Total Recall joins the chart this week in the middle of the pack, with a projected $66 million final domestic total and $6 million to date overseas.  It might get to $95 million overseas ultimately, which would put its eventual worldwide total around $160 million (just behind The Dictator, not what Sony was banking on). Diary of […]

  OPENINGS:  As we noted on Friday, the 3-day weekend studio estimates are lower than they’d otherwise be, due to lower pre-holiday moviegoing on Saturday and especially Sunday.  That will all change on Christmas Day, which will usher in the biggest 8 days of the box office year. JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (Columbia/Sony) is […]

  OPENINGS:  INSIDE OUT (Pixar/Disney) had the largest opening for an animated non-sequel ever at $91.1M.  (Disney is claiming a slightly more abstract record as well, the largest opening for a film that isn’t based on any preexisting source material–excluding The Hunger Games, for example, because it began as a book–but the animation record will […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MARVELS (Marvel/Disney) fulfilled the ghastliest projections assigned to it, setting a new low for the MCU with a $47M US opening, and it was similarly dismal overseas, with $63.3M from 51 territories.  The internet is already bursting with theories that include “No one liked Captain Marvel in the first place” and the […]

  OPENINGS:  After an interruption for The Batman, the MCU resumed its place at the top of popular culture with the arrival of DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (Marvel/Disney), which launched within the industry’s very high expectations at $185M in the US.  That’s roughly the same as Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.3M), and […]

Two films had big very large gains overseas the past week: Resident Evil: Retribution (up $53 million to $103 million overseas to date) and Expendables 2 (up $28 million since last week to $186 million overseas to date).  The fifth in the Resident Evil series now stands at an estimated $145 million worldwide, with at least another $100 million in upside […]

  OPENINGS:  Nothing improved for the weekend’s newcomers after Friday’s dim numbers.  THE LAST WITCH HUNTER (QED/Summit/Lionsgate) led with a soft $10.8M, and whether or not Lionsgate is being entirely frank when it claims to have little exposure, someone is going to be feeling a tug on their wallet.  The results overseas, not unexpectedly, were […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is the updated 2015 Scorecard, with Universal pulling past Warner Brothers by a nose.  Each studio has a nearly identical profile of its slate: one successful blockbuster, an expensive sci-fi/ fantasy movie that tanked domestically but it is somewhat bailed out by some overseas business, and one or two outright bombs. […]