It may have hurt Sony’s pride to turn SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) over to Marvel to produce, but it proved to be a smart business move, with preliminary numbers at Deadline that put opening day at about $48M ($15.4M from Thursday night), 35% higher than the first day of 2014’s Amazing Spider-Man 2.  With word […]

  A WRINKLE IN TIME (Disney) has likely taken the only box office title it will ever have.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Wrinkle had a narrow victory on Friday with $11.3M ($1.2M of that from Thursday night).  But the general front-loadedness of new openings, combined with the likely dim word of mouth here […]

>The holiday film season is upon us.  Based on Wednesday numbers, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 should hold on to the #1 spot this weekend despite an anticipated precipitous drop, followed closely by The Muppets.  The other kid-friendly openers, Arthur Christmas and Hugo, are fighting over table scraps.  The weekend is shaping up to be […]

Although it’s still a strong weekend at the boxoffice, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, neither of the week’s big openings had a particularly good Saturday.  PROMETHEUS (20th) is clearly getting mixed word of mouth, and it slumped almost 25% from Friday.  It’s now looking at a weekend under $50M (although it won’t be surprising […]

  If preliminary weekend numbers at Deadline hold, THE WORLD’S END (Focus/Universal) will be a bit more frontloaded than it would have liked, slipping 10% from Friday to Saturday for $3.1M on its second day, and a bit behind THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES (Screen Gems/Sony) for the title of weekend’s biggest opening, with Mortal […]

  Allaying concerns about word of mouth, LUCY (Universal) held quite well in its 2d day of release, down 10% from Friday to $15M+ (better than some of the summer’s blockbusters, which fell 15% or more), according to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere.  That should give it a weekend of $43M+.  (The studios, as […]

  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 […]

This is a well-designed weekend for Hollywood, with a trio of sensibly-budgeted franchise titles all drawing audiences from their mostly separate target demos.  The Friday winner, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, was FIFTY SHADES DARKER (Universal), with $20M ($5.7M of it from Thursday night).  That’s about 2/3 of the $30.3M opening day for Fifty […]