MINIONS (Illumination/Universal) was expected to enfold the weekend box office in its little yellow fingers, and so it is.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it a $45M opening day, which appears to be the largest opening in the history of movie animation (the asterisk is because we now consider “Friday” to include Thursday night, […]

  A piece of beloved genre IP that gets rave reviews is hard to beat, and the newest iteration of HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) is headed toward a huge opening.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put Friday at $33M ($7.7M from Thursday night), and even allowing for the typical front-loading of sequels and horror movies, that should mean […]

  There are two neck-and-neck races at the top of the weekend box office, but neither is especially thrilling. The #1-2 slots will be fought between holdovers.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) had a $6.8M Friday, and BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Disney) earned $6.6M.  That should put both of […]

  After a few mild weeks, INCREDIBLES 2 (Pixar/Disney) has the summer box office back in blockbuster mode.  It’s on pace to easily break Finding Dory‘s $135.1M animation opening record.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Incredibles 2 had a massive $69M Friday (including $18.5M from Thursday night), far better than Dory‘s $54.7M.  If business […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, MOANA (Disney Animation) is going to have a dominant and perhaps even historic Thanksgiving weekend.  Disney’s latest blockbuster blew past predictions with a $15.4M opening day (including $2.6M from Tuesday night).  That’s better than the $15.2M earned by Frozen (which technically was in its 2d week of release, […]

  Veterans Day isn’t considered one of the major Hollywood holidays, but this year it provided some 3-day weekends that boosted Friday numbers (although that may catch up with some totals over the weekend and when next week is compared to it). The other note for the weekend is that all three of the major […]

    FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE:  Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are reporting, based on Friday afternoon sales, that MOCKINGJAY is going to substantially underperform THE HUNGER GAMES and CATCHING FIRE for the day, and therefore for the weekend, to an extent that goes far beyond the fact that unlike the others in the series, […]

  After a significantly lower start, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (Legendary/Perfect World/Universal) is having a sharper drop in its 2nd weekend than its predecessor.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Friday was down 70% from last week to $17.4M, compared to a 63% drop for the first Jurassic World on its 2nd Friday.  The number […]