OPENINGS:  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) is the first underperformer of the summer, and there will be plenty of harrumphing and speculation about why that is.  With Sunday likely to be much weaker than last weekend’s Mother’s Day, Darkness will be hard-pressed to match in 4 days (plus Wednesday night screenings) the $79.2M that […]

  For the studios, a Good Friday that generally lived up to its name. OPENINGS:  GI JOE: RETALIATION (Paramount/MGM) had a very solid second day, rising 48% for a $15.5M Friday.  That’s still only 2/3 of the $22.2M that its predecessor GIJoe: The Rise of Cobra did on its opening day (despite 3D ticket premiums […]

  OPENINGS:  Here’s an idea of how disastrously JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (Warners) is bombing.  DreamWorks recently had to take an $87M loss on its Rise of the Guardians, which cost $145M (plus marketing costs) and grossed $300M worldwide.  Jack cost at least $50M more, and is on the road to earn much less with […]

    OPENINGS:  THE GREAT GATSBY (Warners) opened about as well as Warners could have hoped with a $19.8M Friday (including Thursday night).  Mothers Day is traditionally a big ticketselling day, especially for female-skewing films, and that should cushion the weekend to perhaps $55M despite bad reviews and unimpressive exit poll results, although there’s still […]

  Bond is Boxoffice.  Big boxoffice. OPENINGS:  SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) and its $30.8M opening day (that doesn’t include $2.2M from Thursday’s IMAX-only “previews”) was about 12% ahead of the first day for Quantum of Solace in 2008.  But that spread should get wider over the weekend, as mediocre word-of-mouth gave Solace only a 2.5x multiplier for […]

  OPENINGS:  THE PURGE (Universal) will be instantly profitable by the end of its high $30Ms weekend, and while a great deal of that is due to the $3M production budget, a US marketing spend of only $20M (less than half the normal big-studio amount) is a big help.  The key:  minimal expensive TV advertising.  […]

  Vulture picked the wrong weekend to predict Universal’s demise. OPENINGS:  SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) had a very good $20.3M Friday, and will do better than $50M for the weekend, successfully selling (male) audiences on the revisionist fairy tale as an epic action movie.  All that epic action and spectacular CG came at […]

  SAN ANDREAS (Village Roadshow/Warners) is off to a mid-range start, with preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline giving it a $17.5M opening day (including $3.1M from Thursday night), which is slightly ahead of the $16.6M opening day of Mad Max: Fury Road.  No one really cares that its likely $45M weekend will be Dwayne Johnson’s […]