It may be unseemly even to discuss the dollars and cents of movie boxoffice as we all recoil and try to get a grasp on the terrible events that took place in Colorado last night.  Such dreadful aspects of real life should have no place in what was supposed to be a weekend of […]

  Is OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (Disney) more like Alice in Wonderland or like The Lorax?  We won’t know for another 24 hours or so, and that’s going to be the difference between Oz living up to its potential or not.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Oz had a $23.5M Friday (including Thursday […]

  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give PRISONERS (Warners) an easy win on Friday and almost certainly for the weekend, with a $7.5M opening day that should mean $20-22M by Sunday.  Warners is following the Argo playbook with Prisoners, with acclaimed Telluride and Toronto Film Festival screenings followed by a quick wide release, and so far […]

  The moviegoer love affair with CG spectacles continues in full force, as GODZILLA (Warners/Legendary) appears, on the basis of preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, to be headed for a $36M Friday (including $9.3M from Thursday night).  If that number holds, it’ll be midway between the $35.2M opening day for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 […]

  No one expected this weekend’s soft new arrivals to come near last week’s holdovers, and they’re not.  LOVE THE COOPERS (CBS/Lionsgate) is at least creditable, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, with a $2.7M Friday that should give it $7-8M for the weekend.  Coopers is intended as a long-term play that will hang around […]

  STAR TREK BEYOND (Skydance/Alibaba/Huahua/Paramount) is showing a fair franchise hold by the standards of this summer.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $23M opening day (including $5.5M from Thursday), down about 26% from the start of 2009’s Star Trek reboot.  (2013’s Into Darkness opened on a Thursday, changing its weekend dynamic.)  That suggests a $57M […]

  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 […]