Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #10 of 2014 looks like $133 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, slightly ahead of the the average for this weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,470 theaters Friday, 300: Rise of an Empire from Warner Brothers grossed $17.4 million Friday, putting the film on track for a $44.3 million opening […]

  THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD (Summit/Lionsgate) is off to a mild late-August start, but it will be enough to win the quiet weekend.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $8.1M (including $1.7M from Thursday night), which should mean a $20M weekend.  While that might not even land it in the top 50 August openings, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #39 of 2013 looks like an okay $98 million for the top 12 films, up 5% from the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 4,001 theaters Friday, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 from Sony grossed $9.3 million Friday and is on track for a $35.5 million […]

The 30th weekend of 2012 is looking like a weak $119 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 30% from the same weekend last year.  The Dark Knight Rises continues to fall significantly off the pace of 2008’s The Dark Knight, and the two films opening this weekend were stillborn.  Some will say people […]

  The bulk of the week’s openings arrived on Wednesday, and as usual for this weekend they were led by a Disney family attraction.  This year it was COCO (Pixar/Disney), which was more or less on target at $13.2M, down 15% from last year’s Moana and its $15.5M opening day.  That suggests the 5-day weekend […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #45 of 2013 looks like $160 million for the top 12 films, not the record we had forecast but still 21% above the recent average for this weekend. Opening at 3,841 theaters Friday, Thor: The Dark World from Disney and Marvel grossed $31.8 million Friday and is on track for a $84.3 million […]

  Are Americans tired of superhero movies?  There were whispers to that effect after The Avengers: Age of Ultron underperformed a bit and Fantastic Four outright flopped last year, but clearly the answer is Hell, No.  DEADPOOL (Marvel/20th) puts a new R-rated satiric spin on the genre (very carefully:  its jokes are aimed at Fox’s […]

  AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (Marvel/Disney) exists on that rarefied box office plane where even a reported $450M in production/marketing costs can be waved off in comparison to the certain returns to come.  Deadline is reporting its opening day at $104M ($39M from Thursday night), which would be just slightly the #3 opening day in US […]