise after the disenchanted response to Prometheus, but it’s opening at the low end of expectations.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put opening day at $15.2M (including $4.2M from Thursday night), which suggests a $38M weekend.  Covenant carries about $225M in production/marketing costs, and it may not […]

  HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION (Sony Animation/Columbia/Sony) continues to be a solid mid-level franchise.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the opening day box office at $16.3M, the best of the trio, although it’s a bit misleading to compare that with the $11M Friday for the first Transylvania and the $13.3M for the second, since […]

  Are Americans tired of superhero movies?  There were whispers to that effect after The Avengers: Age of Ultron underperformed a bit and Fantastic Four outright flopped last year, but clearly the answer is Hell, No.  DEADPOOL (Marvel/20th) puts a new R-rated satiric spin on the genre (very carefully:  its jokes are aimed at Fox’s […]

  VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) is the first big-budget action movie to open since The Meg in mid-August, and that (plus a huge marketing campaign) seems to have gotten it past murderous reviews for an enormous start, the biggest ever in October.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $32.3M (including $10M from a Thursday that […]

  JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM (Thunder Road/Summit/Lionsgate) marks a rarity these days, a solid and growing mid-level action franchise.  The first John Wick collected $5.4M on its first day and $14.4M for the weekend, the second was at $11M/$30.4M, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Parabellum‘s first day was at $22.5M (including $5.9M […]

  If preliminary numbers at Deadline hold, what was supposed to be a fairly competitive box office weekend will instead be a romp for THE BUTLER (Weinstein).  It’s claiming a $9M Friday, which should give it at least $25M for the weekend.  That would be in line with the $26M opening for The Help in mid-August […]