ICE AGE:  CONTINENTAL DRIFT (20th) continued with its underwhelming opening on Saturday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.   The 4th in the animated series had no Saturday matinee bump, holding at $16.5M for a 2d consecutive day (the previous Friday openings in the series had gone up 43% and 28% on their 2d days), […]

> Early numbers for Thursday have TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON adding $21.5M to its boxoffice, making a total of $64.7M since Tuesday evening.  Comparing the Transformers movies isn’t apples to apples, because the first played a full day on its opening Tuesday, and the second didn’t begin until 12:01AM on Wednesday.  As of now, […]

> Deadline is reporting that Saturday’s boxoffice for THE HUNGER GAMES is heading for $50M.  This is obviously a very preliminary figure–some late night west coast shows haven’t even started yet, much less been reported back to the studio.  But if the number holds, it would mean that Hunger Games is an even more phenomenal […]

  Preliminary numbers at Deadline suggest that more adults showed up at the multiplexes for the Saturday of this holiday weekend, boosting some of the less family-centric attractions.  THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (Warners/MGM) appears to have unseated FROZEN (Disney) for the day and possibly the 3-day weekend, with Hobbit up slightly to $10.5M […]

  HAPPY DEATH DAY (Blumhouse/Universal) continued a remarkable year for Blumhouse, following the giant successes of Split and Get Out.  Deadline has its Friday at a preliminary $11.3M (including $1M from Thursday night), and its 68% Rotten Tomatoes score is comparable to Split‘s 74%.  That film had a 2.7x weekend multiple, and even if Happy […]

  There were no new openings for New Year’s weekend, and not much in the way of surprises among the returning titles.  ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney) continued its ride through the holidays with $18.1M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up about 8% from Thursday, and business should go down on New Year’s […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]

  Most films will rise this weekend compared to last week, simply because New Year’s Eve is a bigger moviegoing occasion than Christmas Eve.  Generally, box office should rise 20% or so on Saturday, drop around 30% on Sunday, then jump 30-40% on New Year’s Day.  The first two weekends of 2018 should feature relatively […]