ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) will easily take the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $15.1M, slightly below the $15.5M for 2014’s original Annabelle, but Creation is much more frontloaded, with $4M from Thursday night, almost double the $2.1M for Annabelle.  That suggests a lower weekend multiple than Annabelle‘s 2.4, and […]

  AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (Marvel/Disney) exists on that rarefied box office plane where even a reported $450M in production/marketing costs can be waved off in comparison to the certain returns to come.  Deadline is reporting its opening day at $104M ($39M from Thursday night), which would be just slightly the #3 opening day in US […]

  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) is looking like a textbook example of a studio watering down its own franchise.  Warners jumped into 2 spin-offs before even reaching its first official sequel, and the result according to early numbers at Deadline is a $8.9M opening day, down 48% from the first […]

> GREEN LANTERN cost at least as much as Thor ($350-400M with worldwide marketing), and will probably open around 15% lower–and Thor is no blockbuster hit.  Which means that although intensive promos got bodies into theatres, Warners and DC aren’t out of the woods.  The picture only scored a B on Cinemascore despite what must […]

> Behold Liam Neeson, King of January. OPENINGS:  THE GREY (Open Road) will easily take the weekend, albeit at a lower level than prior Neeson early-year thrillers.  Given that this one features killer wolves and hypothermia rather than gunfights and car chases, that’s not unexpected, and the picture should hit a decent profit.  ONE FOR […]

  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 […]

  It’s a best of times, worst of times kind of weekend for the newcomers. OPENINGS:  DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) is everything its makers could have wanted at the box office.  With a $30.2M Friday, it should have $140M in the US by Sunday (it won’t match the $97.9M Independence Day weekend of Transformers 3, but […]

  OPENINGS:  NON-STOP (Universal) had the Friday lead with $10M, but that doesn’t mean it’ll take the weekend.  In any case, Universal’s investment will pay off handsomely–it covered only $12M of the budget for US rights (plus marketing costs in its territory, of course), and a likely weekend in the high $20Ms should mean US […]