The weekend looks like a terrific $242 million for the top 12 films, a little better than it looked yesterday (now 20% better than the multi-year average for this weekend).  Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 appears a little stronger than it did yesterday and is close to matching our predictions in Wednesday’s  ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Forecast.  Lincoln will definitely […]

  THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) will shatter all the December records it was expected to shatter, but based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, its projected $85M weekend is somewhat soft, considering that it had $37.5M on Friday alone.  That’s about a 2.25 weekend multiple, considerably lower than The Avengers (2.57) or Skyfall (2.77) […]

New Year’s Day totaled $46.7 million for the top 10 films this holiday season, slightly below the $50.1 million average for this date but somewhat above the $44.2 million average for January 1 when it falls on a weekday. With New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day now in the books, the holiday season December […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #6 of 2013 is another weak one: only $84 million for the top 12 films (about 50% behind the pace for the same weekend the last few years, an even steeper drop than last weekend).  The lone bright spot: Identity Thief.  Our big lesson: never underestimate Melissa McCarthy.  Our outlook […]

  OPENINGS:  Saturday will tell the tale on EVIL DEAD (TriStar/FSony/FilmDistrict).  Its $11.9M Friday was stronger than the $10.1M/10.2M starts for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D and Mama earlier this year (although it comes with a $1.8M asterisk from Thursday night screenings), and the question is whether word of mouth will lead to a solid increase […]

Iron Man 3 will push the 18th weekend of the year to well over $210 million for the top 12 films, fully 19% better than the average for the comparable weekends recently but still 15% below the same weekend last year, when The Avengers exploded. Opening at over 4,000 theaters Friday (a very high theater […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #21 of 2013 looks like a remarkable $254 million for the top 12 films, 50-75% above the comparable weekend the past few years.  This will be a Memorial Day Weekend record and the best three-day weekend since December 25-27, 2009 ($259.9 million for the top 12 films in […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #25 of 2013 still looks like an excellent $223 million for the top 12 films, up 32-42% from the same weekend in recent years. The two wide openers clicked with audiences, with Monsters University doing as well as we forecast but World War Z opening much stronger than […]