Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #47 is now on pace to exceed the multi-year average for this weekend by over 20% — a much stronger pace than the Wednesday-Thursday pre-weekend box office suggested.   Rise of the Guardians from Paramount/ DreamWorks opened with $8.6 million Wednesday-Thursday and added $9.3 million Friday, putting it on pace for […]

  After a strong start with Skyfall and Breaking Dawn Part 2, the holiday boxoffice seems to be at risk of languishing. OPENINGS:  The thing about the Christmas/New Year’s week boxoffice multiple is that it’s real and will help every movie in theatres during the holiday season, but it’s only as good as the number it’s mutiplying. So […]

The second weekend of 2013 should total about $122 million for the top 12 films, a little better than the same weekend the last few years but below the comparable weekend in 2009 and 2010.  Zero Dark Thirty moves from the art houses to a fairly wide release and should play more commercially than The […]

  As expected, the end of Valentine’s Day meant some slippage for SAFE HAVEN (Relativity), and allowed A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (20th) to take a narrow Friday lead, which it will probably hold for the rest of the holiday weekend.  But according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the race is surprisingly close. Die […]

  OPENINGS:  No one expected THE CALL (TriStar/Sony) or THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE (Warners) to win this weekend.  Call, though, is overperforming, and by Sunday it should be in a position to recoup its $15M (plus marketing) cost–not a big win for Halle Berry, but one of the first she’s ever had as a solo […]

  OPENINGS:  After a painful post-Hobbit winter, Warners was in dire need of a hit, and Jackie Robinson became its great American hero, as 24 (Warners) had a very strong $9.1M opening day.  Word of mouth should be on the movie’s side–the challenge for the studio was to get people into the theaters in the […]

Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just over $2.7 billion, down 12% from 2012 and down 6% from the prior four-year average 2009-2012.  Each year-to-date period below is defined as the first Monday after New Year’s Day through the most […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #22 of 2013 now looks like a solid $157 million for the top 12 films, up over 10% from comparable weekends the past few years.  Now You See Me is the one film that exceeded our forecast earlier this week, while the other opener (After Earth) and all of the major holdovers remain […]