Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #27 of 2015 looks like $130 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, below the norm for this weekend but slightly above last year’s similar bummer of a July 4th weekend.   Opening at 3,758 theaters Friday, Terminator: Genisys from Paramount is on track for a $26.5 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below our $34.0 […]

  THE REVENANT (Regency/20th) is showing impressive strength in its first day of wide release, after 2 strong weeks at NY/LA arthouses.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it $14M+ on Friday, putting it surprisingly into 1st place and confirming that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the few “movie stars” these days who actually sells tickets.  […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #49 of 2014 looks like $69 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 11% the norm for this weekend ($78 million) and down 20% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at a mere 589 theaters, The Pyramid from 20th Century Fox is on track for a $1.0 million opening three-day […]

  Although some films have opened well against the Super Bowl, both counterprogramming (the Hannah Montana concert movie and Dear John) and playing toward the action genre (Taken and Chronicle), as a rule the studios stay away, and that was the case this year.  The only wide opening was the low-budget horror flick WINCHESTER (CBS/Lionsgate), […]

Another strong weekend at the box office: this weekend is looking like it will be over 50% higher than comparable weekends in recent years (improving from the +18% weekend last week).      Taken 2 from 20th Century Fox opened with a very good $18.6 million Friday and is on pace for $50.0 million Friday-Sunday.   […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #5 of 2014 looks like $74 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, even worse than the usual pace for a Super Bowl weekend. Opening at 2,809 theaters Friday, That Awkward Moment from Focus/Universal grossed a small $3.9 million Friday, putting the film on track for a $10.0 million opening weekend (slightly below […]

  It’s a busy but not particularly big weekend at the multiplex.  The weekend’s winner will be BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN (Lionsgate), which did a fairly good job of holding the audience for last year’s original Boo.  Deadline reports a preliminary $7.5M opening day, down 21% from Boo‘s start.  If that percentage holds, the […]

> What a catastrophe at the box office this weekend.  No film above $20 million for the weekend, and the top 12 films are down a staggering 37% from the same weekend last year (when Jackass 3-D opened to $50 million).  Footloose, The Thing and especially The Big Year missed their forecasts.  The Big Year […]