Tossing IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (Village Roadshow/Warners) onto what is historically one of the weakest box office weekends of the year–and this year also just days ahead of the arrival of cinema’s Death Star–was a Hail Mary, and it’s not paying off.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, it earned $4M on […]

  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) had a $20M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline (that’s at the high end of numbers reported elsewhere earlier in the day), including $3.7M from Thursday night.  Even if that number holds, it’s little more than half the $38.4M opening day for Godzilla 3 years ago.  Godzilla had […]

  There were no new openings for New Year’s weekend, and not much in the way of surprises among the returning titles.  ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney) continued its ride through the holidays with $18.1M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up about 8% from Thursday, and business should go down on New Year’s […]

  Despite some of the best reviews of the year for any movie, big studio or indie, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (TSG/20th) is off to a merely OK start.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $21.1M opening day (including $5M from Thursday night), putting it 24% behind the $27.6M […]

  Seasonal Note:  Good Friday is traditionally a strong day for moviegoing, which explains the generally solid Friday-to-Friday holds below.  Easter Sunday, though, is less of a movie day, potentially bringing down weekend multiples. OPENINGS:  HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony) is impressively overperforming, its $7.9M Friday added to $7M from Wednesday and Thursday for a […]

  OPENINGS:  The magic weekend number for THE BOURNE LEGACY (Universal) is probably $40M, now that Friday has come in a bit lower than preliminary estimates suggested at $14M.  Unless business collapses on Saturday, expect the Sunday estimate to begin with a “4,” although in fact the final weekend figure (released on Monday) could be […]

  OPENINGS:  GODZILLA (Warners/Legendary) had the opening of its dreams with $38.5M on Friday (including $9.3M from Thursday night)–higher than the openings for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($35.2M) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($36.9M).  The latter had a $95M weekend, so Godzilla is on track for $98M–but don’t be surprised if Warners seizes the opportunity […]

  This will be the last weekend without a mega-hit on top for a while. OPENINGS:  THE OTHER WOMAN (20th) will take the weekend with around $25M after a $9.3M Friday, and the potentially better news is that Diaz’s last hit Bad Teacher was even stronger overseas than in the US (not a sure thing […]