Hollywood generally has little interest in opening films against the Super Bowl, and to the extent it participates, it tries to counterprogram the game by aiming at the young female demographic.  Thus we have a PG-13 horror movie and a YA fantasy-romance this weekend, but neither is finding much of an audience. RINGS (Paramount) […]

> Unlike nearly all the other action epics this summer, CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE FIRST AVENGER is rolling out slowly overseas, with only a couple of dozen territories getting the picture this weekend.  That will postpone a call on its ultimate boxoffice fate, because in this genre, international results are crucially important, contributing more than half […]

> Moral of the weekend:  If you’re going to spend $250M+ on a movie, check first whether anyone wants to see it. OPENINGS:  With a probable $27-28M opening, just how big a flop is JOHN CARTER (Disney) going to be?  Hard to tell until full weekend and international numbers are in.  But its sheer cost–probably […]

  OPENINGS:  This weekend consists of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) and then everything else.  Hobbit set a December opening day record with $37.5M, and it will set the opening weekend record for the month (currently held by I Am Legend with $77.2M), but it’s worth noting that its number isn’t very much higher […]

  Sheer tonnage is keeping the total box office aloft, but on a movie-by-movie basis, things aren’t nearly as rosy. OPENINGS:  Unless things collapse today, ELYSIUM (TriStar/Sony) will do doubt report a $30M weekend tomorrow after $11.2M on Friday.  But that will be subject to downward adjustment on Monday, and in any case, it’s yet […]

  OPENINGS:  The $37M Friday for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney) was the highest ever in the month of April, ahead of Fast Five‘s $34.4M.  Fast Five fell 13% on Saturday to hit a $86.2M weekend, and Winter Soldier will hope to beat that.  Depending on word of mouth, it could get as high […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]

  The studios remained largely averse to going wide on the weekend before The Last Jedi devours the universe.  JUST GETTING STARTED (Broad Green) was thrown with little ceremony and no advance reviews into 2161 theatres, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a dismal $1.1M on Friday, which with word of mouth […]