>Here are the latest Summer Movie Draft results (through Thursday).  Not much change from the last update on Monday — Salem is pounding Metcalf with a $247 million lead.  This weekend two new movies join the rankings: Cars 2 (Metcalf) and Bad Teacher (Salem).     

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #48 of 2013 looks like $194 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday — 3% below last year’s Thanksgiving weekend but 11% above the four-year average for Thanksgiving weekend.  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is on pace to score $74.0 million this weekend (Friday-Sunday — down 53% from the […]

  OPENINGS:  Was it the cash grab of splitting the final novel into 2 movies?  The tabloid antics of its stars?  In any case, “close but no cigar” seems to be the result for THE TWILIGHT SAGA:  BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (Summit/Lionsgate).  Its $71.2M opening day (including Thursday 10PM and midnight screenings) is $400K below […]

Weekend #13 of 2015 is looking like $123 million for the top 12 films this weekend, slightly below the comparable weekends the past few years. Opening at around 3,150 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Get Hard from Warner Brothers should average $9,200 per theater for the three-day weekend (for […]

      THE AVENGERS:  Simply spectacular.  The 50% drop in Weekend 2 ripped past the $75M record to an amazing $103M.  The level of the weekly decline isn’t unprecedented (Avatar dropped an insane 2%, Shrek 2 33%, the original Spider-Man 38%, Alice In Wonderland and Toy Story 3 46% each), but it’s better than […]

  Belying its title, DUMB AND DUMBER TO (Red Granite/Universal) picked a strategically smart weekend to debut, facing very little fresh competition (because of last weekend’s Big Hero 6/Interstellar double bill and next week’s The Hunger Games installment) and even less comedy.  The result was a strong $13.9M Friday (including $1.6M from Thursday night) according […]

> With Monday and Tuesday numbers in, here are some notes about how the new arrivals are holding up: THE HELP continues its impressive run:  its $8.3M on Monday-Tuesday represents a very robust 32% of its weekend total.  All signs continue to point to a strong second weekend hold, especially since early reviews for its […]

  OPENINGS:  What are we to make of the $23M start for KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Paramount/Apple)?  As serious 3+hour historical epics go, while it’s a small fraction of Oppenheimer‘s $82.5M launch, it’s better than the $22M 5-day opening for House of Gucci, and the $18.4M for 2013’s Scorsese/DiCaprio The Wolf of Wall Street […]