A weekend of sequels is dancing to the beat of MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (Perfect World/Universal), which had a $15.1M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up an impressive 53% from the first day of the original Mamma Mia, although some of the gap is due to the fact […]

  ALADDIN (Disney) marked a rebound from the opening day of Dumbo, with preliminary numbers at Deadline projecting $30.8M on Friday (including $7M from Thursday afternoon/evening), compared to $15.3M for Dumbo.  The Memorial Day holiday will provide an extra boost, so the 3-day weekend should be around $86M, with $106M by Monday.  Aladdin wasn’t cheap, […]

  The gamble of CRAZY RICH ASIANS (Color Force/SK Global/Warners) is paying off with solid returns.  The film opened on Wednesday and earned $8.8M in its first two days, and preliminary numbers at Deadline have its Friday at $7M.  That should give it a $21M 3-day weekend and around $30M since opening day.  A $70M […]

  The Disney machine is hitting an atypical pothole with DUMBO (Disney), which according to preliminary numbers at Deadline had a $14.8M Friday ($2.6M of that from Thursday night).  That’s very much on the low end of the studio’s live-action remakes of its own animated classics, behind the opening days for Beauty & The Beast […]

  Hollywood generally has little interest in opening films against the Super Bowl, and to the extent it participates, it tries to counterprogram the game by aiming at the young female demographic.  Thus we have a PG-13 horror movie and a YA fantasy-romance this weekend, but neither is finding much of an audience. RINGS (Paramount) […]

  The phenomenon of It having had its day, weekend box office is starting to look more familiar, which is to say subdued.  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) will take the weekend, but hardly in impressive fashion.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $15.7M, which includes $3.4M from Thursday night.  2 years ago, […]

  This weekend is looking like a battle of the family films, with no clear victor at this point.  THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is performing quite a bit better than expected, with preliminary numbers at Deadline giving it nearly $15M on Friday (including $1.5M from Thursday night), which should lead it to a $50M […]

  There’s going to be a crowd at the top of the box office this weekend, but there’s not much good news in it for anyone.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, AMERICAN MADE (Cross Creek/Universal) took Friday with $6M (almost $1M of it from Thursday night), which should give it a $15-16M weekend.  However, […]