After AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Marvel/Disney) torched the record books last weekend, the remaining question was whether it would have the stamina to challenge the biggest records of them all, The Force Awakens in the US ($936.7M) and Avatar worldwide ($2.79B).  It’s not clear after Friday whether this weekend will answer that in a definitive way.  […]

  MALEFICENT (Disney) made it clear very quickly that it’s not going to play strictly as a family movie, earning a strong $4.2M in Thursday night screenings that began at 7PM.  That’s better than the Thursday night business for Alice in Wonderland ($3.9M) and Oz: The Great and Powerful ($2M), and more than half the […]

  Although it’s possible for a horror or action movie to make some money over Labor Day weekend, no studio opens a movie it cares about for the holiday that repels moviegoers.  This weekend’s openings won’t change that rule.  THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (DreamWorks/Reliant/Participant/Touchstone/Disney) was probably envisioned as an awards-worthy project when it was originally […]

  The lack of strong new competition is certainly helping, as is the Wednesday opening that kept last Friday down a bit, but nevertheless, the Weekend 2 hold for CRAZY RICH ASIANS (SK Global/Warners) is on track to be extraordinary.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have a 4% Friday-to-Friday drop to $7M, which would give it […]

  THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) had a royal start with $11.2M in shows that began at 7PM on Tuesday night.  This is the first Hobbit movie to open midweek, but the Tuesday number is better than the $8.8M that The Desolation of Smaug earned on its opening Thursday night […]

  How big is big enough?  It’s a question that comes up on giant franchise installments, and the latest is THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal), the 8th in its series.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day earned $45.5M (including $10.4M from Thursday night), a huge number, but down 33% from Furious […]

  Behaving much like recent high-profile sequels Spectre and Mockingjay Part 2, RIDE ALONG 2 (Universal) appears to be heading for an opening weekend around 20% below its predecessor.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Ride 2 had a $11.8M Friday, compared to $14.4M for the original Ride Along.  That suggests a 4-day holiday weekend […]

  Word of mouth was great for ZOOTOPIA (Disney), which according to preliminary numbers at Deadline fell a soft 36% from last week’s opening day to $12.5M, setting up a $50M weekend that will put the smash over $140M by Sunday.  That compares to a 45% drop for the 2d Friday of The Lorax, the […]