OPENINGS:  The calendar did Hollywood a favor by placing Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, affording films a 6-day window with Presidents Day on Monday.  The chief beneficiary was BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE (Paramount), which surpassed expectations with $51.1M through Monday ($27.7M over the traditional 3-day weekend).  With little new competition in the wings next week, […]

  DESPICABLE ME 3 (Illumination/Universal) will have no trouble holding the lead at the box office over the 5-day July 4th weekend.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $28.6M (including $4.1M from Thursday night), which could give it $85M by Sunday and $125M by Tuesday.  That’s still on the low side for the […]

For the 7 days December 16-22, the top 10 films each day in North America have totaled $336 million, -19% below last year’s record pace, but still +68% above the average since 2002. The arrival of Star Wars into the holiday period (The Force Awakens in 2015 and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story this year) has taken this important […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, MOANA (Disney Animation) is going to have a dominant and perhaps even historic Thanksgiving weekend.  Disney’s latest blockbuster blew past predictions with a $15.4M opening day (including $2.6M from Tuesday night).  That’s better than the $15.2M earned by Frozen (which technically was in its 2d week of release, […]

  OPENINGS:  WW84 (DC/Warners)–that’s the official title per the credits–had the biggest US opening of the pandemic era with $16.7M (a $7800 per-theatre average), much higher than the $9.7M for The Croods: A New Age, and even more impressive considering that millions more stayed home to watch the movie on HBO Max.  The weekend box […]

  OPENINGS:  PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Disney) easily took the weekend worldwide, but it’s another diminishing franchise.  In the US, it had a $62.2M 3-day opening, and although Memorial Day will push that to around $76M, on a 3-day-to-3-day basis, it’s down 30% from 2011’s On Stranger Tides (it’s likely […]

  OPENINGS:  Although TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Paramount) is a 36-years-later sequel, the franchise that it really represents is Tom Cruise unto himself.  The last true Hollywood megastar brought in a massive audience that was mostly older men and between the coasts, to the tune of $124M for the 3-day weekend and $151M including Monday, making […]

  VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) is the first big-budget action movie to open since The Meg in mid-August, and that (plus a huge marketing campaign) seems to have gotten it past murderous reviews for an enormous start, the biggest ever in October.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $32.3M (including $10M from a Thursday that […]