>International box office continues to bail out American movies released late this year.  While Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 can legitimately be called a hit domestically and abroad, Adventures of Tintin and Real Steel are both major hits only because of business outside North America. And Puss in Boots would have been a slight […]

  Sadly, we have to announce that after this week, we will no longer be able to provide TV ratings to readers, and thus that ShowbuzzDaily will be effectively ending its operations.  To be clear, unlike other interruptions that we’ve had, this isn’t due to a technical issue that can be fixed.  It’s also not […]

  OPENINGS:  There was no question that  ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (Marvel/Disney) would dominate Presidents Day weekend and become 2023’s first blockbuster.  Its $104M 3-day weekend (projected to reach $118M including Monday) was in line with expectations.  The film’s decent 2.26 Friday-to-weekend multiplier also demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the MCU is […]

> The fourth weekend of 2012 is a touch better than the same weekend last year, but it’s a somewhat below average weekend looking at the past four years.  The Grey is opening at #1 at almost $19 million, somewhat higher than expected.    The Grey is coming in above forecast, pulling in $6.4 million […]

  All boxoffice figures are unofficial until tomorrow, when the studios will once again admit that they’re in a business designed to make money.  However, numbers have made their way to the outside world, and it seems clear that as midsummer Saturdays go, yesterday was slower than usual, probably by a factor of 10-20% virtually […]

  OPENINGS:  SPECTRE (MGM/Columbia/Sony) had the #7 opening of the year at $73M… yet there are signs of trouble.  While Skyfall rose 11% on its 2d day of wide release, and Casino Royale gained 5%, Spectre fell by 5%, actually slightly worse than the lightly-regarded Quantum of Solace.  Since Spectre wasn’t more frontloaded than Skyfall, […]

  OPENINGS:  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) came up from initial Friday estimates to $70.5M, the 7th highest single day box office in US history (behind the final Harry Potter, The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and 3 Twilights) and $3.2M ahead of the opening day for The Hunger Games.  If Catching Fire held as […]

  Eventually, every franchise runs out of steam.  (Although they sometimes pick it up again, like Bond James Bond.) OPENINGS:  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Par) is off to a worse start than the last two in the series (the original Paranormal followed a different release pattern and didn’t go wide until its 5th week in theatres).  […]