No big surprises in Saturday’s boxoffice numbers compared to Friday’s, according to preliminary figures at Deadline:  the holdovers rose about 50% (aside from the family movies, which doubled), and the dismal new arrivals stayed about even. That left THE TWILIGHT SAGA:  BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (Summit/Lionsgate) and SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) pretty much neck-and-neck at the […]

  The box office race is likely to be tight this weekend, with contenders at either end of the quality spectrum.  THE EMOJI MOVIE (Columbia/Sony) drew first blood with a $10.2M opening day (including $900K from Thursday night), according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s $2.2M better than the first day of Captain Underpants last […]

  JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM (Thunder Road/Summit/Lionsgate) marks a rarity these days, a solid and growing mid-level action franchise.  The first John Wick collected $5.4M on its first day and $14.4M for the weekend, the second was at $11M/$30.4M, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Parabellum‘s first day was at $22.5M (including $5.9M […]

> 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, […]

> According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE PIRATES!  BAND OF MISFITS (Sony) will pull ahead of THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT (Universal) for the weekend thanks to Saturday and Sunday matinee business, although Engagement is still ahead as of Saturday and the race will be close.  (Both, however, will be behind Think Like A Man and […]

  Preliminary figures at Deadline give THE BUTLER (Weinstein) a commanding victory over its competition.  Very impressively, on Saturday Butler reportedly increased its take by about 10% over Friday, putting it on target for a $23-25M weekend (The Weinstein Company, which has never been shy about aggressively estimating its weekends, could make a run for […]

  CARS 3 (Pixar/Disney) will have a strong Fathers Day, which in turn will make its weekend multiple look good, but it’s off to a disappointing start.  In preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day is pegged at $19.1M (including $2.8M from Thursday night), down 25% from the first day of 2011’s Cars 2 ($25.7M), […]

  Saturday matinees, and the families who attend them, were the difference for BIG HERO 6 (Disney) this weekend.  Disney’s roly-poly new action star came back from being around $1.2M behind INTERSTELLAR (Par/Warners) on Friday to top the weekend by about $5M, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  On Saturday, Big Hero 6 jumped by […]