OPENINGS:  The most hyped box office weekend of the year delivered and then some.  BARBIE (Mattel/Warners) burst into theaters with $155M, technically the best of the year (although the $146.4M for Super Mario Bros came after a Wed-Thurs start that had already brought in $58.3M).  Among the many records set by the blockbuster were […]

  OPENINGS:  It was a bleak Memorial Day weekend at the box office, the worst in decades.  FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (Warners) limped to a victory for Friday-Sunday with $25.5M, but it may well tumble to 2nd place once the Monday holiday numbers are tallied.  Tellingly, Warners refused to so much as issue a […]

> Overseas, The Smurfs film continues to do solid business and is closing in on two more benchmarks: $400 million overseas (only $7 million to go) and $550 million worldwide ($13 million to go).  $550 million is important because that would match Cars 2, which it now looks like it can pass. DreamWorks and Disney’s […]

Marvel’s The Avengers (distributed by Disney) increased again to $782 million to date overseas (up from $723 million last week), although the growth rate continues to slow down.  (Click “read more” to see the updated weekly chart.)   We are now projecting The Avengers will finish around $1.46 billion worldwide.                   […]

Updated International chart — now tracking the past six months on a rolling basis.  At any given time, that will translate to about 75 films on the chart at a time. New this week is Skyfall, which will probably top out at around $650 million worldwide (between Madagascar 3 and Men in Black 3).

  OPENINGS:  With a $27.4M start, 2 GUNS (Universal) is probably headed for $85M in the US, a fair if unexciting return for a movie that claims to have (post-tax credits) a $61M production budget.  With Universal taking its marketing expenses and distribution fees off the top, there won’t be much profit for financiers Emmett-Furia […]

  OPENINGS:  THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Disney) held essentially even on Saturday, an excellent result for a franchise movie, especially where a chunk of its “Friday” number had come from Thursday night screenings.  (In comparison, Iron Man 3 dropped 10% on its second day of release.)  Presumably because of that strong Saturday hold, Disney is […]

International box office for 2013 releases through January 19, 2014. Click here for a summary of worldwide performance by studio. We will start tracking the 2014 films in a few weeks.