OPENINGS:  Despite a bounty of new titles, nothing touched the holdover at the top of the weekend box office.  The newcomer with the closest claim to “success” in the US was THE POPE’S EXORCIST (Screen Gems/Sony), with $9.2M.  The horror movie also reported $27.4M in overseas release, which would put it on a road […]

  OPENINGS:  The musical remake of MEAN GIRLS (Paramount) was within expectations at $28M for the 3-day weekend ($32M is anticipated with the inclusion of Monday’s MLK Day holiday).  The film, which was originally developed for streaming, had a moderate budget, so it should be on its way to a fair amount of profit.  The […]

  OPENINGS:  SMILE 2 (Paramount) opened on par with its predecessor, at $23M compared to $22.6M.  A small dip had been projected, so that was slightly above expectations.  The sequel, unlike the first Smile, will face major competition in its 2nd weekend, so it remains to be seen whether it can have that film’s stellar […]

>Real Steel is knocking on the $200 million worldwide door, as the overseas gross to date jumped above $100 million (outweighing a downgrade in our domestic total estimate).  Picking up steam, Paranormal Activity 3 doubled its overseas tally to $54 million, and it is just getting going.  (See the updated chart after the jump.) Making […]

>The worldwide grosses rankings have been updated, and Rango (Paramount) now claims the top spot, passing The Green Hornet (Sony), as expected in last week’s international report.  But we suspect that Rango still has some upside — the overseas number should easily exceed the movie’s domestic number, with $40-50 million more to come from outside […]

Paranormal Activity 4 opened this weekend with $27 million overseas from 33 markets, on its way to an estimated $110 million total overseas and a weak $67 million total domestic (according to ShowbuzzDaily projections).  That would give PA4 a worldwide total of $177 million, tied with PA2 as the lowest in the still-very-profitable franchise. The biggest gainer overseas this […]

The Croods was the big mover overseas this past week, up $38 million outside North America to $243 million overseas and $416 million worldwide.  The other big gainer outside of home was G.I. Joe: Retaliation (up $23 million overseas to $168 million overseas to date and just under $300 million worldwide). Slowing down a bit outside of the […]

International box office chart: