Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #45 of 2013 looks like $160 million for the top 12 films, not the record we had forecast but still 21% above the recent average for this weekend. Opening at 3,841 theaters Friday, Thor: The Dark World from Disney and Marvel grossed $31.8 million Friday and is on track for a $84.3 million […]

The see-saw continues in the 2013 studio rankings.  Disney moved back into first (thanks to the domestic release of Frozen with overseas still to come) and Warner Brothers moved back into second place. Meanwhile continued strength from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (a big increase in overseas grosses and an upgrade in the domestic forecast total) pushed Lionsgate/Summit to […]

  DEC. 26 UPDATE:  A mere adjustment to overaggressive estimation or an early sign, in this instant word-of-internet age, that audiences aren’t having a good time?  The major change from last night’s early numbers is that THE WOLF OF WALL STREET slipped to $9.2M, falling behind THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG for 2d place […]

Weekend #3 of 2014 is looking like $130 million for the top 12 films for the traditional Friday-Sunday portion of the long MLK weekend, up 14% from the average for this weekend the past few years. Opening at around 2,200 theaters Friday (below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Ride […]

  The studios brought out a trio of romantic movies for Valentine’s Day, but the couple audiences most wanted to see was Emmet and Wyldstyle, as preliminary numbers at Deadline have THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners) topping the Friday box office with about $13M.  Since Lego will benefit the most from the holiday weekend matinee crowd, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #11 of 2014 looks like $106 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, almost exactly matching the average for this weekend over the last few years.  Two new wide releases didn’t do anything special, but two limited releases distinguished themselves.   Opening at 3,115 theaters Friday, Need for Speed from Disney grossed $6.6 […]

  RIO 2 (20th) has leaped out to a Friday lead, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, one that it should be able to sustain for the weekend.  The Rio sequel has $11.5M on Friday, about 10% ahead of the first Rio‘s $10.3M opening day.  That film made $39.2M for the weekend, and Rio 2 […]

  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sony) didn’t succeed in outperforming other recent superhero movies in its Saturday matinees, and probably won’t supplant Captain America 2 as the year’s #1 opening to date, but it’s still rolling in money.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Amazing 2 dropped 4-6% on Saturday (by comparison, Captain 2 fell […]