Hollywood offered slim competition to the second weekend of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 (Marvel/Disney) and the latest comic book spectacular will easily win the weekend with what Deadline currently estimates will be $60M.  That’s a 59% drop from last weekend, steeper than the 55% for the first Guardians, even though Vol 2 […]

  There may be a pair of tight races at the box office this weekend.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) has the early lead with $9.5M on Friday, down 71% from last week’s opening day.  That’s much worse than the 54% Friday-to-Friday drop for Doctor Strange and the 57% for Justice League, […]

    Audiences sank Universal’s Battleship. OPENINGS:  There’s no way to spin the arrival of BATTLESHIP (Universal)  as anything other than a horribly expensive flop.  Its $9M opening day is even less than the infamous John Carter‘s $9.8M, and it may not have the 3x weekend multiple that got Carter to a $30M weekend.  Battleship […]

> TOWER HEIST hurts Universal on several levels.  It’s a big-budget movie (with marketing costs included, the total is likely $200M) in a genre that doesn’t necessarily travel well, and it was the studio’s big year-end release.  And just to make things worse, next week its pair of Stiller and Murphy have to face off […]

  The continents drift, and so does the boxoffice. OPENINGS:  ICE AGE:  CONTINENTAL DRIFT (20th), at $16.5M, was 25% below the opening for Ice Age 2, and lower than the first Friday of Ice Age 3 (which opened on a Wednesday), but the franchise gets the overwhelming bulk of its revenue from overseas–something like 70%–so unless […]

  OPENINGS:  Saturday will tell the tale on EVIL DEAD (TriStar/FSony/FilmDistrict).  Its $11.9M Friday was stronger than the $10.1M/10.2M starts for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D and Mama earlier this year (although it comes with a $1.8M asterisk from Thursday night screenings), and the question is whether word of mouth will lead to a solid increase […]

  OPENINGS:  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) came up from initial Friday estimates to $70.5M, the 7th highest single day box office in US history (behind the final Harry Potter, The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and 3 Twilights) and $3.2M ahead of the opening day for The Hunger Games.  If Catching Fire held as […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite all the testosterone flowing through the Avengers-verse, the biggest star to emerge from the mega-franchise is turning out to be Scarlett Johansson, the latest warrior woman at the front of the box office.  This weekend she’s doing what Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth haven’t been able to pull off:  launch an unrelated […]