> It’s good that the weekend’s total will beat last year’s awful group of Get Him To the Greek, Killers, Prince of Persia and Sex & the City 2, but on a picture-by-picture basis, the news is a lot less pleasant: X-MEN:  FIRST CLASS is headed for the lowest opening of any picture in its […]

> THE SOCIAL NETWORK fell only 31% in its second weekend, so MONEYBALL, which is headed for a fall closer to 40% (after a lower opening), continues not to be in Network‘s league financially.  The timing of a movie like this is tricky, because if it’s out of theatres when the awards discussions start to […]

  OPENINGS:  PLAYING FOR KEEPS (FilmDistrict) cratered as expected, in 6th place on its opening day with a sad $2.1M start.  It’s on its way to a $6M weekend and perhaps $15M in total, which won’t even pay off its marketing costs. HOLDOVERS:  With essentially nothing new at the multiplexes, the longrunning hits mostly held […]

  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, […]

  There don’t appear to be many surprises in the Friday box office numbers, based on preliminary estimates at Deadline.  As usual, ticket sales declined on Thanksgiving itself (particularly for family movies), then surged on Friday, and the results were largely in line with Wednesday’s form. MOANA (Disney Animation) wasn’t able to keep up its […]

  OPENINGS:  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Paramount) eked out a Friday victory over The Hobbit, $8.7M to $8.6M, but Hobbit will likely take the weekend fairly easily, with perhaps $30M  to $27M for Anchorman.  Thanks to the holiday week coming up (Anchorman could take in $65M between Christmas and New Year’s), the comedy should top […]

  The failure of ALLEGIANT (Summit/Lionsgate) puts its studio in an unusually awkward position.  Even though Lionsgate may be able to put the 3rd Divergent movie on its books as a profit (most of the international rights were pre-sold, providing revenues that can off-set the oncoming US losses), the economics are going to get much […]

  The weekend box office race may end up being quite close once matinees come into play, but NIGHT SCHOOL (Perfect World/Universal) took Friday, with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting it at $9.3M for the day (including $1.4M from Thursday night).  That’s below the $13M Friday for Kevin Hart’s Central Intelligence, and $12.9M for Get […]