OPENINGS:  FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (Warners) opened at $62.2M in the US, down 16% from the first Beasts.  In addition, it was more front-loaded, with a 16% Saturday drop compared to 12%.  Exit polls and reviews suggest that word of mouth won’t be as strong this time, so a $200M US total […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite the advantage of a Father’s Day weekend start, CARS 3 (Pixar/Disney) had the lowest opening of its franchise with $53.5M, 19% below Cars 2, and even 11% behind 2006’s original Cars.  It’s likely to end up at the low end of Pixar titles, with a US total closer to A Bug’s Life […]

  OPENINGS:  For a movie aimed at children that isn’t a frontloaded franchise installment, WONDER PARK (Nickelodeon/Paramount) had an unimpressive 19% Saturday bump, and it emerged with a $16M weekend that won’t do it much good against production/marketing costs in the neighborhood of $200M–especially with Disney’s Dumbo just 2 weeks away.  The initial overseas results […]

  OPENINGS:  When studios trot out “bad weather” as their excuse for an underwhelming opening, it’s the industry equivalent of citing a homework-eating dog–and this week, it’s particularly clear that the inclement conditions that supposedly affected FOCUS (RatPac Dune/Warners) didn’t interfere at all with the holdovers that performed very strongly over the past 3 days.  […]

  OPENINGS:  THE CONJURING (Warners) behaved like a horror movie on Saturday, falling 18% despite the great reviews and exit polls, but that didn’t stand in the way of its estimated huge $41.5M weekend.  That made it the biggest non-sequel R-rated horror movie ever, and bigger than all the thrillers Warners released under its now-defunct […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY (Universal) had a strong Saturday bump for a movie aimed at the African-American audience, up 16% from Friday (in comparison, Think Like A Man increased 9% and Tyler Perry’s last 2 movies dropped 16% and 8%). That suggests very positive word of mouth, which may give Best Man unexpected […]

  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 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +5% above last year and still +3% above the average for this point the past four years ($7.878 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost $21.1 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]