OPENINGS:  IRON MAN 3 (Disney) was exactly where it was expected to be, its $68.3M US opening day (the 8th largest ever) considerably higher than Iron Man 2‘s $51.2M, but not quite in a league with The Avengers’ $80.8M.  That should mean a $170M-ish weekend.  Meanwhile, Iron 3 has made a spectacular $388.3M internationally […]

  OPENINGS:  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Paramount) eked out a Friday victory over The Hobbit, $8.7M to $8.6M, but Hobbit will likely take the weekend fairly easily, with perhaps $30M  to $27M for Anchorman.  Thanks to the holiday week coming up (Anchorman could take in $65M between Christmas and New Year’s), the comedy should top […]

  OPENINGS:  The question for IF I FALL (Warners/MGM), as with any movie that has a high proportion of young female appeal, is just how frontloaded it will turn out to be.  Friday’s $6.8M included $1.1M from Thursday night, about 16% of the total.  The Fault In Our Stars was much more frontloaded, earning more […]

  How much more humiliating can things get for Warners?  On Friday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE BOSS (Universal), which isn’t even a high-performing Melissa McCarthy vehicle, beat up both the studio’s superheroes with about $7.5M.  The Boss will likely have trouble sustaining itself over the weekend, but at about $20M+, it will […]

  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 […]

  The MCU continues to be America’s uber-franchise, as SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) became the first summer mega-movie in several weeks to fully live up to expectations.  Few films have opened on the Tuesday before a Thursday July 4th, so comparisons aren’t exact, but Far From Home earned $91.5M on its Tuesday-Thursday (The Amazing […]

> TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON becomes the latest franchise movie to fall short in the US compared to prior chapters of the series, despite an increased 3D ticket price.  (Like others, most notably Pirates 4, it may well make up the shortfall overseas.)  That doesn’t make a US gross of $350M anything to complain […]