The answer to yesterday’s box office question–would THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) look more like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King or Twilight: Eclipse along the course of its 5-day weekend opening–it leaning toward the vampires, which is not good news for Middle-Earth.  On its 2d full day […]

  THE HOBBIT:  THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) opened on Wednesday to $24.5M, which is both the 12th-highest opening Wednesday ever (and 3rd-highest in December) and the lowest opening day for a Peter Jackson Tolkien adaptation since The Fellowship of the Ring ($18.2M) back in 2001.  The Armies start was below the Wednesday […]

  THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) had a royal start with $11.2M in shows that began at 7PM on Tuesday night.  This is the first Hobbit movie to open midweek, but the Tuesday number is better than the $8.8M that The Desolation of Smaug earned on its opening Thursday night […]

Weekend #51 of 2014 is looking like $147 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 22% from the norm for this weekend and up 8% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at over 3,875 theaters Wednesday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Hobbit: The Battle of […]

  OPENINGS:  The big box office news of this weekend happened overseas, where THE HOBBIT:  THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) has already opened in 37 territories to a massive $117.6M in advance of its US launch next week.  The Hobbit movies have done overwhelmingly well overseas, with the previous installments earning respectively […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -6% behind last year and -4% below the average for this point the past four years ($9.192 billion).  Over the same period, […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #50 of 2014 now looks like $78 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a touch better than yesterday’s estimate ($76 million) but still down sharply from the norm for this weekend (down 39% from $127 million) and down 45% from the same weekend last year.   Opening […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #50 of 2014 looks like $76 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down a horrible 40% from the norm for this weekend ($127 million) and down 46% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at 3,503 theaters, Exodus: Gods and Kings from 20th Century Fox grossed $8.6 million Friday and is […]