OPENINGS:  There wasn’t any good news for this week’s wide releases, and that began with the weekend’s leader, as THE FLASH (DC/Warners) failed to meet even the lowest expectations with a sluggish $55.1M start.  (The studio’s 4-day estimate, including the Monday Juneteenth holiday, was an optimistic $64M.)  The 3-day total was significantly lower than […]

  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 […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Marvel/Sony Animation) flew past expectations with a $120.5M US opening, more than triple Into the Spider-Verse‘s $35.4M start in 2018.  That made it the 2nd biggest opening of 2023, behind only The Super Mario Bros Movie.  Across probably won’t have the 5.4x multiple that Into did (Across is more […]

  OPENINGS:  THE LITTLE MERMAID (Disney) began its run with $95.5M over the 3-day weekend, projected to $117.5M with the Monday holiday.  That’s within the range of pre-release projections, and if the numbers hold, it would be slightly higher than the $116.8M earned over the 2019 4-day Memorial Day weekend by Aladdin.  However, it’s a […]

  OPENINGS:  FAST X (Universal) arrived with $67.5M.  In the US, that was slightly below the $70M for F9, one of the first big-ticket movies to brave a wide pandemic-era release in May 2021.  In terms of the franchise as a whole (leaving aside spinoff Hobbes & Shaw), Fast X was the 7th highest of […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite a launch scheduled around Mother’s Day, BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER (Focus/Universal) had a soft start with $6.5M.  That’s less than half the $13.6M for the first Book Club in 2018, and also considerably below the $12.7M for this year’s 80 For Brady.  (The grasp for a closer comp with The Second […]

  OPENINGS:  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 (Marvel/Disney) launched with $114M in the US, within tracking expectations but 22% lower than 2017’s Guardians 2, despite marketing that emphasized the end of a beloved (sub-)franchise.  Guardians 2 ended with a 2.66 multiple to its opening, and if Guardians 3 performs the same way, its US total […]

  OPENINGS:  History seems to be repeating itself for filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig, whose extremely well-reviewed ARE YOU THERE GOD?  IT’S ME, MARGARET (Lionsgate) opened with a soft $6.8M (and that studio estimate assumes an unusually strong Sunday).  That’s very similar to Craig’s also critically-praised 2016 The Edge of Seventeen, which had a $4.9M opening […]