Storms be damned:  according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, despite (or because of) the snows on the East Coast, Saturday was a very healthy day at the multiplexes.  Far from taking a Day 2 hit, IDENTITY THIEF (Universal) had a 33% Saturday bump comparable to the 2d day track of Bridesmaids, and now looks […]

  The $17.1M opening day (including $3.4M from Thursday night) for GHOSTBUSTERS (Columbia/Sony) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline would be fine if the movie were at the same budget level as previous Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy collaborations The Heat or Spy.  But Ghostbusters cost 2-3x as much, $275M+ including production and global marketing, and a […]

  Box office discussions about AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Marvel/Disney) will revolve around records broken and those likely to fall.  The first to go was the Thursday night record, which is now $60M (beating The Force Awakens‘s $57M and 54% above Infinity War‘s $39M), and now preliminary numbers at Deadline have Endgame‘s Thursday/Friday at $157M, absolutely smashing […]

  Day 2 for X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (20th) was down by a larger margin than expected, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, from $36M on Friday to $29-30M on Saturday.  If that number holds, it’ll be as much as a 20% drop, compared to 16% for Godzilla and 6% for Captain […]

  FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (Warners) wasn’t expected to touch the $60-90M opening day territory of the latter Harry Potter movies, since Fantastic is a spin-off that doesn’t include any of the major Potter characters.  But preliminary numbers at Deadline have it at $29.4M, lower than any of the Potters, and even […]

  THE DARK TOWER (MRC/Columbia/Sony) will probably win the weekend, but in unimpressive fashion.  It had a $7.7M opening day (including $1.8M from Thursday night), putting it on track for a $19M weekend.  The production budget was reportedly kept reasonable in the $60Ms, but Sony gave it an A-level marketing campaign, which will put total […]

  New Year’s Eve box office results were all over the place, with kids still home from school while adults chose some movies (but not others) as their picks to see out the year.  Also, not all studios have yet reported their Tuesday numbers, notably Sony, Universal, Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.  Still, here’s what […]

  Despite the arrivals of a quartet of newcomers, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney/Marvel) appears in the preliminary numbers at Deadline to be having no trouble keeping its lead for a third consecutive weekend.  Its $10M Saturday was down only about 40% from last week, and should give it a $26M weekend, lifting its […]