> The full extent of theatre closings and other Hurricane Irene-related events isn’t yet known, so projections may be high at this point. That being said, this was never going to be a good weekend at the boxoffice:  in late August, the studios don’t open their heavy hitters.  What audiences there are continue to flock […]

  How much of Friday’s mediocre boxoffice is attributable to a post-Aurora uneasiness about going to multiplexes, how much to competition from the most watched Olympics Opening Ceremonies in history, and how much to simple lack of enthusiasm about the movies on display?  All three probably played a part. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) was […]

  OPENINGS:  OBLIVION (Universal) had a fairly good start, with a $13.3M Thursday night/Friday that should give it a $35-38M weekend, depending on word of mouth.  But that’s still lower than the $15.3M earned by GI Joe: Retaliation on its second day of release only 3 weeks ago, and at a probable higher cost (Universal […]

  OPENINGS:  OUT OF THE FURNACE (Relativity) will do nothing to change the reputation of the first weekend in December as a terrible time to open a new movie.  Even in a more robust weekend, the grim quasi-art film, quasi-action thriller would have had a hard time (and the presence of Christian Bale didn’t help […]

  OPENINGS:  TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (Paramount) may or may not turn a big profit–it carries a $300M pricetag (including worldwide marketing), and could falter quickly now that the fans have shown up–but there’s no question that Paramount marketing did its job in rousing those fans, successfully appealing both to a young audience and to […]

  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 […]