Before the two biggest days of the holiday box office season (December 25 and 26), the holiday season — or pre-season, if you will — stands at $238 million for the nine-days between December 16 and 24, now -4.1% behind the same period last year ($248 million) but still narrowly above (+1.7%) the average for […]

  HOLIDAY BOX OFFICE NOTES:  We only have partial international numbers for the weekend box office, and those we have reflect the fact that in some European and Latin American markets (including the UK), theatres are entirely closed on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  In the US, the 4-day Christmas weekend means there are 3 […]

: Because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, box office figures are incomplete this morning.  As is usually the case with Christmas Eve, business was down across the board yesterday, and if we look to 2011 as a guide, the Sunday bumps today may range from 40-60% for family movies like Sing and Moana, to […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite a holiday opening and a much higher (and more costly) level of hype, GLASS (Blinding Edge/Blumhouse/Buena Vista Intl/Universal) barely squeezed past Split over the 3-day weekend, $40.6M vs. $40M.  Even that number assumes a solid Sunday, although an 8% Saturday drop (Split gained 13% on its 1st Saturday), indicates that word of […]

  OPENINGS:  INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (Paramount/Lucasfilm/Disney) barely scraped the bottom of weekend expectations with $60M, and that studio estimate assumes an very strong Sunday.  The extremely expensive tentpole–$400M+ in production and worldwide marketing costs–combined an elderly franchise built around an 80-year old star with mediocre reviews following an ill-advised Cannes premiere, […]

  A touch of new blood (so to speak) hit multiplexes with the Thursday night arrival of THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2: ANGEL OF DEATH (Relativity).  Its $1.5M result was fairly high for such a low-budget horror item, but then again few if any movies have had their Thursday night screenings as the only new […]

  OPENINGS:  Christmas Day is one of the highest-grossing days of the year, and it will give a major bump to everything in the market.  Even with that boost, AQUAMAN & THE LOST KINGDOM (DC/Warners) was only able to muster a $40M 4-day weekend studio estimate after $28.1M in 3 days (and given the 34% […]

For the 16 days December 16-31, the top 10 films each day in North America have totaled $871 million, now virtually even with last year’s pace and now -12% behind the record pace of 2015, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens dominated the holiday season. With Rogue One last year and The Last Jedi this year, the Star Wars franchise has definitely taken the holiday movie […]