OPENINGS:  ANT-MAN & THE WASP (Marvel/Disney) turned out to be rather front-loaded, with a 30% Saturday drop (compared to 14% for the 2nd day of Ant-Man).  That pushed the studio weekend estimate down to $76M, which is still 33% better than Ant-Man‘s debut, but at the low end for Marvel, ahead of only the […]

  Franchises are the lifeblood of Hollywood, so it has to chill studios to see three of those entries falter in a single 2-weekend period, especially since the stakes are higher for this week’s arrivals than last week’s Neighbors 2. Based on the preliminary $27M Friday number at Deadline, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (TSG/20th) is running almost […]

  OPENINGS:  Note that the entire market in the US will be hit by Super Bowl Sunday, which will be down from Saturday by roughly double the percentage of the usual Saturday-Sunday drop.  (However, Hollywood will hope for a Valentine’s Day bump the following day.)  Even with that included in the calculations, though, the weekend’s […]

  OPENINGS:  GODZILLA VS KONG (Warners, also on HBO Max) had the biggest US theatrical debut since the onset of pandemic closings with $48.5M over 5 days ($32.2M for the 3-day weekend).  It will clearly roar past Tenet‘s $57.9M to become the highest-grossing title in over a year, and could pass $100M in the US.  […]

  NOTE:  Updated throughout with official studio Christmas Day estimates. Americans unwrapped their presents and headed out to the multiplex on Christmas Day (or to a nearby indie theatre, in the case of The Interview) according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, making for an extremely healthy holiday. UNBROKEN (Universal/Legendary) needed a strong box office performance […]

For the 17 days December 16-January 1, top 10 films in North America have totaled $1.065 billion, now +66% ahead of the same period last year, +68% above the average since 2002, and +30% ahead of the previous record for this period (2009, the year of Avatar). Box Office Volume — Top 10 Films North America […]

  OPENINGS:  The hugely-anticipated US opening box office numbers for TENET (Warners) turned out to be frustratingly opaque to interpret, and to the extent they were comprehensible, simply not very good.  (Let’s assume it was coincidental and not meta that some are saying the same about the film itself.)  Warners issued a grand total of […]

  The bulk of the week’s openings arrived on Wednesday, and as usual for this weekend they were led by a Disney family attraction.  This year it was COCO (Pixar/Disney), which was more or less on target at $13.2M, down 15% from last year’s Moana and its $15.5M opening day.  That suggests the 5-day weekend […]