>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Help is the pick of the litter, down an impressive 21% from last weekend’s opening.  All the openers are pretty much stillborn.  The weekend overall is now looking like it will be down 3% from this weekend last year.     The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final […]

>BREAKING DAWN PART 1: Although the huge day-after-Thanksgiving take lifted everything in the multiplex, Breaking Dawn 1 continues to run behind New Moon by 10 percent. THE MUPPETS: Still well under Tangled’s Thanksgiving gross last year, but given its moderate cost, a solid hit. HUGO:. It’s per-theatre gross is almost identical to Muppets, although it’s […]

  (Note:  Most of the studios aggressively estimated their Sunday declines as being around 10%, even though last year’s Memorial Day Weekend Sunday drops were mostly steeper than that, so there could be a number of downward adjustments in store when final numbers are released.) OPENINGS:  X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (20th), oddly enough, was […]

The 34th weekend of the year is looking like $99 million for the top 12 films, up a decent 10% from the average for this weekend.  Opening at 3,046 theaters Wednesday (a bit above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones from Sony should average $4,100 per theater for the […]

>Harry Potter is leaving the screen with a bang, setting a new single-day record and a new opening weekend record.  And the film has absolutely ingnited the box office, pushing the weekend up almost 50% versus this weekend last year.    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (the 8th and final — according to Warner […]

  OPENINGS:  Here’s the crazy thing about the official record-busting $238M weekend estimate for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney), which smashed the previous weekend record by more than 12%, and nearly tripled the prior December record:  it’s on the conservative side.  Flying in the face of most studio behavior in reporting opening weekends, Disney […]

>X-Men: First Class now has an accurate screen count and updated critical response.  The prequel has been adjusted downward a tick but will still lead the weekend, which will be up significantly over the same weekend last year. Opening at about 3,641 theaters, X-Men: First Class should average a strong $18,700 per theater (for $68 […]

  OPENINGS:  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) had a solid 83% family matinee bump on Saturday, but its $34.4M weekend studio estimate is still down more than 50% from the opening of the original Lego Movie, and down 35% from The Lego Batman Movie.  (It’s considerably better than the relatively disastrous […]