A weak slate of newcomers is almost always good news for the holdovers in the market, and that will be the case this holiday weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (Warners Animation) declined a mild 45% from last week’s opening day to $8M, and should take in at least […]

> Dateline has preliminary figures for Saturday and the weekend, and as expected, Paramount’s THE DEVIL INSIDE took a significant 25+% hit in its second day, a trend that will no doubt continue as stories of audiences in open revolt at the movie’s lack of an ending multiply.  Even so, it’s looking at a $35M […]

  SHAZAM (DC/New Line/Warners) is going to win a bleak weekend at the box office, and even it doesn’t have much to boast about.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have it dropping 68% from last Friday to $6.6M, worse than the Friday-to-Friday drops for Wonder Woman (-59%) and Justice League (-57%).  A $23M weekend would put […]

> The news didn’t get any better for Hollywood on Saturday.  In fact, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the downhill ride got steeper for SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS.  The film had virtually no increase from Friday to Saturday, and if those numbers hold, its full weekend tally will probably be around $40M, below […]

  The failure of ALLEGIANT (Summit/Lionsgate) puts its studio in an unusually awkward position.  Even though Lionsgate may be able to put the 3rd Divergent movie on its books as a profit (most of the international rights were pre-sold, providing revenues that can off-set the oncoming US losses), the economics are going to get much […]

> THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) continues to overperform.  Based on preliminary Saturday numbers at Deadline, it’s headed for a $21.7M weekend and a total so far of $335.7M, a spectacular 35% decline for a blockbuster in its 4th weekend (and even better than it sounds, because last weekend included the Good Friday holiday).  If it […]

  HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION (Sony Animation/Columbia/Sony) continues to be a solid mid-level franchise.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the opening day box office at $16.3M, the best of the trio, although it’s a bit misleading to compare that with the $11M Friday for the first Transylvania and the $13.3M for the second, since […]

  There’s usually a box office hangover after a holiday weekend opening, but the Friday-to-Friday drop for SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) was particularly sour, down 77% to $8M in preliminary numbers at Deadline, compared to the 73% for last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean V, and 74% for X-Men: Days of Future Past.  In fact, it was […]