> You’re frontloaded!  No, you’re frontloaded! OPENINGS:  The movie audience has 3 main components–men, women, kids–and a weekend that offers a strong title for each one has a good chance of being successful.  The relatively low-budget THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) got off to a great start (too bad it’s not a great movie), with $15.4M […]

  Franchises and a former President may carry the weekend to record heights, but the newcomers stumbled. OPENINGS:  RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) has the advantage of no new animated competition through the entire holiday season (Disney/Pixar is re-releasing a 3D conversion of Monsters Inc in mid-December), and it’s going to need that long […]

  OPENINGS:  THE CONJURING (Warners) is off to a great start with a $17M opening day (including $3.3M from Thursday evening), but its real test comes today.  Horror movies tend to be very frontloaded and plunge on their second day of release:  this year, Mama was an exception, rising 7% on Saturday (and parlaying a […]

  OPENINGS:  NEED FOR SPEED (DreamWorks/Disney) won Friday with $6.6M (which includes $1.1M from Thursday night), but it’s destined to come in 2d or even 3rd for the weekend, probably under $20M.  At a $175M cost (including worldwide marketing), $50M in the US will barely make a dent, meaning that the movie will need to […]

  Hollywood’s very successful holiday season rolled into the first Friday of 2015, and the fun should continue today, until end-of-break factors kick in on Sunday, when for the first day in nearly 2 weeks numbers will return to normal levels. OPENINGS:  THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2: ANGEL OF DEATH (Relativity) smartly seized an opportunity […]

  This weekend is looking like a battle of the family films, with no clear victor at this point.  THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is performing quite a bit better than expected, with preliminary numbers at Deadline giving it nearly $15M on Friday (including $1.5M from Thursday night), which should lead it to a $50M […]

  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 […]

  The gamble of CRAZY RICH ASIANS (Color Force/SK Global/Warners) is paying off with solid returns.  The film opened on Wednesday and earned $8.8M in its first two days, and preliminary numbers at Deadline have its Friday at $7M.  That should give it a $21M 3-day weekend and around $30M since opening day.  A $70M […]