OPENINGS:  At $21.4M, PRISONERS (Warners) is exactly where the studio hoped it would be, at the sweet spot that propelled The Town to a $92M total (and Argo, with its Oscar help, to $136M).  The question now is whether it can hold on to its momentum against newcomers like Gravity, Captain Phillips, The Fifth Estate […]

  Another day, another record or two for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney).  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its Saturday was no less than $55M, which tidily dispatched the biggest 2d Saturday of all time ($42.9M for The Avengers).  Sunday should close out the biggest 2d weekend of all time at $155M or […]

  New Year’s Eve box office results were all over the place, with kids still home from school while adults chose some movies (but not others) as their picks to see out the year.  Also, not all studios have yet reported their Tuesday numbers, notably Sony, Universal, Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.  Still, here’s what […]

  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, […]

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 enters the worldwide chart with $200 million overseas to date.  Ultimately, we expect the overseas number to rise to about $425 million, putting the final Twilight on track for $710 million ( a touch ahead of New Moon as the highest Twilight worldwide gross).  For a complete track of worldwide/ domestic/ overseas […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite a launch scheduled around Mother’s Day, BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER (Focus/Universal) had a soft start with $6.5M.  That’s less than half the $13.6M for the first Book Club in 2018, and also considerably below the $12.7M for this year’s 80 For Brady.  (The grasp for a closer comp with The Second […]

>Weekend #17 of 2012 looks like it will be about $112 million for the top 12 films, down 23% from last year’s comparable weekend (when Fast Five exploded with an $86 million opening weekend) and down 17% from the four-year average for this weekend.  A lack of compelling new product should make this weekend the […]

  This was the weekend that the COVID-19 crisis hit the box office in earnest, and while that fact pales in importance compared to the human cost of the pandemic, it’s going to represent a multi-billion dollar hit that will reverberate through the lives of many throughout the world.  As bad as the numbers below […]