OPENINGS: The weekend’s awful weather is being given the blame for a subpar Christmas holiday box office, but the fact remains that audiences appeared unenthused (or worse) about the new offerings. PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) fared best, with $11.4M for the 3-day weekend, $17.8M with Monday, and $24.6M since its […]
OPENINGS: This was the weekend of AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (20th/Disney), and the epic’s launch was softer than widely expected at $134M in the US and $301M in all major overseas markets including China. Box office apologists, who at this point resemble political press secretaries, have rushed in to spin that Way of […]
OPENINGS: The combination of the typically low early-December box office and the approach of Avatar 2 dissuaded the studios from introducing any new product this week. The closest thing to a wide release in the US was the expansion of SPOILER ALERT (Focus/Universal) to 783 theaters, where it fared badly with $700K, averaging $900 […]
OPENINGS: VIOLENT NIGHT (Universal) slightly overperformed with $13.3M in the US, and with its $20M production budget, it may be headed for breakeven or perhaps moderate profit. However, worldwide marketing costs are likely to add another $40M+ to that tally, and the thriller had much less appeal overseas, with $7.1M in 72 territories. The […]
OPENINGS: STRANGE WORLD (Disney) couldn’t muster any significant family audience over the Thanksgiving holiday, with $18.6M for the full 5 days and $11.9M for the 3-day weekend. Nor did it have appeal overseas, where it managed just $9.2M in 43 territories. Strange World was a disaster that the studio seems to have seen coming, as […]
OPENINGS: The $9M start for THE MENU (Searchlight/Disney) was below the $10.1M launch of Barbarian–and The Menu cost about $20M more to produce. Combine that with the fact that The Menu is really more of a very dark satire than a horror movie, and its prospects look questionable. The film also opened in 36 […]
OPENINGS: As expected, BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Marvel/Disney) swamped the box office worldwide. Its $180M US weekend was below Doctor Strange 2 ($187.4M) and the original Black Panther ($202M, on a Presidents Day weekend), but still the biggest opening Hollywood has seen in 6 months, reinforcing the MCU as the center of movie culture […]
OPENINGS: ONE PIECE FILM: RED (Crunchyroll/Sony) opened at $9.5M, on the low end of recent national anime releases compared to Jujutsu Kaisen‘s $18M and Dragon Ball Super‘s $21.1M. As is typical for the genre, it was extremely frontloaded, earning more than 50% of its weekend total by the end of Friday. However, its US […]