Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #14 of 2013 is looking pretty good: $135 million for the top 12 films in North America, up 16% from the comparable weekend the past few years.  The two new openers this weekend are on track to beat our forecast, and The Croods continues to play quite well in its […]

  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, the 600-pound gorilla of the holiday movie box office season (The Hobbit 2 is by comparison a smaller simian, at least in the US) opens tonight, and the question is just how big it will be.  The first Hunger Games opened in March 2012 and had the 6th biggest […]

  Franchise sequels are typically more frontloaded than the original installments, because there’s an established fanbase that wants to catch up with the latest update to the story.  For example, the first Hunger Games made $19.7M on its Thursday night, which made up part of a $67.3M opening day, while Catching Fire had $25.3M on Thursday […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +4% above last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.144 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $24.3 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #20 of 2014 looks like $177 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up a very good 21% from the norm for this weekend.   Opening at 3,952 theaters, Godzilla from Warner Brothers grossed $38.5 million Friday and late Thursday, putting the film on track for a great $98 million opening weekend (well […]

Updated worldwide box office chart for 2013 North American films.  Also, click here for a summary of worldwide performance by studio.

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 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #30 of 2013 looks like a decent $159 million for the top 12 films, comfortably above the same weekend the last few years. The Wolverine is way off our projected opening but still but still the best opening in recent years for a weekend that often is filled with clunkers. […]