> NEW YEAR’S EVE (Warner Bros):  So much for that franchise.  New Year’s was expected to have a softer start than Valentine’s Day, which opened on a holiday weekend that included the titular day itself.  But there’s “soft” and then there’s a 65% decline from Valentine’s opening day.  New Year’s will have a longer playing […]

  Nearly identical opening numbers for 3 new movies mean different things. OPENINGS:  Thanks to its older audience, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE (Warners) may end up winning the weekend, and certainly having the highest overall gross of this weekend’s openings, even though with $4.2M, it was third place on Friday.  However, this is still a […]

  OPENINGS:  The $38.2M opening day for FAST & FURIOUS 6 (Universal) was the 28th biggest opening day of all time–not bad for a franchise that was floundering without either of its original stars 3 movies ago.  It has a chance of becoming the #2 Memorial Day opening ever, a mark currently held by the […]

  OPENINGS:  The only question for LONE SURVIVOR (Universal) to ponder as all concerned count their entirely unexpected riches this weekend (a $14.4M Friday and a weekend that could hit $40M) is whether they miscalculated by waiting to go wide until after polls were closed for the Oscar nominations.  Survivor is very much on the […]

  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, […]

  Franchises are the lifeblood of Hollywood, so it has to chill studios to see three of those entries falter in a single 2-weekend period, especially since the stakes are higher for this week’s arrivals than last week’s Neighbors 2. Based on the preliminary $27M Friday number at Deadline, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (TSG/20th) is running almost […]

  Hollywood generally has little interest in opening films against the Super Bowl, and to the extent it participates, it tries to counterprogram the game by aiming at the young female demographic.  Thus we have a PG-13 horror movie and a YA fantasy-romance this weekend, but neither is finding much of an audience. RINGS (Paramount) […]

> Unlike nearly all the other action epics this summer, CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE FIRST AVENGER is rolling out slowly overseas, with only a couple of dozen territories getting the picture this weekend.  That will postpone a call on its ultimate boxoffice fate, because in this genre, international results are crucially important, contributing more than half […]