In its time of need, Hollywood looked to Pixar for salvation, and FINDING DORY (Pixar/Disney) is delivering.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was $53M (including $9.2M from Thursday evening), more than any animated film has ever made in a single day, ahead of the $47.1M that Shrek The Third earned […]

  A general note:  the last time December 22 fell on a Friday was in 2006, and a look at that year indicates what box office patterns may be between now and January 1.  We can expect most films to have a relatively mild Saturday uptick (up to 30%) then plunge by 50% or so […]

  PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING (Legendary/Universal) was the right film at the right time this weekend, and although the preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $10.1M ($2.4M of it from Thursday night), just slightly ahead of the $9M for last Friday’s Tomb Raider, that should be enough to bring it to $26M for […]

  We’re just a few hours away from the launch of THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) in over 4000 US theatres, not to mention 85 overseas territories (basically worldwide, with the exceptions of China–where the opening was originally scheduled for this week but abruptly pushed to 2015–Japan and India).  There’s very little question […]

  Franchises are the lifeblood of Hollywood, so it has to chill studios to see three of those entries falter in a single 2-weekend period, especially since the stakes are higher for this week’s arrivals than last week’s Neighbors 2. Based on the preliminary $27M Friday number at Deadline, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (TSG/20th) is running almost […]

This is a well-designed weekend for Hollywood, with a trio of sensibly-budgeted franchise titles all drawing audiences from their mostly separate target demos.  The Friday winner, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, was FIFTY SHADES DARKER (Universal), with $20M ($5.7M of it from Thursday night).  That’s about 2/3 of the $30.3M opening day for Fifty […]

  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony), an expensive action movie in a month that doesn’t often feature them, and toplining the potent combo of Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, is starting off moderately well but not exceptionally.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $13M (including $1.75M from Thursday night), slightly ahead 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 […]