OPENINGS:  The calendar did Hollywood a favor by placing Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, affording films a 6-day window with Presidents Day on Monday.  The chief beneficiary was BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE (Paramount), which surpassed expectations with $51.1M through Monday ($27.7M over the traditional 3-day weekend).  With little new competition in the wings next week, […]

Weekend #22 of 2012 looks like it will total about $122 million for the top 12 films, down 21% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 20% from the four-year average for the weekend.  That would make it three down weekends (way down) in a row.   Opening at an estimated 3,700 theaters, Snow White and […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite being the only high-profile arrival of the week, and having a pedigree and visual style that guaranteed it media attention, Robert Zemeckis’s HERE (Miramax/TriStar/Sony) bombed with $5M.  It’s been a tough decade for Zemeckis, once a maker of blockbuster hits, whose most recent moderate success was 2012’s Flight.  Here hasn’t opened overseas, […]

>Twilight’s latest, Breaking Dawn Part 1, is opening close to what we expected, but Happy Feet Two was not as able to weather the storm as strongly as we projected.  Overall, the weekend is running 20% ahead of the same weekend last year, not a bad accomplishment given Harry Potter was in the mix last […]

  The news didn’t get any better for BATTLESHIP (Universal) on Saturday.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the aquatic disaster couldn’t even manage a 10% increase on its 2d day of release (in comparison, John Carter had a 25% bump on its first Saturday), and is headed for a horrible $25M opening weekend, $5M […]

> Why did it snow on my weekend? Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), Puss in Boots looks like a $34 million opening weekend.  The highly unusual late-October snowstorm in the northeast certainly reduced the opening numbers for Puss, but the weather also seemed to have a strong impact on […]

>Now 15 full weeks into 2012, year-to-date domestic box office is running 25% ahead of last year’s pace (down from the +27% pace last week because Rio was a rare 2011 hit this time last year), while the year-to-date total is still fully 15% ahead of the comparable period’s average for the last several years.   […]

> The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in down 12% versus last year’s comparable week (the second down week in a row).  Year-to-date box office is now down 4.1% versus last year.  The Help again was the lone bright spot this weekend, down only 27% from last weekend and shaking off the effect […]