A brief update this week.  Team Salem had the biggest week, up $81 million to $371 million through Sunday for the slate. A full week of Brave was the main driver for the gain.  The first Monday-Thursday period combined with the second weekend of Brave totaled $65 million, exactly matching the opening weekend number — a very good […]

  Friday’s boxoffice was like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly–except without the “good.” OPENINGS:  All the stunt casting in the world couldn’t make anyone want to see ROCK OF AGES (Warners).  The anemic $5.4M opening day was low even by the standards of Broadway adaptations, and there’s no reason to expect a lift […]

> THE HELP will be the year’s first “serious” movie to gross over $100M.  September is traditionally one of the softest months on the movie release calendar, and 2011 is no exception:  although there are a few promising arrivals like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion and the film adaptation of  Moneyball, the major openings (they hope) include […]

  In shows that started at 9PM last night, Will Ferrell and his ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Paramount) crew pulled in $2.3M.  That’s ahead of the $2.2M earned by This Is the End and $1.7M for We’re the Millers, two recent midweek hit comedies that had the benefit of summer openings.  As a sequel […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (DreamWorks/Reliance/Universal) didn’t have much of a Saturday bump, rising just 2% (that compares to 15% for the 2d day of Gone Girl), suggesting that word of mouth is less than stellar.  The result was a $24.7M weekend that was lower than originally anticipated, and early international results of […]

  It’s a busy but not particularly big weekend at the multiplex.  The weekend’s winner will be BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN (Lionsgate), which did a fairly good job of holding the audience for last year’s original Boo.  Deadline reports a preliminary $7.5M opening day, down 21% from Boo‘s start.  If that percentage holds, the […]

  OPENINGS:  ABOMINABLE (Pearl/DreamWorks/Universal) seized a weekend on the calendar that had a dearth of new children’s movies (and with 2 weeks until The Addams Family opens), and pushed it to a fair $20.9M opening.  However, with roughly $150M in costs, it will need international help to reach profit, and since weekend results were at […]

  OPENINGS:  THOR: RAGNAROK (Marvel/Disney) exceeded high expectations, which is no mean feat for a Marvel blockbuster.  In the US, its weekend was $121M, 42% ahead of both Thor: The Dark World and last November’s Doctor Strange.  (The one slight negative was that its 5% Saturday drop was a bit worse than the 1%/4% dips […]