THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) had a solid Saturday and no trouble at all beating the new competition in its 3d weekend of release.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Rises should have a $36.2M weekend, a 42% decline from last weekend that’s slightly better than the 43% Weekend 3 drop for The Dark […]

  A piece of beloved genre IP that gets rave reviews is hard to beat, and the newest iteration of HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) is headed toward a huge opening.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put Friday at $33M ($7.7M from Thursday night), and even allowing for the typical front-loading of sequels and horror movies, that should mean […]

  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney) held strongly on Saturday despite its massive opening day.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, the outer space superhero romp dropped about 15% from Friday (which included $11.2M from Thursday night shows) to $32M.  That’s a better Day 2 hold than Transformers: Age of Extinction, Godzilla or X-Men: Days of […]

> As is traditionally the case, movie boxoffice declined sharply on December 24, the lowest ebb of the holiday period.  According to Deadline, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount) remains #1, with $5.6M on Saturday, a 40+% fall from Friday.  Similarly, SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners) fell around 45% to $3.8M on Saturday.  […]

  INFERNO (LStar/Columbia/Sony) was expected to earn less than The Da Vinci Code ($217.5M US/$540.7M overseas) and Angels & Demons ($133.4M/$352.6M), which is why Sony spent $75M less to produce the new film.  But that still leaves $200M in production/marketing costs, and Inferno is flopping too badly to have much chance of profit.  According to […]

  Franchises have been dropping like flies this year, but one brand name that still works is Marvel.  Its latest extravaganza DOCTOR STRANGE (Marvel/Disney) had an opening day of at least $32M according to preliminary numbers at Deadline (including $9.4M from Thursday night), which should give it a $80M+ weekend.  As the kick-off to a […]

  The lack of strong new competition is certainly helping, as is the Wednesday opening that kept last Friday down a bit, but nevertheless, the Weekend 2 hold for CRAZY RICH ASIANS (SK Global/Warners) is on track to be extraordinary.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have a 4% Friday-to-Friday drop to $7M, which would give it […]

> No miracle turnarounds for this weekend’s dismal boxoffice.  BREAKING DAWN PART 1, despite a major decline from last weekend, will be in first place with $16-17M, followed by a disappointing 2d weekend for THE MUPPETS at $11M, with HUGO and ARTHUR CHRISTMAS hovering at around $7.5M (although Hugo is in far fewer theatres than […]