The franchise spin-off PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (Paramount) pulled in $1.2M at 10PM shows last night.  That was far below the $4.5M that Paranormal Activity 4 made on its Thursday in October 2012, but it was on par with the $1.15M earned by Texas Chainsaw when it opened on the first Thursday of […]

  Word of mouth on FANTASTIC FOUR (20th) is going to be deadly (the exit polls are dismal, and since they survey ticketbuyers enthusiastic enough to show up on the first day of release, lesser fans are likely to consider it even worse), probably sealing its fate as one of the biggest flops of the […]

  With summer blockbuster season just days away, none of the studios brought their A game this weekend.  KEANU (New Line/Warners) isn’t going to do for Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele what Trainwreck did for Comedy Central colleague Amy Schumer:  Trainwreck earned $10.7M on its opening day, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, Keanu […]

  ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) will easily take the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $15.1M, slightly below the $15.5M for 2014’s original Annabelle, but Creation is much more frontloaded, with $4M from Thursday night, almost double the $2.1M for Annabelle.  That suggests a lower weekend multiple than Annabelle‘s 2.4, and […]

  The other studios didn’t try very hard to compete with the second weekend of CAPTAIN MARVEL (Marvel/Disney), and the blockbuster will have no trouble repeating as #1 this week.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the Friday-to-Friday drop was 70% (to $18.8M), which sounds like a lot, but is fairly standard for the genre.  […]

  THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (20th) was expected to get off to a quick start, thanks to its wildly enthusiastic young female fanbase, and it did:  $8.2M, a huge number for a non-special effects movie.  (It includes shows at 650 theatres with $25 tickets that bought fans a closed-circuit interview with cast and crew […]

  After several painful weekends burdened by one high-profile flop after another, Hollywood was bailed out by two of its most venerable franchises. SPECTRE (MGM/Columbia/Sony) will be, based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the 2d biggest opener of the Bond series.  Its $28.1M first day (which includes $5.25M from Thursday night) puts it behind only […]

  Despite a trio of new entries as competition, BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Disney) wasn’t expected to have any trouble staying in control of its 2d weekend, and it didn’t.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have Friday at $21.2M, down 67% from opening day last week.  That’s only an OK hold, compared to the drops of […]