OPENINGS:  Early January is a potent slot for horror movies, and M3GAN (Blumhouse/Universal) kicked off the year with a strong $30.2M, essentially the same as last year’s $30M for the rebooted Scream, despite all the franchise value of the latter (Scream also had the advantage of opening over the month’s holiday weekend).  M3gan has […]

  OPENINGS:  PAW PATROL:  THE MIGHTY MOVIE (Nickelodeon/Paramount) launched with $23M, above expectations and an impressive rise over the $13.1M start for the 2021 installment of the franchise.  It also has $23.1M overseas from 45 markets (the 2021 film earned 72% of its global total internationally).  This series is produced at relatively low cost by […]

  OPENINGS:  The box office for TWISTERS (Warners/Universal) was paradoxical.  In the US, the movie strongly outperformed expectations with $80.5M.  However, it showed much less appeal overseas, with $27.1M in 76 territories this weekend ($42.7M to date including some revenue from markets that opened last week).  Twisters is also about to lose virtually all its […]

>Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol has moved up to a $320 million overseas tally, bringing the worldwide total to $554 million.  The fourth M:I is now the worldwide leader of the franchise.  Mission: Impossible 2 grossed $546.4 million ($215.4 million domestic and $331.0 million overseas), Mission: Impossible grossed $457.7 million ($181.0 million domestic and $276.7 […]

> Later Monday we will post the complete International Box Office chart.  Until then here are the numbers for the most recent movies.  Note the advantage Hangover Part II has over Kung Fu Panda 2 in domestic box office ($256 million to $170 million), but they are almost even in terms of overseas business ($215 […]

The big gainer overseas this week was The Dark Knight Rises again, up $67 million to an overseas total of $445 million.  A billion dollars worldwide is still possible, but $950 million could be more realistic.   Ice Age 4 continues to pound away, up another $37 million overseas this week to $621 million to date. Brave, […]

The Hobbit moved up with another $21 million overseas since last week, bringing the foreign total to $700 million and the worldwide total to just over $1 billion. The biggest mover this past week overseas was A Good Day to Die Hard, up $29 million to $162 million overseas to date and $229 million worldwide. Debuting this […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. Another very strong week for Universal (primarily overseas grosses for Despicable Me 2 which were understated in last week’s chart), enough to pass Warner Brothers and move into the #2 spot in terms of worldwide box office.  The perennial also-ran Universal finds itself in an odd position: in the upper tier of the worldwide […]