A fairly sturdy set of Saturday numbers firmed up the weekend a bit, but the start of the holiday movie season is still just mediocre. OPENINGS:  JACK REACHER (Paramount) had a 13% Saturday bump and is predicting an 18% drop on Sunday, for a $15.6M weekend.  That tracks for a holiday period of about $50M, […]

  OPENINGS:  ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) was well ahead of the crowd with $24M, a number slightly depressed (as was almost everything this weekend) by the Sunday combination of NFL playoffs and the Golden Globes.  The $18.8M for A HAUNTED HOUSE (Open Road) didn’t get close to the openings for the Scary Movie franchise (most […]

  OPENINGS:   A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (20th) pulled ahead of the competition on Saturday, and should have a $38M 5-day opening.  (However, its Sunday projection is on the optimistic side, so it’s possible the number could come down a bit.)  That’s 25% below the opening of Live Free Or Die Hard, and […]

Ten weeks into 2013, the North American box office continues to track as a B-level year (nearly identical to 2008 and 2011), well below recent A-level years (2009, 2010 and 2012).  To date, 2013 totals $1.528 billion for wide-release films, while 2008 was $1.519 billion at this point and 2011 was $1.482 billion. The stronger […]

Through 14 weeks of the year, 2013 totals $2.232 billion (for wide-release films that have played at more than 400 theaters).  This remains well behind the 2012 pace ($2.624 billion) and the very similar 2010 pace ($2.618 billion).  However, 2013 continues to pull away from the particularly slow performance in 2011 ($2.071 billion). As a […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #19 of 2013 looks like $152 million for the top 12 films, about the same as the $151 million estimate yesterday.  Iron Man 3 picked up the pace with a very strong second Saturday (moving from an estimated $67.4 million second weekend yesterday to $72.5 million today), while […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $153 million for the top 12 films, down 14% from last year but 5% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the weekend up. Opening at 2,536 theaters Friday, […]

  OPENINGS:  The $40M weekend estimate for THE HEAT (20th) makes more sense than it did last night, now that the movie’s Saturday is being reported as a 6% increase rather than a 5% drop.  (But always be suspicious of round-number estimates anyway.)  The Heat is going to be profitable, thanks to its $45M production budget, […]