> Welcome to the weekend of THE TWILIGHT SAGA:  BREAKING DAWN PART I, where every ticket sold will be the subject of excited speculation about just how big an opening the sure-to-be-blockbuster will have. We begin overseas, where BD1 opened yesterday in 5 territories, before a much larger international push tomorrow. The total for the […]

> The absence of last weekend’s Good Friday holiday is sending week vs. week comparisons downward, but according to Deadline, even with no holiday this time around, THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) is headed for its 4th straight weekend win, with a $6.5M Friday that should lead to a $20M weekend.  This ties The Dark Knight […]

  The final chapter in the TWILIGHT saga, BREAKING DAWN PART 2, began its swoop through the boxoffice last night, and earned $30.4M.  This is, unquestionably, a ton of money, and technically–very narrowly–a record for the Twilight franchise, just barely beating out Breaking Dawn Part 1‘s $30.3M (although nowhere near the all-time midnight record $43.5M […]

The complete Friday Box Office report will be posted at its usual time Saturday morning, but in the meantime we have one big over-performer in Despicable Me 2, one opener slightly above forecast (Kevin Hart) and one flat-out, embarrassing bomb (Lone Ranger), doing even worse than our bearish expectations. With $34.3 million Wednesday and $24.5 million […]

  The studios brought out a trio of romantic movies for Valentine’s Day, but the couple audiences most wanted to see was Emmet and Wyldstyle, as preliminary numbers at Deadline have THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners) topping the Friday box office with about $13M.  Since Lego will benefit the most from the holiday weekend matinee crowd, […]

  It’s looking like another dim weekend at the box office.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) will easily race past its weak competition.  With $11M on Friday (that includes $1.1M from Thursday night), it should hit $28-30M for the weekend, unless it turns out to be unduly frontloaded (always a possibility […]

  PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) was marketed on its high concept rather than as an Adam Sandler star vehicle, perhaps reflecting not just Sandler’s dwindling value, but the shuttering of his long-term acting relationship with the studio as he moves to Netflix.  The result was better than some of Sandler’s recent flops, but far from exciting:  according […]

  The real world, in the form of terrible reviews and dim word of mouth, caught up with BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (DC/RatPac/Warners) on Friday.  Actually, the signs had been there since midweek, although Warners and its box office pets had obscured the fact for a few days by comparing the daily results […]