The last time Halloween fell on a Saturday, in 2009, Hollywood mostly stayed away.  (The concert movie This Is It opened the previous Wednesday.)  This year, two studios tried to counterprogram the holiday with problematic star vehicles, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the results weren’t pretty. BURNT (Weinstein) has been conspicuous for […]

  Even bigger than Gaston after five dozen eggs, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Disney) is coming in at the highest level of projections, and may be poised for the largest pre-May weekend in history.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $65.3M (including $16.3M from Thursday night), and while that’s below the $81.6M first day […]

  Those waiting for Marvel to stumble will have to go on waiting.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, THOR: RAGNAROK (Marvel/Disney) had a $46M opening day (including $14.5M from Thursday night), the highest for any Marvel Universe title released outside the May-July corridor.  Opening day was up 44% from the start of Thor:  The […]

  THE MEG (Gravity/Warners) appears to be having the opposite box office experience from what we’ve come to associate with US/China action movies.  In the US, it’s overperforming, perhaps helped by a calendar slot a week after Discovery’s yearly Shark Week:  preliminary numbers at Deadline estimate opening day at $16.5M ($4M from Thursday night), which […]

  The MCU continues to be America’s uber-franchise, as SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) became the first summer mega-movie in several weeks to fully live up to expectations.  Few films have opened on the Tuesday before a Thursday July 4th, so comparisons aren’t exact, but Far From Home earned $91.5M on its Tuesday-Thursday (The Amazing […]

  On the day before Thanksgiving, the start of a 5-day rush on moviegoing, THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) behaved as it has since it opened:  on top, but considerably behind its franchise predecessors.  Mockingjay earned $14.6M on Wednesday, more than double its nearest competition.  Nevertheless, that was 30% behind the day-before-Thanksgiving $20.8M […]

  As will be noted endlessly by the studio and its mouthpieces all weekend, KUNG FU PANDA 3 (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is the first in the series to open in January, after June and May openings for the previous chapters.  Nevertheless, DWA and 20th didn’t choose that day with the idea of earning less, and the […]

  From the start, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (DreamWorks/Reliance/Universal) was perceived as a lower-intensity version of the Gone Girl phenomenon, and that’s holding with the opening of its film version.  Where Gone Girl had a $13.2M Friday start on its way to a $37.5M weekend, preliminary numbers at Deadline give Train $9.3M on Friday, […]