Everything has broken right for JOKER (BRON/Village Roadshow/DC/Warners).  Its combination of gold-standard IP with a gritty, violent, R-rated aesthetic has been largely accepted critically and earned it film festival kudos, and it’s had the benefit of controversy about its potential to stir up real-life trouble without (so far) any actual incidents that could drive […]

  The negligible horror cheapie INCARNATE (High Top/Blumhouse/Universal) is the only new wide opening of the post-Thanksgiving weekend, and with just $800K on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline and a weekend that may not break $2M, even the ultra-low budget Blumhouse division may not be able to find any shred of profit from […]

  THE REVENANT (Regency/20th) is showing impressive strength in its first day of wide release, after 2 strong weeks at NY/LA arthouses.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it $14M+ on Friday, putting it surprisingly into 1st place and confirming that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the few “movie stars” these days who actually sells tickets.  […]

  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) had a $20M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline (that’s at the high end of numbers reported elsewhere earlier in the day), including $3.7M from Thursday night.  Even if that number holds, it’s little more than half the $38.4M opening day for Godzilla 3 years ago.  Godzilla had […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]

  We’re now officially in the Christmas-to-New-Year’s holiday box office period, and the general form is going to follow 2015 fairly closely, with a Star Wars installment clearly in the lead (albeit much less lucratively than last year’s), a family vehicle in 2d place, and an assortment of also-rans behind them. Comparisons between ROGUE ONE […]

  HAPPY DEATH DAY (Blumhouse/Universal) continued a remarkable year for Blumhouse, following the giant successes of Split and Get Out.  Deadline has its Friday at a preliminary $11.3M (including $1M from Thursday night), and its 68% Rotten Tomatoes score is comparable to Split‘s 74%.  That film had a 2.7x weekend multiple, and even if Happy […]

  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 […]