It’s been 7 weeks since Christopher Robin arrived for the family audience, and THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS (Universal) took advantage of that drought with a $7.7M opening day according to early numbers at Deadline, which should give it a $24M weekend.  House had a moderate production budget and a marketing […]

  Everything has broken right for JOKER (BRON/Village Roadshow/DC/Warners).  Its combination of gold-standard IP with a gritty, violent, R-rated aesthetic has been largely accepted critically and earned it film festival kudos, and it’s had the benefit of controversy about its potential to stir up real-life trouble without (so far) any actual incidents that could drive […]

> FOOTLOOSE has the advantage of facing no new direct competition on Friday.  That, along with what should be fairly good word of mouth, could give it some legs in the marketplace.  THE THING, on the other hand, had a make-or-break weekend this week with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 about to hit, and it’s not going […]

  Friday’s boxoffice was like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly–except without the “good.” OPENINGS:  All the stunt casting in the world couldn’t make anyone want to see ROCK OF AGES (Warners).  The anemic $5.4M opening day was low even by the standards of Broadway adaptations, and there’s no reason to expect a lift […]

  OPENINGS:  Stop me if you’ve heard this before:  an expensive action-adventure will need to overperform internationally in order to get past its red ink.  With Thor 2 opening in just a week, ENDER’S GAME (Summit/Lionsgate) had a very narrow window to make an impression, and its $9.9M Friday, probably meaning a weekend in the […]

  OPENINGS:  Star/co-writer/co-producer Melissa McCarthy reportedly took a fraction of her usual fee on TAMMY (Warners) to keep the production budget down to the low $20Ms.  After a $6.4M 4th of July (up 17% from Thursday), the movie is well on its way to recouping that budget–it should have a $22M weekend, and $34M since […]

  None of the weekend’s openings were expected to come near last week’s blockbuster opening, and none will.  The target Christian audience is turning out for RISEN (Affirm/Columbia/Sony), with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting it at $4.25M for Friday.  Given its demographics, Risen should hold well through the weekend, particularly on Sunday, which could give […]

  Veterans Day isn’t considered one of the major Hollywood holidays, but this year it provided some 3-day weekends that boosted Friday numbers (although that may catch up with some totals over the weekend and when next week is compared to it). The other note for the weekend is that all three of the major […]