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 […]

  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony), an expensive action movie in a month that doesn’t often feature them, and toplining the potent combo of Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, is starting off moderately well but not exceptionally.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $13M (including $1.75M from Thursday night), slightly ahead of […]

  OPENINGS:  Star/co-writer/co-producer Melissa McCarthy reportedly took a fraction of her usual fee on TAMMY (Warners) to keep the production budget down to the low $20Ms.  After a $6.4M 4th of July (up 17% from Thursday), the movie is well on its way to recouping that budget–it should have a $22M weekend, and $34M since […]

  Despite some of the best reviews of the year for any movie, big studio or indie, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (TSG/20th) is off to a merely OK start.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $21.1M opening day (including $5M from Thursday night), putting it 24% behind the $27.6M […]

> Whether or not IMMORTALS holds together at the boxoffice after its opening few days, the impressive launch is good news for Relativity, which is trying to prove it can survive as a standalone distributor of Hollywood-level movies.  That doesn’t necessarily mean Immortals will hit profit (its financial picture is complicated by various distributors handling […]

> The irony of the new DreamWorks/Disney is that thus far, their big “event” spectaculars have done only modest business–I Am Number Four opened with $19.5M and ended up with $55M domestically, and REAL STEEL might do about 25-30% better–while their “little” picture THE HELP has been a blockbuster, one of the most profitable films […]

  How big is big enough?  It’s a question that comes up on giant franchise installments, and the latest is THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal), the 8th in its series.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day earned $45.5M (including $10.4M from Thursday night), a huge number, but down 33% from Furious […]

  The real world, in the form of terrible reviews and dim word of mouth, caught up with BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (DC/RatPac/Warners) on Friday.  Actually, the signs had been there since midweek, although Warners and its box office pets had obscured the fact for a few days by comparing the daily results […]