The MCU continues to be America’s uber-franchise, as SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) became the first summer mega-movie in several weeks to fully live up to expectations.  Few films have opened on the Tuesday before a Thursday July 4th, so comparisons aren’t exact, but Far From Home earned $91.5M on its Tuesday-Thursday (The Amazing […]

  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 […]

  OPENINGS:  Box office receipts for Mothers Day haven’t been counted yet, but SNATCHED (TSG/20th) is assuming (probably justifiably) that it will be the holiday choice, which brings the studio’s weekend estimate to $17.5M.  That’s still 43% below the start for Trainwreck, and with roughly $125M in production/marketing costs, it’s going to be an uphill […]

  OPENINGS:  A variety of studios threw product at the Labor Day weekend wall.  None of them broke through, but REAGAN (ShowbizDirect) zeroed in on its target audience–reportedly nearly 2/3 of the audience was over 55 years old, and 3/4 were white–for $7.4M over the 3-day weekend ($9.2M with Monday).  Although films appealing to older […]

  A few notes:  this week’s newcomers opened along a range of dates, including Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday night and Saturday, and those scheduling decisions had an affect on the totals below.  Also, the fact that Friday was Christmas Eve lowered the day’s ticket sales, probably by 30% or so.  (Something similar will apply to […]

  BLACK PANTHER (Marvel/Disney) is, in a word, colossal.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $76.6M (including $25.2M from Thursday night), which would make it the #8 opening day of all time, and the highest non-Avengers opening day in Marvel history.  Let’s remember, though, that it’s impossible to tell from opening day […]

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 […]

  OPENINGS:  ALADDIN (Disney) will probably be in the top half-dozen Memorial Day openings when Monday brings it to $105M or so (the 3-day total is $86.1M).  Compared to other Disney live-action reboots of animated hits, though, it had a subpar 5% drop on Saturday (The Jungle Book gained 28% on its 2nd day of […]