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 $17.1M opening day (including $3.4M from Thursday night) for GHOSTBUSTERS (Columbia/Sony) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline would be fine if the movie were at the same budget level as previous Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy collaborations The Heat or Spy.  But Ghostbusters cost 2-3x as much, $275M+ including production and global marketing, and a […]

  PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING (Legendary/Universal) was the right film at the right time this weekend, and although the preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $10.1M ($2.4M of it from Thursday night), just slightly ahead of the $9M for last Friday’s Tomb Raider, that should be enough to bring it to $26M for […]

  NON-STOP (Universal) has taken the initial lead over SON OF GOD (20th) with a tight Friday win, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, but the weekend race is far from over.  Non-Stop reportedly took in $9.5M on Friday (including around $700K on Thursday night), with Son of God close behind at $9M+ (including $1.2M […]

  It’s a deja vu weekend, as THE ACCOUNTANT (RatPac/Warners) had a $9M opening day (including $1.35M from Thursday night), according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, almost identical to last Friday’s $9.3M for The Girl On The Train (including $1.23M from Thursday night), another adult-aimed thriller with a production budget in the $40M range and […]

> Deadline has preliminary boxoffice figures for Wednesday, and there doesn’t seem to be great news for anyone.  BREAKING DAWN PART 1 appears to be the easy winner for the day and probably for Thanksgiving weekend, but its $12.5M for Wednesday, if it holds, would be more than 10% off the parallel date for 2009’s […]

  A WRINKLE IN TIME (Disney) has likely taken the only box office title it will ever have.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Wrinkle had a narrow victory on Friday with $11.3M ($1.2M of that from Thursday night).  But the general front-loadedness of new openings, combined with the likely dim word of mouth here […]

  A trio of movie fantasies opened on Friday, and only one survived.  In fact, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER (Nickelodeon/Paramount) thrived, outperforming expectations according to preliminary numbers at Deadline with $14.3M on Friday, which should give it $50M+ for the weekend.  That opening day was far better than the $9.6M earned by […]