ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony), the summer’s great adult-oriented, non-franchise, auteur/movie star hope, had a solid start per preliminary numbers at Deadline with a $16.7M opening day (including $5.8M from Thursday night).  That’s the biggest opening of Quentin Tarantino’s career, higher than the $14.4M for Inglourious Basterds and the $15M for Django […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #50 of 2013 looks like $144 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, not as strong as we had forecast but still up double digits in terms of percent increase over comparable weekends the past several years.   Opening at 3,903 theaters Friday, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug from Warner Brothers […]

  Although still down steeply from Fifty Shades of Grey, FIFTY SHADES FREED (Perfect World/Universal) is opening on par with the initial sequel Fifty Shades Darker.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Freed earned $18.4M on its first day (including $5.6M from Thursday night), down 14% from Darker, which could translate into a $40M weekend, […]

  JURASSIC WORLD (Legendary/Universal) is stomping past even the the highest expectations for its opening.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was a stupendous $78.6M (including $18.5M from Thursday night), giving it the biggest June box office day ever by far, easily passing the $68.5M for Twilight: Eclipse, and in line for […]

  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) is looking like a textbook example of a studio watering down its own franchise.  Warners jumped into 2 spin-offs before even reaching its first official sequel, and the result according to early numbers at Deadline is a $8.9M opening day, down 48% from the first […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 of 2013 looks like $87 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, right on target for the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend.   Opening at 2,101 theaters Friday, Out of the Furnace from Relativity grossed $1.9 million Friday and is on track for a $5.5 million opening weekend (below the already bearish […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #31 of 2013 looks like a surprisingly weak $124 million for the top 12 films, down 5% from the average for this weekend the past few years (the first such decline since the weekend of June 7-9 eight weeks ago).  Opening at 3,025 theaters Friday, 2 Guns from Universal grossed $10 million Friday […]

>Based on Wednesday-Friday numbers, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 will hold on to the #1 spot this weekend despite an anticipated precipitous drop, followed in second place by The Muppets.  The other kid-friendly openers, Arthur Christmas and Hugo, are fighting over table scraps.  The weekend is now looking like it will be down 11% from […]