We’re now just over 10 days from the 12:01AM July 20 launch of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, the summer’s last mammoth movie event, and The Hollywood Reporter has provided the first hard information about the epic’s prerelease tracking.  Not surprisingly, it’s through the roof, slightly below or above (depending on the metric used) the […]

MUCH stronger than we forecast, the 26th weekend of 2012 is looking like $196 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up only 2% from this weekend last year but up 15% from the multi-year average for this weekend.  R-rated comedy is just what the audience wanted.  Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane struck gold with […]

  All boxoffice figures are unofficial until tomorrow, when the studios will once again admit that they’re in a business designed to make money.  However, numbers have made their way to the outside world, and it seems clear that as midsummer Saturdays go, yesterday was slower than usual, probably by a factor of 10-20% virtually […]

  The revamped franchise launch of THE BOURNE LEGACY (Universal) is off to a solid start, according to preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline.  Legacy is claiming a $15M Friday, which while 40% below the opening day for Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, is about as expected, considering the absence of Matt Damon this time around.  However, […]

  Expectations that this would be a dreadful weekend at the boxoffice are already being proved true.  The “big” opening of the week, THE WORDS (CBS) couldn’t even beat last week’s horror cheapie THE POSSESSION (Lionsgate) on its own opening day.  Words, according to early numbers at Deadline, will only make $1.7M on Friday, for a terrible $5M […]

  Liam Neeson, superstar. OPENINGS:  TAKEN 2 (20th) is on track for an opening in the high-$40Ms, which would make it the biggest weekend #1 since late July’s 2nd weekend of The Dark Knight Rises.  Since the movie only cost around $45M to produce (not including substantial marketing costs), it’s already assured of success, and […]

  OPENINGS:  WRECK IT FALPH (Disney) is proving itself to be a canny mix of kid-friendly action with a video game millieu that can appeal to adults.  It’s Walt Disney Animation’s most Pixar-ish production to date (although the divisions are separate within Disney, John Lasseter supervises both), and headed for a $50M+ opening.  What Ralph […]

  No big surprises in Saturday’s boxoffice numbers compared to Friday’s, according to preliminary figures at Deadline:  the holdovers rose about 50% (aside from the family movies, which doubled), and the dismal new arrivals stayed about even. That left THE TWILIGHT SAGA:  BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (Summit/Lionsgate) and SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) pretty much neck-and-neck at the […]