OPENINGS:  The first weekend of December brought the usual assortment of indies seeking a toehold before the holiday giants arrive, although this year was unusual in being dominated by Thanksgiving blockbusters, which grew the weekend box office total to a new record.  The most impressive of the newcomers was the Indian-language PUSHPA: THE RULE […]

> PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 continues Paramount’s license to print money–it’ll soon be in profit even with worldwide marketing costs calculated in.  Yesterday will probably prove to be by far the biggest day of its front-loaded run, but at those prices, who cares? Sometimes it’s not about the marketing–it’s about the movie.  It would be difficult, […]

Updated international box office chart:

> Now that THE HELP has opened about as well as Dreamworks/Disney could have hoped, the next goal is a 2d weekend decline of around 40%.  That would match the hold of Julie & Julia, and would make a $100M gross for Help very realistic.  The film’s only direct competition next weekend is the seemingly […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #23 of 2015 looks like $132 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down significantly from the norm for this weekend as the lame summer continues.   Opening at 3,711 theaters Friday, Spy from Fox is on track for a $32.0 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below our $39.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). […]

Weekend #21 of 2012 (the traditional Friday-Sunday portion of this Memorial Day weekend) looks like it will total about $153 million for the top 12 films, down 29% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 11% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Two movies open Friday, Men in Black 3 and Chernobyl Diaries.  Although […]

The weekend looks a little softer than it did yesterday ($131 million for the top 12 films rather than $142 million).  The Hobbit is looking like an $85 million opening weekend instead of almost $99 million.   Still a record December opening weekend (beating I Am Legend’s $77.2 million opening weekend December 14-16, 2007) but not at […]

  The first domestic boxoffice numbers are in for SKYFALL (on top of its spectacular $321M overseas total to date).  On Thursday, the newest Bond had an unusual 1-day preliminary run only in IMAX and other large format theaters with $2.2M, and that was followed by $2.4M in general midnight release last night, for a […]