> A surprisingly strong start for 2 low-budget arrivals, although the upside is limited by tomorrow’s Super Bowl. OPENINGS:  CHRONICLE (20th) had a slight $350K edge over THE WOMAN IN BLACK (CBS Films) on Friday, and both are in frontloaded genres, appealing to young men and young women, respectively.  Young men are more likely to […]

  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 […]

  CARS 3 (Pixar/Disney) will have a strong Fathers Day, which in turn will make its weekend multiple look good, but it’s off to a disappointing start.  In preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day is pegged at $19.1M (including $2.8M from Thursday night), down 25% from the first day of 2011’s Cars 2 ($25.7M), […]

  There’s going to be a crowd at the top of the box office this weekend, but there’s not much good news in it for anyone.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, AMERICAN MADE (Cross Creek/Universal) took Friday with $6M (almost $1M of it from Thursday night), which should give it a $15-16M weekend.  However, […]

  Both of the weekend’s major openings cost too much for the amount they’re currently earning.  MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN (TSG/20th) has production/marketing costs of $225M+, and preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at roughly $9M (including $1.2M from Thursday night).  That suggests a $25-27M weekend, which would be an even […]

> THE HANGOVER PART II seems to be headed for the 4th highest Memorial Day opening of all time, behind only Pirates 3, Indiana Jones 4 and X-Men 3–and at less than half the budget of any of them.  Unlike all 3 of those, it should have good word of mouth, being a classic example […]

> The weekend multiples this week are a little high for movies that skew to women like Something Borrowed, Jumping the Broom and Water for Elephants due to Mother’s Day, when many families treat mom to a flick. The Thor number looks a little less impressive when you compare it to mid-level comic book movies […]

  The lack of strong new competition is certainly helping, as is the Wednesday opening that kept last Friday down a bit, but nevertheless, the Weekend 2 hold for CRAZY RICH ASIANS (SK Global/Warners) is on track to be extraordinary.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have a 4% Friday-to-Friday drop to $7M, which would give it […]