Its studio did everything in its corporate power to keep the quality of TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (Huahua/Paramount) from infecting ticket sales, preventing any reviews from appearing until the projectors had started on the movie’s first paid screenings.  But audiences knew what was coming, and in the US, Transformers 5 will be by far […]

  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 […]

  OPENINGS:  MALEFICENT (Disney) didn’t come cheap–with worldwide marketing, its price-tag will top $300M.  But it seems to be money well spent, as its $24.2M Friday should propel it into a $70M+ weekend.  It’s also launching well overseas, with $20M on Friday from 35 markets (plus $21M from some of those markets in the 2 […]

  OPENINGS:  With $36M on Friday, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is assured of going over $100M by Monday, and the only question is by how much.  The day fell a bit below the openings for Godzilla ($38.4M) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($36.9M), but above The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($35.2M).  (On their 2d […]

> The odds, finally, were not in The Hunger Games‘ favor. OPENINGS:  America continues to want to spend its leisure time (and money) at the movies.  THINK LIKE A MAN (Screen Game/Sony) cost under $15M to produce, and while that doesn’t include the comparatively large marketing expenses, it’s still nice to make back almost your […]

  OPENINGS:  CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (Sony) had an even softer Friday than the early numbers claimed with $9.3M.  That’s barely ahead of the first Cloudy‘s $8.1M, and sequels tend to be more frontloaded than originals, which means the $35M weekend estimates being thrown around this morning, which assume exactly the same […]

  A piece of beloved genre IP that gets rave reviews is hard to beat, and the newest iteration of HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) is headed toward a huge opening.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put Friday at $33M ($7.7M from Thursday night), and even allowing for the typical front-loading of sequels and horror movies, that should mean […]

  Although still down steeply from Fifty Shades of Grey, FIFTY SHADES FREED (Perfect World/Universal) is opening on par with the initial sequel Fifty Shades Darker.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Freed earned $18.4M on its first day (including $5.6M from Thursday night), down 14% from Darker, which could translate into a $40M weekend, […]