In its time of need, Hollywood looked to Pixar for salvation, and FINDING DORY (Pixar/Disney) is delivering.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was $53M (including $9.2M from Thursday evening), more than any animated film has ever made in a single day, ahead of the $47.1M that Shrek The Third earned […]

  THE MEG (Gravity/Warners) appears to be having the opposite box office experience from what we’ve come to associate with US/China action movies.  In the US, it’s overperforming, perhaps helped by a calendar slot a week after Discovery’s yearly Shark Week:  preliminary numbers at Deadline estimate opening day at $16.5M ($4M from Thursday night), which […]

  Labor Day weekend is always the exhausted last gasp of the summer movie season, but this year the studios didn’t even try.  Partly it’s the effect of August having generally been a disaster in 2015 (last year’s 4-day Labor Day span featured a $22.9M 5th weekend for Guardians of the Galaxy and $15.6M from […]

  As with Spectre 2 weeks ago, THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Lionsgate) is making a tremendous amount of money in its opening weekend–but not as much as had been expected in light of what its franchise predecessor had earned.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Mockingjay 2 will have a $47M launch, including […]

  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Skydance/China Film Channel/Alibaba/Paramount) set its sights at a $50M opening weekend in the US (you could tell because the studio claimed the target was in the $40Ms), and it seems likely to get there.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give the 5th entry in the franchise a $20M opening day (incuding […]

  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 […]

  There are two neck-and-neck races at the top of the weekend box office, but neither is especially thrilling. The #1-2 slots will be fought between holdovers.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) had a $6.8M Friday, and BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Disney) earned $6.6M.  That should put both of […]

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 […]