OPENINGS:  TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (Hasbro/Paramount) launched at the higher end of tracking expectations with $60.5M.  Beasts is a much bigger-budgeted effort than its immediate predecessor, 2018’s Bumblebee (which opened with $21.7M but had a 6x multiple thanks to word of mouth and the dynamics of the Christmas box office).  More impressively, Beasts […]

>New this week on the Worldwide Box Office Chart: The Smurfs crosses the $500 million worldwide mark (though it is unlikely to catch the next film above it, Cars 2 at $550 million); Rise of the Planet of the Apes continues to slow down overseas and will stay at #11, just behind Thor; The Help […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2018 film slates by studio. The studio totals also include 2018 dollars for films released in late 2017. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2018 to date is now +10% above last year and now +11% above the average for this point […]

Skyfall is still growing overseas, albeit at a slower rate.  But another $16 million this week puts the overseas total over$700 million and the worldwide total comfortably over $1 billion, joining Marvel’s The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises in the 2012 Billion Dollar Club. The Hobbit: An Expected Journey vaulted $180 million overseas last week.  We […]

  OPENINGS:  ADRIFT (H Brothers/STX) was at the top of a very low hill with $11.5M (plus $350K in 9 overseas territories).  STX, which only has domestic rights, is claiming to be on the hook for only around $30M in limited production and marketing costs, but even at that number, it may not break even, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Very little change in the studio rankings of worldwide box office for the year to date.  No studio changed its ranking this week, and the top four studios grossed a modest $60 to $101 million each over the past week. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so […]

  OPENINGS:  Every time a Christian movie sells some tickets, the pundits treat it as though they’ve seen… well, a miracle.  But at this point there have been plenty of these “miracles,” and people should just accept that the films fill a sizable niche.  (And that because of their narrow-yet-intense audience, they’re nearly always underestimated […]

  OPENINGS:  THE LOST CITY (Paramount) opened at the high end of expectations at $31M, a particularly solid result these days for a movie that skews both female and older (the latter crowd evident in the 2% Friday-to-Saturday rise).  Lost City faces little challenge in its target demo for the next month, so it could […]