Once again, Gone Girl was vanquished for a day by a horror movie, but will almost certainly rebound to take the weekend. OPENINGS:  DRACULA UNTOLD (Legendary/Universal) gets the partnership between Universal and its new co-producer/financier Legendary (which for years was parked at Warners) off to a solid start.  Dracula‘s Friday results were underreported in […]

  On what’s shaping up to be a very good weekend for Hollywood, the two leaders showcase different kinds of hits. OPENINGS:  ANNABELLE (New Line/Warners) took Friday with $15.5M ($2.1M from Thursday night), which is a terrific number for a movie that reportedly cost $6.5M to produce, even though the usual swollen Warners marketing campaign […]

  OPENINGS:  THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) was just a tad below the opening day for Denzel Washington’s Safe House, $12.6M vs. $13.6M.  That suggests a $36-37M weekend, which would be the 3rd highest of his career, behind only Safe House and American Gangster.  More impressively, it continues a remarkable record in which every movie he’s made […]

  OPENINGS:  As YA franchises go, the $11.3M opening day for THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) was ahead of the $9.6M for the first Percy Jackson, which ended up with a $31.2M weekend.  Maze is being pitched more to teens than to families, so it may not have quite as strong a weekend multiple as Percy, […]

  OPENINGS:  NO GOOD DEED (Screen Gems/Sony) surged ahead of expectations with a $8.8M Friday.  The level of its frontloadedness, however, isn’t yet clear.  2009’s Obsessed, an April 2009 Screen Gems thriller that also starred Idris Elba (with Beyonce instead of Tarji P. Henson), had an $11.2M Friday, and reached $28.6M for its weekend (and […]

  OPENINGS:  AS ABOVE/SO BELOW (Universal) cost just $5M to produce, but its big-studio marketing campaign will add at least $30M to that, and after a $3.2M Friday, it’s headed for $9.5M by Sunday and $11.5M for the 4-day holiday, which will likely give it $20M at best for its entire US theatrical run.  Those […]

  OPENINGS:  The question for IF I FALL (Warners/MGM), as with any movie that has a high proportion of young female appeal, is just how frontloaded it will turn out to be.  Friday’s $6.8M included $1.1M from Thursday night, about 16% of the total.  The Fault In Our Stars was much more frontloaded, earning more […]

  After 2 weeks of unexpectedly smash hits, the dog days of summer attacked multiplexes with a vengeance. OPENINGS:  THE EXPENDABLES 3 (Lionsgate) squeezed ahead of Let’s Be Cops on Friday, $5.8M (including $875K from Thursday night) to $5.6M, but since this was Expendables‘ opening night and Cops had started on Wednesday, the likelihood is […]