OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) owned the Independence Day holiday, with $93.6M over the 3-day weekend, and a $185.1M total since its Tuesday opening.  Comparisons are inexact due to the 6-day holiday start, but it was considerably ahead of The Amazing Spider-Man, which also had a 6-day opening (with July 4th on Wednesday […]

  WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is now -6% below last year’s comparable span (1 point worse than last week’s comparison) and now basically even with this point the past four years ($8.852 billion).  Over the […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2020 film slates by studios (films entering wide release in the 2020 calendar year). BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2020 is now -9% below last year’s comparable span (another 7 points worse than last week) and -21% below this point averaged over […]

  OPENINGS:  With the LA movie theatre market now open (at 25% capacity) and a general rise in vaccinations, the box office seems to be taking its first very tentative steps back to pre-pandemic life.  The one wide opening of the weekend THE COURIER (Roadside) wasn’t at all impressive at a $2M start, but the […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BATMAN (DC/Warners) was the first event movie to open in 3 months, and the market responded with a $128.5M weekend, the 2nd-highest of the pandemic era (although not close to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $260.1M start).  About $4M of that number is attributable to AMC’s new “variable pricing” policy, hiking the ticket […]

  OPENINGS:  The $9M start for THE MENU (Searchlight/Disney) was below the $10.1M launch of Barbarian–and The Menu cost about $20M more to produce.  Combine that with the fact that The Menu is really more of a very dark satire than a horror movie, and its prospects look questionable.  The film also opened in 36 […]

  OPENINGS:  After last week’s Barbenheimer fireworks, the box office for new movies returned to earth–with a thud in the case of HAUNTED MANSION (Disney), which was at the bottom of projections at $24.2M.  With the exception of Guardians 3, it’s been a tepid summer for Disney, and Haunted Mansion carries production/marketing costs in the […]

  OPENINGS:  The major studios abandoned this normally prime summer-season weekend, and a flood of indies rushed in to grab the available theaters.  None were able to capitalize to a particularly notable extent, with the anime HAIKYUU: THE DUMPSTER BATTLE (Crunchyroll/Sony) faring best at $3.5M.  The genre is typically very frontloaded, so Haikyuu may not […]