Although ticket sales were up from July 4th, preliminary numbers at Deadline indicate that they remained very soft on Saturday, and in general, current releases will be at the low end of their weekend expectations.  That starts with TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount), which climbed less than 35% on Saturday to perhaps $14.5M.  That […]

  It was Bombs Away! for the weekend’s new openings, and even though SULLY (Village Roadshow/RatPac/Warners) will easily win the stanza, it’s not performing thrillingly either.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its second Friday was $6.3M, down 48% from last week’s opening day.  By comparison, the 2d Friday for Bridge of Spies was down […]

> After a nice Friday bump, TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON took a small step backwards yesterday, with a lower % of increase than either of its predecessors had on their first Saturdays.  As Mitch Metcalf noted in his piece on holiday weekend boxoffice, films in general should benefit from smaller than usual declines today, […]

  The phenomenon of It having had its day, weekend box office is starting to look more familiar, which is to say subdued.  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) will take the weekend, but hardly in impressive fashion.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $15.7M, which includes $3.4M from Thursday night.  2 years ago, […]

  All this summer’s box office needed for burial was a shovel, and Hollywood provided that with a Labor Day line-up devoid of any genuinely wide new releases.  The result is going to be ugly, except for a few hardy holdovers. The widest release of the weekend isn’t new at all:  it’s the one-week 901-theatre […]

  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) had a $20M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline (that’s at the high end of numbers reported elsewhere earlier in the day), including $3.7M from Thursday night.  Even if that number holds, it’s little more than half the $38.4M opening day for Godzilla 3 years ago.  Godzilla had […]

  It’s shaping up to be a close race at the box office this weekend, and with the result likely to come down to performance on Sunday, we may not know the winner for sure until final numbers are issued on Monday.  HIDDEN FIGURES (20th) was the clear winner on Friday, with preliminary numbers at […]

  The major studios are barely participating in late August distribution, and it was clear the box office would be dreadful this weekend even before calculating the effects of Hurricane Harvey and the expected massive pay-per-view gate for Saturday’s Mayweather vs. McGregor bout.  (Those events are likely to bring down weekend multiples even lower than […]