> According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) had an exceptional Saturday bump of almost 40%, giving it $26.2M for the day and a probable weekend of $63-65M.  If these numbers hold, Hunger Games would have the #5 2nd weekend of all time, behind only Avatar, The Dark Knight, Shrek 2 and […]

  The underperforming spectacle of the week is INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (20th), which found out that not all that many people cared to see a sequel to a two-decade old hit without its original star.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $17.5M (including $4M from Thursday evening), 33% below the already not-great […]

  The news didn’t get better for any of the weekend’s openings on Saturday, according to early numbers at Deadline–and that’s before the effect, if any, of Sunday’s east coast storms.  ARGO (Warners) beat them all with its 3rd weekend $12.5M, down under 25% from last weekend.  CLOUD ATLAS (Warners) was considerably behind, struggling to […]

  JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (Warners) climbed in its 2nd day of release, but not high enough to make any real difference.  Jack, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, had a 60% Saturday bump, a good-but-not-great family audience increase (Escape From Planet Earth rose 80% on its 2d day a couple of weeks ago), which […]

  The negligible horror cheapie INCARNATE (High Top/Blumhouse/Universal) is the only new wide opening of the post-Thanksgiving weekend, and with just $800K on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline and a weekend that may not break $2M, even the ultra-low budget Blumhouse division may not be able to find any shred of profit from […]

  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE POSSESSION (Lionsgate) is still on top with Saturday’s boxoffice counted, perhaps finding an extra $1M or so at the end of the 4-day weekend for $22-23M, which would be $2-3M higher than last year’s Labor Day #1, The Help (in its 4th weekend).  LAWLESS (Weinstein Company)  might […]

  With little else of interest around, audiences are flocking to a movie they know they’ll enjoy:  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney), already the top movie of the year in the US, had a superb $6.1M Saturday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, up 60% from Friday and down only 19% from last Saturday.  That […]

> Deadline has a more complete set of Saturday numbers, and the news just gets better and better for RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.  It now appears the picture didn’t drop at all from Friday, and it could edge as high as $55M for the weekend.  (No such luck for CHANGE-UP, still looking […]