With July 4th falling on a Saturday for the 1st time since 2009, this was fated to be a slow holiday at the box office.  Nevertheless, the weekend’s openings were supposed to be able to overtake titles that have already been in the market for 3-4 weeks.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, however, […]

  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 […]

  SAN ANDREAS (Village Roadshow/Warners) is off to a mid-range start, with preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline giving it a $17.5M opening day (including $3.1M from Thursday night), which is slightly ahead of the $16.6M opening day of Mad Max: Fury Road.  No one really cares that its likely $45M weekend will be Dwayne Johnson’s […]

  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 […]

  Hollywood continued to have box office gifts to unwrap on the day after Christmas. WIDE RELEASE:  THE HOBBIT:  THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) gained 19% from Christmas Day on Friday to $15.7M, putting it back in first place, which it will probably hold for the 3-day weekend.  That 19% increase is […]

  OPENINGS:  None, really, although you could stretch and include THE PYRAMID (20th), an ultra-low budget, barely-marketed “found-footage” horror item that opened at just 589 theatres.  It made $458K on Friday, and probably won’t get much past $1M for the weekend, not enough to pay even for its very limited costs. HOLDOVERS:  Instead, for the […]

  OPENINGS:  Congratulations and condolences to THE HUNGER GAMES:  MOCKINGJAY PART 1 (Lionsgate), which had the biggest day of any movie this year–yet at $55M (slightly higher than Friday afternoon estimates had projected) was a surprising disappointment.  That number was well behind the $67.3M for the first Hunger Games and the $71M for Catching Fire, a […]

  OPENINGS:  FURY (Columbia/Sony) should reach $25M for the weekend after a $8.8M Friday.  Sony is claiming total costs (including worldwide marketing) of $150M, and that’s probably low by at least $25M.  With a box office total of $75M probable in the US, the movie will need overseas strength to hit profit, and luckily Brad […]