CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney) declined about 10% to as much as $34M on Saturday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which should give it a $95M opening weekend, the best April opening ever.  By way of comparison, the previous April record-holder Fast Five dropped 13% on its second day (for a $86.2M […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +4% above last year and still +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($8.361 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $22.6 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s still +6% […]

> The holiday celebrations at the studios may have been a bit premature.   Traditionally, the Tuesday after Christmas sees a 10-20% drop from Monday, and that number becomes the template for the rest of the holiday period.  But yesterday, aside from the films aimed straight at the family crowd, the drops were much worse. MISSION: […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Help is the pick of the litter, down an impressive 21% from last weekend’s opening.  All the openers are pretty much stillborn.  The weekend overall is now looking like it will be down 3% from this weekend last year.     The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final […]

  OPENINGS:  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (Marvel/Disney) won’t arrive on these shores until Thursday night, but it’s already in 37 international territories covering over half the world (although not yet China), and has deposited $101.2M in the Marvel account.  Next week’s US opening is expected to be in the $150M neighborhood.  To date, […]

>The fourth weekend of the year should generate about $91 million for the top 12 films — about the same as last year’s comparable weekend and down 10% from a “normal” weekend this time of year.  The top film should be Liam Neeson in The Grey, at a very unspectacular $15 opening weekend number.   […]

OPENINGS:  THE LONGEST RIDE (20th) tried to counterprogram Furious 7 with a Nicholas Sparks romance, but didn’t even muss the blockbuster’s hair with a $13.5M opening.  That’s better than the lousy $10M start for last year’s Sparks adaptation The Best Of Me, and that’s the sum total of the positives in the context of other […]

> The Hollywood Reporter has some very office boxoffice numbers.  These are based on matinee business only, so they can be misleading as to what will happen over the course of Friday, let along the weekend.  But for now, the big news is that COURAGEOUS, a Christian-themed movie produced by Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia […]