OPENINGS:  Even in healthy times, Super Bowl weekend isn’t a fertile time for movie openings, the exceptions being counterprogramming like 2008’s Hannah Montana concert movie.  In that vein, this weekend featured the limited release of the animated EARWIG AND THE WITCH (GKids) at 430 theatres, for a $100K total that translated into a $230 […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MARKSMAN (Open Road) allows Liam Neeson to lay claim to being the most prolific movie star of the pandemic, following on the releases of Honest Thief and the smaller-scale Made In Italy.  Despite a holiday weekend opening, Marksman‘s 3-day $3.2M start is below the $4.1M for Honest Thief, with a 4-day total […]

  OPENINGS:  There were no new wide openings for New Year’s weekend. HOLDOVERS:  Word of mouth still operates in a pandemic, and it wasn’t at all friendly to WW84 (DC/Warners) which crumpled by 67% to $5.5M from one holiday weekend to the next.  It now seems highly unlikely to reach Tenet‘s $57.9M in the US […]

  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:  Under the current circumstances, the 5-day $17M opening ($9.7M Friday-Sunday) for THE CROODS: A NEW AGE (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) counts as a win, with comparisons to the original Croods or any other Thanksgiving release fairly pointless.  The film also earned $19.2M in China and $1.6M in 6 smaller international markets.  New Age reportedly had […]

  OPENINGS:  The only new wide release on Halloween weekend was the low-budget horror movie COME PLAY (Focus/Universal), which was relatively impressive compared to last week’s $1.3M for Empty Man with $3.2M.  It seemed to be helped by pandemic considerations, because while normally a Saturday Halloween would be a down day, this year moviegoing appeared […]

  OPENINGS:  We had a new wide release this weekend, and THE WAR WITH GRANDPA (101) managed a win over the weary Tenet with $3.6M.  That’s certainly not a number that would make anyone feel good in non-pandemic times, and since War With Grandpa had a semblance of a national marketing campaign, it’s not at […]

  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 […]