OPENINGS:  A Friday Valentines Day that leads into a long holiday weekend is a bonanza for Hollywood, and the movie that cleaned up the most was SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (Paramount), with a remarkable $57M over the 3-day weekend and $68M with Monday.  That’s the biggest opening ever for a videogame-based property, and it gives […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite a launch scheduled around Mother’s Day, BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER (Focus/Universal) had a soft start with $6.5M.  That’s less than half the $13.6M for the first Book Club in 2018, and also considerably below the $12.7M for this year’s 80 For Brady.  (The grasp for a closer comp with The Second […]

  OPENINGS:  MOANA (Disney Animation) notched the #2 5-day Thanksgiving opening of all time with $81.1M (unless tomorrow’s finals put it behind Toy Story 2‘s $80.1M), and it should easily hit $250M before it’s done, especially since Universal’s Sing is its only serious family competition for the holiday season.  Its international release is going to […]

  The only new opening on Black Friday was a limited release, but everything already in the market took the customary post-holiday leap.  COCO (Pixar/Disney) will easily win the 3-day weekend, after $19.1M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  Coco continues to be on pace with Tangled ($19.5M on Black Friday), and it […]

  Considering the spotty box office record of the DC movie franchise, it was something of a risk to place AQUAMAN (DC/Warners) at the center of the holiday market, but the bet is paying off, at least to an extent.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day for Aquaman was technically $27.7M, although that […]

  OPENINGS:  The limits of the pandemic-era box office, not to mention the historically lowest-grossing holiday weekend of the year, were tossed aside by the super powers of the MCU, as SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE 10 RINGS (Marvel/Disney) obliterated the previous Labor Day weekend record ($26.4M/$30.6M for the 2007 edition of Halloween) with […]

  OPENINGS:  INSIDE OUT 2 (Pixar/Disney) overdelivered massively compared to expectations with $155M in the US, a remarkable $65M higher than the start for 2015’s original Inside Out, and depending whether you count the “live-action” CG remake of The Lion King ($191.8M) as animated, either the #2 or #3 US opening for an animated feature […]

  December 24, along with December 31, will be the lowest box office days of the holiday season, because so many people have non-movie plans those nights.  Nevertheless, INTO THE WOODS (Disney) had a highly promising start with screenings that began at 7PM on Christmas Eve, earning $1.1M.  (That compares with the $325K that Annie […]