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 […]

  JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM (Thunder Road/Summit/Lionsgate) marks a rarity these days, a solid and growing mid-level action franchise.  The first John Wick collected $5.4M on its first day and $14.4M for the weekend, the second was at $11M/$30.4M, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Parabellum‘s first day was at $22.5M (including $5.9M […]

  PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) was marketed on its high concept rather than as an Adam Sandler star vehicle, perhaps reflecting not just Sandler’s dwindling value, but the shuttering of his long-term acting relationship with the studio as he moves to Netflix.  The result was better than some of Sandler’s recent flops, but far from exciting:  according […]

  ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) will easily take the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $15.1M, slightly below the $15.5M for 2014’s original Annabelle, but Creation is much more frontloaded, with $4M from Thursday night, almost double the $2.1M for Annabelle.  That suggests a lower weekend multiple than Annabelle‘s 2.4, and […]

  Melissa McCarthy’s star vehicle TAMMY (Warners) may not be winning any critical plaudits (it’s at 19% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), but that’s not keeping her fans away, at least in the short term.  Tammy opened with $1.3M at Tuesday night shows, and while that’s far from the $5.5M that 22 Jump Street had last […]

  There were no new wide releases on this pre-holiday, pre-Last Jedi weekend, so all the action was in holdovers and limited releases.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, COCO (Pixar/Disney) easily retained its crown with a $6.3M Friday.  That was down 67% from last week’s holiday Friday, better than the drops for Moana (70%) […]

  X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (20th) began with a bang last night, earning $8.1M from Thursday night shows.  Although that’s less than Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($10.2M), Godzilla ($9.3M), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($8.7M), Fox decided to forego some of its Thursday night potential (presumably to provide extra oomph on Friday) by […]

  There were no pleasant surprises for anyone at the Friday box office, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That even included STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (Legendary/Universal), which will easily win the weekend, but which–considering the very mild competition–fell more heavily than expected from last Friday, down 65% to $8.5M.  That drop will moderate over the […]